It’s sometimes hard to get a straight word these days, isn’t it?

We used to think that those in authority would tell it to us straight. Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him? Broadcasters and journalists, superintendents and principals, fathers and mothers, coaches and counselors, presidents and defense secretaries, preachers and teachers: surely they will give us the straight word on things. We understand that the used car salesmen might not, that the guy on the street corner selling Rolex watches might not, that the company CEO talking to investors might not. We realize that people have vested interests in telling their version of things.

Which is why we should probably listen to John the Baptist instead of the powers that be. Which is why Luke probably gives us this set-up about when and where John was bringing the straight word to bear. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Why didn’t he give us the straight word? When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. Why didn’t he give us the straight word? When Herod and Philip and Lysanias were rulers in different parts of region. Why didn’t they give us the straight word? When Annas and Caiaphas were heading the priestly caste of Israel in Jerusalem. Why didn’t they give us the straight word?

In a word: power. Power tends to corrupt, said the British historian Lord Acton; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It corrupts our judgment, because we become so closely involved in the outcome of everything. We end up acting out of self-interest, or out of interest for those closest to us, and we lose perspective on the common good.

Take just two recent examples from the front pages. The House ethics committee concluded this week that no rules were broken and no one in Congress should be disciplined for failing to heed warnings and act on knowledge they had of former Rep. Mark Foley’s misconduct toward young male pages. Well now, there’s a surprise. Congress, investigating itself, found itself not guilty. Go figure. Meanwhile, young men who have a right to feel safe among those in positions of authority are left vulnerable. Perfect. And then there’s the McKinney North High School incident. Five girls on the cheerleading squad, including the daughter of the principal, flout the rules, talk back to teachers, skip school, and participate in behaviors I would rather not mention now, and yet they go unpunished. Their coach and sponsors resign when administrators don’t back up their attempts to discipline the girls. Wonder why they couldn’t do their job? Because parents of the girls, apparently including the principal herself, defended the girls and wouldn’t hold them accountable. Why not? Maybe because it might reflect badly on them as parents? In other words, their kids should get special treatment, their kids should be able to abuse other kids and adults and get away with it in order to make sure that their parents are not embarrassed by the consequences their kids might have to endure. Please!

This is why we can’t seem to get a straight word from people in power. But a straight word is precisely what society needs. And this is just what we get from the voice of one crying in the wilderness. John the Baptist located himself about a day’s walk outside of Jerusalem, the center of organized power in that region. He lived a simple life devoted to God and righteousness. He had nothing to lose in speaking the truth. He could tell it straight. And he did.

He called on people to repent and live in a way that forgiveness of their sins would make possible. The word for repentance in Greek is metanoia, meaning literally “beyond the mind,” but more generally “changing one’s ways.” And what is it that needs changing but our participation in ways that make things crooked instead of straight, rough instead of plain, unequal and unjust, in other words?

John quotes the prophet Isaiah saying, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. What’s behind these beautiful words?

When a king was traveling from one place to another, he would come with his vast entourage through the wilderness on his way to a town or city. The king’s advance man would go ahead and alert the town’s people that the king was coming. He would be a voice crying out from the wilderness: Prepare the way of the king. And the people would leave their town and go out into the surrounding area and smooth road, pick up the rocks, fill in the ditches, and generally make a straight and smooth path for the coming king. And not just for the king, but also for all who would be able to see the coming parade. If the ground was level and even, the idea was that everyone would be able to see and share the joy of the coming one; whereas if things were uneven, those with privilege would get to stand in the high places and see what common folk could not.

John calls for us to change anything in us or around us that is out of order, out of balance, out of kilter—anything that prevents us and anyone we have influence over from celebrating the coming of the Lord.

Here’s a Christmas parable for you. Imagine a rich man came to your parents when you were a young child and gave them a trust fund that could be used only for Christmas. Every Christmas your parents had $100,000 to make sure you had a great Christmas. Can you imagine that? Now what if your parents had bought themselves a new car every year at Christmas, new diamonds and golf clubs, that sort of thing. And every Christmas they told you that there just wasn’t enough to go around this year for nice presents for the kids. You got to watch your parents spend everything on themselves, opening glorious gifts for themselves and having no conscience about your missing out on that Tickle-Me-Elmo doll or PlayStation you wanted so much. How do you think you would feel about that?

This is the kind of thing John is talking about. The world has all it needs. God has given us rich resources enough for everyone to enjoy the creation God has made for us. Those who gain more than others fairly are not to be faulted, but then they have stewardship responsibilities over those resources, to use them to aid others with less. But some people angle their ways into positions of power in order to have more at the expense of others. Inequalities result. Tensions rise. People fight and the peace is disturbed. Do you really think conflict in the world today is primarily inspired by religious differences when such inequalities are present at the same time?

When angels come proclaiming peace on earth, good will toward men at the coming of the Lord Jesus, they mean just this. They mean that a world gone wrong is to be set to rights. The days of Sin’s rule are coming to an end; the time of forgiveness and setting things straight is upon us.

Now this may seem an odd thing to us. In the brand of Christianity many of us are used to in this country, the promised peace of the baby Jesus is a sentimental peace, along with the smell of holiday cookies and wassail on the stove. This spiritual peace is little more than an inner calm, an assurance that God loves us and will take us to heaven when we die. But this is only part of the truth. Spiritual peace includes the peace of Bethlehem, which is the peace on earth the angels sing; that is, peace that involves real people in their real lives of dealing with one another in classrooms and dorm rooms and board rooms and courtrooms and bedrooms and ballrooms and showrooms and operating rooms and state rooms and everywhere people engage one another in this life in any way. The peace that we long for and that God promises us is coming with the coming of the Lord—the complete peace of creation, the shalom of God—that always has at its heart a just and righteous ordering of society, so that everyone has everything he or she needs in order to share in the dignity of humanity and contribute to the world’s well being.

This is why Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to this text from Isaiah that John the Baptist cites here. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech that he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 to a throng of people of all colors gathered there, he called upon this nation to rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” Injustice against black people in this country had caused unrest that would never be quelled until things were put right. I have a dream, he said, that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

It was a straight word, a straightening word. And that dream was not for a kind of peace that would be sweet feelings and kindly smiles between blacks and whites. It was for a peace in which everyone in this country could look upon everyone else with respect, as equal children of God who have opportunity like everyone else to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Were it not for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this country would have imploded. Peace comes about when justice is achieved, and not without it.

So, how is it you will answer the Advent call of the prophet to bring peace by doing justice? What concrete acts will you undertake of filling valleys of depression and oppression, or leveling mountains of pride and prejudice, of straightening crooked schemes and systems, and of smoothing out rough attitudes and obstacles to peace? Repentance calls for these kinds of changes. And repentance demands changes on the inside that lead to changes on the outside. Repentance involves getting things straightened out.

Several Kenyans have already crossed the finish line in Dallas today at the White Rock Marathon. But seven Wilshire people are in Kenya today with others who can’t get past the starting line? Our lay missionaries are there preparing the way of the Lord. They are not just there doing charity work to help the less fortunate. They are there to enter into the lives of those who have lived on the margins of the world. They are there to hear the word of John the Baptist and Isaiah more closely, because they will be hearing it from the very places and people God will come to the aid of first. They are there to participate in the repentance that changes them and the world.

Sometimes we think we need to be elected emperor before we can do any good in the world. Or governor. Or mayor or councilman or whatever. We need power in order to set things to rights. But what we learn from John the Baptist is that all we need to do is locate ourselves in place and with people on the margins in order that we may hear the straight word from God and speak it to others. This is the way we prepare the way of the Lord.