THE SOLAR WIND

Advent 3, Year A

December 16, 2007

The Rev. Dr. Keith Dobyns

Isaiah 35: 1-10 James 5: 7-10

Psalm 146: 4-9 Matthew 11: 2-11

Creator God:

in this season of cold warm us with your love;

in this season of quiet put your word in our hearts;

in this season of dark open our lives to the light of your presence.

This winter season is a good time to be reflective. Aside from brief assaults on the snow in the driveway and sidewalks, and walks in the shorter winter days, it is a good time to sit inside and make sense of our lives. Advent was placed in winter for a reason, of course, to give us the dark in which to find the light of Christ. The new light that Christ brings into our lives is much more visible when our pupils are dilated in the dark.

So I have been doing some reflection on the stages of my life, and an odd memory emerged from my years studying physics. As a teaching assistant in 1974, I got to know a theoretical physicist who was obsessed with neutrinos and with owls. He was an odd guy, with long black hair and beard and an intense gaze. He had a particular and mystic relationship with owls, whom he called at night with some remarkable success. He would take skeptics out in the woods at night and call owls into their presence, then hoot back and forth with them in eerie conversation. And his fascination with neutrinos was intense.

In the 1970s neutrinos were a well accepted part of the zoo of subatomic particles. Neutrinos have virtually no mass, however, so they are exceedingly difficult to detect. Neutrinos were thought to be flowing out from the sun in a huge solar wind, but to pass through most matter without any interaction. In the form of neutrinos the sun radiates a massive amount of energy that passes through us as if were not even there. So an elegant experiment had been set up to detect this solar wind: a massive vat of dry cleaning solution had been placed a mile underground in the Homestake Mine in Montana, where it was protected from other forms of radiation. There the rare conversion of chlorine atoms to argon could be measured, and attributed only to neutrinos.

My acquaintance had found his way onto the team that tended the vats of detector fluid deep in the Homestake Mine. He spoke passionately about the depth of the mine, the dark, the total isolation. It was such a paradox. Only in this deep, dark place could one set up an experiment that would detect the subtle clues given off by a massive flux of solar energy that passes through us every day. Only in the dark, do we become aware of a different kind of light.

Years later, having left physics myself, I read of the success of this work. It was the first experiment to confirm neutrinos from the sun. By measuring a different flux than predicted it even established that neutrinos come in three flavors, and altered subatomic theory. In 2002 the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Raymond Davis, the director of the Homestake Project. And today some of the most important work in astrophysics is coming from labs deep underground, where neutrino flux can be measured.

But for me there is other value to be mined from these experiments, and from my memories of this man. In his single minded intensity he had revealed to me the value of the dark. He understood that it was in the dark and silence of the woods that his voice had meaning to an owl. He understood that the profound dark and silence of the Homestake Mine was the only place to detect the subtle evidence of a powerful cosmic force. It is in the silence that we begin to hear different voices. It is in the dark that we begin to detect the faint radiance of other and powerful forces.

But the evidence is indirect. None of us will see a neutrino - not in this life. It is only by the effect that you can infer the presence of the neutrino. It is only by describing the effect, by looking in detail at the nature of its interaction, that you can begin to describe the neutrino itself.

I loved physics, and still do, but for metaphysical reasons. Physics seemed to illuminate the important questions, and give me an indirect look at spiritual issues that I could not at that time in my life address directly. Physics gave me the opportunity to look for the indirect evidence of God working in my life.

You knew all along that I would get around to God, and to the Gospel lesson for today. It is so rich, and layered with so many meanings.

John the Baptist is a wild-eyed, eccentric, judgmental prophet, who wears skins and eats locusts. He has called all to repentance, to avoid the wrath of God. He will give no quarter to those who claim holy status by their lineage – Pharisees and Sadducees, and all who claim protection as descendents of Abraham. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

But when Jesus comes to John to be baptized, John recognizes him as the messiah and initially refuses. He can not understand a messiah who insists on such a humble act. He complies reluctantly, not comprehending the messiah Jesus will be.

Now John is in prison, and he is having doubts. Jesus is not acting like any messiah that John has heard of, and expected, and longed for, and prophesied. Isn’t the messiah supposed to take out this corrupt generation, this brood of vipers? How can the messiah fail to carry out God’s righteous judgment?

And Jesus answers John’s disciples by paraphrasing Isaiah 65.

Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.

You will know the messiah by Isaiah’s prophecy. You will know the presence of God by the transformation of lives. Do you want to see God? Look at the blind who have their sight. Do you want to hear God? Listen to the songs of those who were deaf. Do you want to see God’s wrath? Uh-oh. John can not help but notice what Jesus leaves out of his paraphrase of Isaiah. “He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.”

This is indeed a different messiah than John had expected.

And Jesus turns to his disciples and asks

What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.

Here in the wilderness, in simplicity and in poverty, undistracted by fortune and power and prestige, unencumbered by sectarian endorsement or political status, outside the noise and turmoil of Roman Empire and Jewish Establishment, John’s senses have been sharpened. John has recognized the messiah, but it is a different messiah than he has expected or could even imagine. He has his moment of doubt.

And Jesus answers: Do I look like what Isaiah prophesied? Yes and no. I represent a God of grace that even Isaiah could not imagine. I proclaim a kingdom of heaven greater than John could prophesy. The empires that have ruled this world no longer will rule our hearts, and souls, and minds. We now will listen to a different call, and live in a different light, and grow into a different understanding of our God.

Deep in the earth, in the dark and the silence, physicists now can detect the subtle signs of a powerful and invisible solar wind of neutrinos. We do not yet know how this energy plays out in the economy of cosmic forces. We do not know how our world, or solar system, or universe conserves and is bound together by this energy. Its mystery and power are enthralling

Likewise, outside our cultural economy of tinsel, of political power brokers, of armies and corporations and the magisterial church, we can detect the healing force of God’s love in broken lives and illness and despair. This only occurs, however, when we are able to step out of the comfort of our routines and look with curiosity and compassion and hope at the deeper realities of our lives. In the still, and dark, and quiet of Advent we have the opportunity to discover that God is greater and more gracious and more loving than we ever can imagine.

“Let anyone with ears listen.”