Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Less, Not More
By Griff Martin
A Sermon on John 1:29-42
For the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Jan 19, 2020)
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

Incarnate and Coming Christ, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of your presence here in this space and in these words God, for if we are present to you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

It seems more than appropriate on this particular Sunday, the Sunday before the day we honor the memory of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (who is, to my knowledge, the only baptist preacher who gets a federal holiday named after him, the man who is with Jimmy Carter on the short list of well-known baptists we all need to aim to be more like. He is our kind of Baptist; or maybe better to say we should aim to be his kind of Baptist) … It seems fitting to begin the sermon with the words of one of his sermons that rings so true and relevant this morning it could be preached in every pulpit in America.

The sermon was first preached at Riverside Baptist in New York City on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination. It was his first major speech on the Vietnam War. The sermon is known by three titles: Beyond Vietnam, A Time to Break Silence, and Revolution of Values (I prefer the last).  King vocally opposed the Vietnam War, insisting that this war was not the answer and that this war was distracting us from more important issues happening in our own country that needed to be addressed – the ills and evils of poverty, racism, oppression and violence. In this sermon King called for a “shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society,” and for us to “struggle for a new world.”

The sermon concluded with these words:  

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain … Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world.”

A call to change our values in order to create the Kingdom that God has desired for so very long. 

Now travel forward with me almost exactly 53 years to a current event and to a sentence that I never anticipated preaching in a pulpit: If you want to see the Kingdom of God today, look towards the Royal Family. Because the Royal Family is giving us a very interesting lesson these days about the revolution of values. Last week the Duke and Duchess, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, announced their plans to step back from their official duties as royalty and to begin pursuing their own financial independence. Now, I am not expecting them to live like Dorothy Day; I think their finances are probably always going to be just fine. However, this movement from a position of traditional power to less, of letting go of titles, houses, wealth and privilege is noteworthy.

Paying attention to the news, it appears people find this absurd. The average person is struggling to understand how someone in a powerful role, prominent role would choose on their own to step aside for a more normal existence, for less power and prominence. This is swimming upstream in our world today. But church, this is our very calling; to be less, to realize it’s not about us, to use our simple lives to point to something greater. 

It’s a revolution of values, a revolution and transformation that could perhaps begin in the church. God knows it is needed. Today’s text gives us a perfect picture of this movement. 

Our text begins exactly where we were last Sunday morning, the baptism of Jesus. All 4 Gospels mention the baptism of Jesus, all 4 Gospels struggle with it in their own unique way, as if it is this big family secret that no one really knows what to do with or how to explain. 

The text begins with Jesus coming towards John who is out in the waters of Jordan River baptizing people. Now, the author John’s telling of this event is different than Matthew, Mark or Luke. Here John declares the very moment he sees Jesus, “Here is the Real One.” This testimony of the event does not actually include a baptism – the actual baptism is merely alluded to – the text is instead John the Baptist’s words about Jesus. 

And then the text continues with the very next day (Day 3 of John’s introduction made up of 4 days), when John the Baptist has moved from the muddy waters to standing alongside a road like a street corner preacher. His disciples are with him and we can only assume that John is continuing to give the sermon for which he is so famous, “Repent.” 

Hear the Gospel again: “The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed ‘Look here is the Lamb of God.’” The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus.

Now, John the Baptist is always terrifying to me. He is very hellfire and brimstone when it comes to preaching, which is about as far from my style of preaching as possible. Add to it his weird diet, his bizarre wardrobe… it’s all just too much. 

However, this moment is the most confusing to me. John has two chances to jump into the spotlight and he gives them both away – or at least, tries to. First the baptism. Can you imagine being forever known as the one who baptized Jesus? That is quite a title to get to carry; that is quite a way to make sure that your name will never be forgotten. That is the kind of thing that guarantees you infamy. And John tries to get out of it, I am not worthy to do this. And I don’t think it’s false humility, to be honest. I don’t see John doing this the way I do when some of you stop to tell me that was a really great sermon and I try to be humble and look down and nod and say ‘thank you’ but I really want to ask you to list all the things you loved about it and while you are at it list all you love about me. I don’t think John’s was like that; I think John really meant it. I am not worthy.

And then when the story continues and John has disciples there with him and when Jesus walks by, he points his disciples to Jesus, there he is, and the disciples go follow Jesus. Now, disciples were a big deal to a Rabbi. A Rabbi with a lot of disciples was, for lack of a better phrase, a more popular Rabbi. The more disciples you had, the more your ego could grow. So, John just willingly pointing to Jesus and telling his disciples, that is the guy you should follow… Again, it is this odd move that gives up power, prestige and popularity instead of embracing it. Who does that? 

John the Baptist does that. 

And it’s our call to do that, too. 

Our job is not to make a name for ourselves. Our call is not to accumulate as much power as possible. Our job is not to rack up titles and accolades. Our job is not to build a bigger bank account. Our job is not to make this as much about us as possible. Our job is to live a life where we are constantly pointing others to Jesus Christ, no matter what that costs us. Hear that again; our job is to live a life where we are constantly pointing others to Jesus Christ, no matter what that costs us. 

What the world needs is us pointing to Jesus.

In her moving memoir, Out of Africa, Issak Denison writes about one of her favorite workers around her farm in Africa. He was a young man, about 15. He came to work on the farm and was a good and hard worker. After 6 months he came to Isaak to say he was moving on to work at another farm. She asked why, was he getting better pay? Because she would pay him more; she did not want to lose him. He responded this job was not about money, and then went on to explain that he was leaving to work in a Muslim household. He was trying to decide the rest of his faith journey, what to believe in, and one of the ways he wanted to explore that was to work in a Christian household and a Muslim household and observe the faiths that way.

She writes that if she had known he was searching for that, she would have lived differently while he worked for her.

I think that story is playing out all around us every day. There are folks who are watching us and the question we need to ask is are they seeing us point to Jesus or towards ourselves? The very measure of our faith is found in that answer. 

Our job is to live a life where we are constantly pointing others to Jesus Christ, no matter what that costs us.

So, our lives need to look like Jesus: Justice oriented, full of grace and forgiveness and mercy, humble, servant oriented, inclusive of all, a listening ear, a compassionate heart. We live like that so that our lives point to the greatest truth we know. 

It’s not about us, it’s about Jesus.

Who do you point people to? 

It’s an old mystical truth, to remember that we are fingers pointing to the moon. The finger itself is not the end, it’s not the goal. Our world gets this wrong way too often. We are the finger, not the moon. 

John the Baptist got it right. He says so himself, later in the Gospel according to John. There is a bit of an argument going on between John the Baptist’s followers and other religious teachers, and it actually involves that entire contest about who has the most disciples. The argument eventually is brought before John the Baptist. “The one you baptized is now gaining followers faster than you are… look, all are going to him.”

Hear John’s response: “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”


First Austin, Jesus must increase, we must decrease. Amen and Amen.

*artwork: Martin Luther King, Jr. Quote, everydaypower.com/quotes-by-martin-luther-king-jr

0 comments:

Post a Comment