What Glorifies God? (Matthew 5:13-16)

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvj9cOrAOcg&t=160s

Sunday, June 7, 2020

            Am I a follower of Jesus?  Ask yourself that question.  Sit with it.

Jesus doesn’t want believers or admirers.  He’s looking for disciples.  He assumes belief and has no interest in flattery or admiration.  He wants followers. Do I believe Jesus is Lord?  Yes?  An I submitting all my plans, ideas, words, thoughts, and actions to Him?  With these questions, examine your own life. 

            Now, ask this.  What brings glory to the Heavenly Father?  In Matthew 5, Jesus is giving his most well-known message, the Sermon on the Mount.  In this message he says “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven” (5:16).  What brings glory to God?

            In historic moments, like our current times, Biblical truth gets hijacked by partisanship and identity politics.  What brings glory to God?  Christians rattle off things they think don’t bring glory to God. 

            Antifa and violent protests and looting don’t bring glory to God.

            Police officers using deadly chokeholds against unarmed, subdued suspects, doesn’t bring glory to God.

            Abortion doesn’t bring glory to God.  Liberals don’t bring glory to God.

            Using the Bible for a photo op doesn’t bring glory to God.

            Shutting down the economy to prevent the spread of COVID-19 doesn’t bring glory to God. 

            Re-opening too quickly and risking everyone’s health doesn’t bring glory to God.

            I am pleading with you – don’t do that.  When we shine the light and see what’s going on, look for what does glorify God?  Please, don’t, with the efficiency of an auctioneer, list your personal political bugaboos, things you think don’t bring glory to God.

            We avoid opening our hearts to God and being convicted by His Gospel when we blame others are for failing to live up to Jesus’ teaching.  When our response to a question about God’s will or God’s glory is to immediately critique those with different politics than ourselves, we don’t allow the red letters – Jesus’ actual teaching – to be a mirror that exposes the ugly truth about ourselves. 

Let Jesus’ words be a mirror in which you examine your own soul.  He said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven” (5:16). Where in the world today, in the public square, in our personal lives is God glorified?

Look for God in every news story you see.  Set aside the instinct to defend your identity and your national pride.  Chances are, the person you’re arguing against also believes in country, freedom and good.  Confronted by God’s word from the mouth of Jesus, allow yourself to be taken to uncomfortable places.  We squirm under God’s glare, but not because God isn’t loving.  God is love.  We squirm because in His light, we see ourselves, we see the world, and we don’t like everything we see.  And we know God doesn’t like those parts we don’t like.    

Stanley Hauerwas calls the Sermon on the Mount a description of the life of a people gathered around Jesus.[i]  Are you among the people gathered Jesus?  Before we talk about the devastation of 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, before we talk about the George Floyd choked in a humiliating, undignified, deadly way, before we talk about Breonna Taylor shot by police in her home, before we rush to defend the good police officers we know, before we condemn the bad actors who turn peaceful protests into violent riots – before all that; examine your heart.  When you imagine the life you’re living, are you a part of those gathered around Jesus?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and a giant among Christian theologians in the 20^th century.  He opposed Hitler and was executed in a concentration camp.  He could have fled to England or America.  But he stayed to confront evil and shine the light of Jesus in dark days.  God was glorified on the cross as his son took the sins of the world on himself and defeated them in his death.  God is glorified as a German disciple of Jesus hangs from a Nazi rope. 

In his remarks on the Sermon on the Mount, Bonhoeffer said “disciples are summoned to follow the crucified in the life of grace.”[ii]  The words we live by at Hillside are, “We follow Jesus, love others, and share hope.”  Considering that Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others that they may see … and give glory to [God]”, and considering that Jesus is the supreme example of glory in his death on the cross, we accept Bonhoeffer’s vision of discipleship.  When we pledge to follow Jesus, we put ourselves in eternal debt to the crucified one, and we commit to spend our lives walking the path he trod.  God was glorified when Bonhoeffer followed Jesus to the noose.  God is glorified when we do the same. 

We won’t all be executed, unjustly.  But hopefully, we all see where Jesus is.  Jesus was weeping with George Floyd, gasping with him, sustaining him for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.  As his followers, that’s where we have to be.  We confront racism, maybe by protesting (peacefully and forcefully), speaking out against racism, using our platforms to dismantle white privilege and empower others; maybe we do all these things; always, we show that in Christ, black, white, and brown are united as a family. 

From our church family, Tim Pressley, a former member, is committed to Jesus, and served honorably in his law enforcement career.  Carlin Jordan, husband of our former youth pastor, is a black man and a proud, committed police officer.  He honors God in the way he approaches policing.  While he may be known as Father, Husband, black man, officer, the way Carlin to be known is as a disciple submitted to the rule of His Lord, Jesus Christ.

When I insist that following Jesus means following the crucified one and following the crucified means we stand with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, with Eric Garner and Michael Brown, I am not damning the police.  Soldiers were among the people gathered around Jesus.  Pharisees, people with disabilities, and prostitutes were among the people gathered around Jesus.  From every corner of society, many ignored Jesus and mocked his followers, but a few turned to Him, gave themselves to him, and became disciples. 

We are among the disciples.  We obey him and thus shine our light.  Following the crucified one, we find ourselves embracing the downtrodden, and holding the hand of the executed.  One of the ways we announce the new age in the coming Kingdom is we fight injustice.  Because Jesus has come, a new reality is actually breaking in, invading our current fallen, dying world.

Attending rallies and writing a letter to a congressman are good works, social actions anyone of any faith could take.  We follow Jesus, and therefore love others, and in our love of others and in the promise of salvation, we share hope.  Our solidarity with the poor and the persecuted is Gospel work when we draw people to Jesus.

Within our community, we tell a story that’s better than the violent one news outlets constantly repeat.  Ours is a story of love, told in the ways we love each other, welcome others in, and help the world around us.  In this kind of story, we give extra love and attention to those who hurt the most. 

My family gave me sympathy and space and extra doses of kindness in the days right after my ankle surgery.  They didn’t do that because I matter more than other family members.  They did it because I was hurting.  Their love told a beautiful story.

Over the course of this past week, I reached out to my friends who might be especially hurt by what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.  I called, texted, or emailed friends who understand the pain more deeply than me.  I contacted a dozen of my black friends.  Some got back to me, happy that I reached out.  Great!  Some didn’t need to hear from or talk to a white guy at that moment.  They ignored me.  That’s OK too.  I was pretty sure I’d find Jesus in the tears of my black friends.  All tears matter, but Jesus sits in the tears of broken people.  I wanted to be near him so that’s where I went. 

Look around the world.  Look at our community.  Look at your life. 

Are you summoned to follow the crucified one?     

When the light shines, is God glorified in you?

Where do you see Jesus?  Will you join him there?

AMEN 

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[i] S. Hauerwas (2006), Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Matthew, Brazos Press (Grand Rapids), p.61.

[ii] D. Bonhoeffer (1963), The Cost of Discipleship, MacMillan Publishing Company (New York), p.129.

After Charlottesville: Monday Work

My brother is a pastor of a church in Charlottesville.  My best friend from seminary is a pastor of another church in Charlottesville, VA.  I texted them both this morning to make sure they’re OK after the white supremacy fiasco in their town yesterday.  I didn’t want to call because it was Sunday morning and they are pastors getting ready to lead the church in worship.  So I texted. Both texted to assure me they are fine.

I am a pastor too, but on Sabbatical.  In fact this morning, our family did not even attend church, but instead spent time at Smith Mountain Lake with my aunt and uncle.  However, sabbatical or not, I feel the need to share some of my thoughts in the aftermath of the nefarious, evil “Unite-the-Right” rally in Charlottesville. 

I approach this as a pastor, but more importantly as a follower of Jesus, a 1^st century Palestinian Jew, and the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity.  I follow and worship Jesus, the Savior of the world and Lord of all.  I pray that my comments are inspired by Him.

Two quotes come to mind.  The first is from a fiery African American female preacher, Traci Blackmon.  I heard her last year in Atlanta, GA, and she blew my socks off.  Her sermon at the convening of the New Baptist Covenant last September helped me understand the importance of #blacklivesmatter.  Her sermon woke me up and fired me up to work for a better America, one in which all people are given equal rights and equal opportunities. 

Rev. Blackmon was in Charlottesville yesterday, up close to the tear gas, violence, and chaos.  A frequent Facebook commenter, she wrote, “I SURE DO PRAY THAT THE SERMON YOU WROTE EARLIER THIS WEEK IS NOT THE SERMON YOU ARE PREACHING TOMORROW” (https://www.facebook.com/traci.blackmon).

Her words are characteristic of her confrontational approach.  And, she wrote this fresh off her own up close and personal harrowing experience in Charlottesville.  Her words make sense to me.  As it is, I wasn’t preaching today.  But if I was, I hope I would not, in a gut reaction, scrap the sermon I had written earlier and start over.  I’ve done that very thing before.  I have scrapped sermons om Saturday nights, and started over.  I have scrapped sermons with just an hour to go before the start of worship.  But it is not always the right move. 

Contrasted with Rev. Blackmon are the words of African American author Deidra Riggs.  She writes,

Hey, white evangelical friends. Don't go to church today to hold your preacher's feet to the fire. Either they'll say it or they won't. Go to church to be lit on fire by the Holy Spirit. Don't lose your focus. There is work to do on Monday.

Besides, even if they say it, it won't be the way you want them to say it. This is not about them. It's about you. What are YOU going to say? What are YOU going to do? This is an all hands on deck moment and there are TONS of resources for you (https://www.facebook.com/deidra.riggs.3?hc_ref=ARSVkD-HQYK7zDF1g096ffTNB4cHpHu7G3Vf59BCtHY4HTmA2jk_uVqrtMBTnoyqaEg&fref=nf).

My favorite line from Mrs. Riggs’ quote is one that drives me now. “There’s work to do on Monday.”  That Monday Work is the work of combatting racism under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Whether the pastor deals directly with what happened in Charlottesville or sticks with the sermon he or she originally planned is not the bigger point.  The bigger point is all churches, all followers of Jesus, are called to live out the values of the Kingdom of God and the greatest value is love. 

One of the cornerstones of my Sabbatical is the quest to discover how church – the local church – can embody the heavenly vision cast in Revelation 7:9-10.

⁹ After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they were shouting with a great roar,

“Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne
            and from the Lamb!”

I believe the church is called to be a living witness to this Heavenly vision. The church in America is to testify to our country, divided as it is, that God’s vision and God’s future is a picture of people, resplendent in their cultural uniqueness joined together with other people, also with their uniqueness on display.  Note, when John looked into Heaven in Revelation 7, he could clearly see people from all cultures and all tribes all across the world.  Their distinctiveness stood out as much as their unity did.  And their unity was in Christ.

Where is that seen today?  I pray that Heavenly vision can be seen in the church.  Forming our churches as families and as communities is our work.  Our families and communities have to be so graciously welcoming and hospitable that all people – black, Asian, white, Hispanic, Arab, and Native American – can feel at home in the church. 

In other words, our Monday work is to tell a different story, the anti-story of Charlottesville and of hate groups like American Nazis and the KKK.  That story generates a lot of noise.  Our story, the story of people loving God and loving each other in Jesus’ name is a much better story.  CNN & Fox News are not going to tell our story.  We shouldn’t expect them to.  God has called the church to go into all the world and make disciples of Jesus.

Part of the work of doing this is to name evil – in this case the extreme evil of racism, the demonic force known as white supremacy.  Part of the work of giving witness to the Kingdom of God is renouncing evil and standing with those who have been victims.  It’s easy to look at the hooded, goose-stepping fools and say they’re evil.  It is much harder to name, define, and combat structural evils like the so-called “war on drugs,” the resulting mass-incarceration of brown and black peoples, and institutional racism that plagues our justice system.  Those evils are more far-reaching than the show that went on in UVA’s town yesterday.  We who follow Jesus have to name the deeper evils and stand up to them.

But even that is only part of the greater work, which is telling the story of Jesus and inviting the world around us to enter that story.  Evangelical pastors have no excuse for ignoring the evils of racism in our country.  We have to decry this evil.  Neither can we allow ourselves to get sucked in to causes to the point that those causes become our central, defining call.  Fighting white supremacy is a part of denouncing evil and denouncing evil is a part of our Monday Work – the work of telling the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Our best strategy is to offer the world a competing narrative.  In our story, the oldest, truest story, the only forever story, God is love, loves all people, and all who come to him through Jesus are saved.  Blacks and whites can stand together as saved persons, brothers and sisters in the name of Christ. 

I know this isn’t much of a social commentary on the horrors of white nationalism, the impotence of the President’s statements, or the next steps to be taken by equality-minded groups like #blacklivesmatter.  I’m not social commentator.  I am a disciple of Jesus.  The best thing I can share is that Jesus’ heart is with those who have suffered from the evils of racism and Jesus is the savior for the poor and disadvantaged.  I hope my life and my church lives out that truth and draws people to Christ.  I hope this is my story the rest of my life.

Racial Diversity and The Music of Jubilee

Is music playing that only you can hear, that others around you cannot?  “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”[i] 

People you know hear other songs.  “Terrorism!”  “Fear!”  “Disappointment.” Those dissonant chords scratch the ears of your friends, your neighbors, the people who cross your path daily.  But your ears are caressed. 

“They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the thrown will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every test from their eyes.”[ii] That’s the song your hear.

Why does your neighbor despair over morbid tones he cannot escape, while you bask in melodic songs of eternity and life?  Why are you deaf to the deathsong?  Why in your hearing is it drowned out by the promises of God?

            Deidra Riggs writes

Because American society is built on systems that were born out of racialized notions of humanity, it’s extremely difficult to transform a church that historically been comprised of one race into a multiracial congregation.  It’s not impossible, but the cost of such change is great. 

The work of integrating a church is often debilitating because of the way it exposes and uncovers the layers of latent issues, thought patterns, and reticence.[iii]

            I hope you don’t feel blindsided?  I began talking about the music of Heaven, songs sung by angels in the book of Revelation.  And then I dive-bomb in a quote that claims there is inherent racism in American churches?  What kind of sideways turn is this?

            The “latent issues,” to use Riggs’ terminology, derive from the music we hear.  When a person is attuned to the Holy Spirit, she hears God.  He is aware of the Spirit’s prompts.  When a person is spiritually tone deaf, he or she misses the Spirit’s persistent message.  Both the spiritually tone deaf person and the spiritually attuned person live in the same world – one saved at the cross, but currently in the death throes of sin.  Do we see death or do we see salvation?  Are we set on following Christ, or do we wedge small faith into a small, uninfluential corner of our crowded lives?

            In Revelation 7:9-10, people from every human culture stand together, maintaining recognizable cultural distinctiveness, but at the same time completely united in their faith in Christ.  The same picture is described in Revelation 5:9.  The church today that is awake when it comes to institutional racism, and is active in combating that racism, and is determined to bring people together across the racial divide – that church is comprised of people who hear Heaven’s songs, even in the midst of the worst this fallen world has to offer.  Spiritual acuity and actively working for racial unity in the church go hand in hand.  One cannot be blind to the racial struggle and still claim to be actively pursuing the life of a disciple of Jesus. 

            Thus the picture in Revelation 7 is the goal and we construct church to live into that goal.  We do this acknowledging the full weight of Riggs’ observation of how hard it is to lead the church to become multicultural and multiracial.  Her approach is a thought experiment that every church goer should undertake.  What’s it like to be a _________ at my church?[iv]  What is it like to be black at my church?  What is it like to be a single mom at my church?  What is it like to be Mexican at my church?  What is it like to be gay at my church?  What is it like to be divorced at my church?  Another way of asking the question is ‘who would not be welcomed in my church?’

            Answer these questions honestly and it gets really hard.  Because most churches, if we are honest, have someone they won’t welcome.  As we play the honesty out, we realize that whenever we don’t welcome someone, we’re rejecting Jesus.[v]  Jesus loves us all and especially identifies with those who get rejected. 

            The good news is we can go through the hard work of change.  We can have the honest conversation centered on who is not welcome at my church?  In all likelihood, this conversation will need to happen many times because the church is comprised of many people.  As we identify people against whom our church has some prejudice and as we ask the Holy Spirit to root that prejudice out of our church, the opportunity comes to welcome those we previously rejected.  Subtly, we notice that the music we hear has changed.  Our church becomes a body that leans in to the vision in Revelation 7.

            In her own assessment of our times, Deidra Riggs has declared that “Right now is the moment of grace.”[vi]  She believes this is the time of Jubilee,[vii] when debts are forgiven and relationships are made right.  The debt whites owe to blacks in America, a debt born in the Middle Passage, planted in slavery, grown in Jim Crowe, and now flowering in mass incarcerations is forgiven as white society repents and seeks forgiveness.  Of course not all whites seek forgiveness or even acknowledge the debt.  And many black Americans have no interest in forgiveness.  That’s where the music clashes.

            Are we people living in Jubilee?  Or are our feet firmly planted in the soil of death, a soil composed of human sin? 

            The church must declare the New Day that has come in Jesus.  We must make this declaration in the make-up of the church family.  In diverse communities, there must be diverse churches serving as a witness to the community as a whole that all are welcome in the Kingdom of God.  “This is who we are.  We are together people.  We are in-one-place people.  We need to keep reminding ourselves of this.  We are our tribe. All of us.  Together.”

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[i] Revelation 4:8. 

[ii] Revelation 7:16-17.

[iii] D. Riggs (2017), One: Unity in a Divided World, Baker Books (Grand Rapids), p.47.

[iv] Ibid, p.50-51.

[v] Keep in mind the following passages from the gospels: Matthew 25:40; Mark 2:15-17; and Luke 14:21.

[vi] Riggs, p.58.

[vii] The very first Christians believed this too.  The reason they shared their things in common and provided for everyone (Acts 4:32-37), and the reason the gospel gradually spread beyond the boundaries of Israel (Acts 6-24) is the very first Christians believed that in Jesus’ resurrection, Jubilee had come.  

When the Dream Comes True (Matt. 3:1-17)

Sunday, January 17, 2016

           Two sinners, flawed people who make mistakes and fall short of God’s glory. 

Two extraordinary men – there have never been any like these men and their contributions to humanity are greater than can be measured.

Great men?  Sinners fallen short of God?  These men are both.  Consider their lives, their words, and the profound importance of each as I hold each up alongside the other. 

            First, Martin Luther King Jr.   In 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, he said,

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

                       

“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

            Has his dream been realized? 

            However accurate or inaccurate or partially accurate, the perception of many, maybe most black people is that they can’t get a fair shake in business, in education, in health care, in housing, and in numerous other ways in every day.  Statistics bear this out.  Black Americans are less likely to be admitted to the highest universities, less likely to be identified and put in academically gifted programs, and more likely to be suspended from school for offenses that if done by whites often go unpunished.  In nearly every formal institution in our country, blacks get less opportunity for advancement; and, they suffer more harshly and more frequently than whites who commit the same offenses and rules infractions.

            Has Dr. King’s dream been realized? 

            Many African Americans have achieved incredible success.  Condoleezza Rice is a brilliant academic, a political scientist, and former secretary of state.  Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of America’s leading astrophysicists.  Colin Powell is one the great generals in U.S. army’s history.  Ben Carson is a brain surgeon and a presidential candidate.  Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court justice.  And of course our president, Barak Obama is an African American who has achieved the highest office in the land.  No matter what your personal opinion is of these named, they all merit respect.  This high level achievement and leadership among persons of color had not happened when Dr. King gave that speech.

            On a more personal level, in our day biracial families are accepted as the boundaries for what is considered normal expand.  I did not imagine when we adopted H__ and M__ that we would meet other families just like ours in preschool and then again in our neighborhood, but we have.  Chapel Hill is progressive town and there are places in North Carolina and in other parts of America that are less-welcoming of such diversity.  However, I think across America, there is now a social consensus that racism is evil.  Since Dr. King gave the “I have a Dream Speech” things have changed.

            They have not changed nearly quickly enough.  His poignant phrase “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” needs to be taken to heart.  Right now, most of the perspectives I get from black people in my circles are different than the perspectives of white people in my circles.  I hate saying “black people think …” or “all white people …” do such and such.  I think the generalizing is unfair.  However, I do feel safe in saying that most black people expertience the world differently than most white people. 

            Dr. King’s context was America, embroiled in racial conflict.  The man I have thought about alongside Martin Luther King Jr. is John the Baptist whom we meet in Matthew’s Gospel.  John burst upon the scene calling the people of Judah to “Repent!  For the Kingdom of heaven has come near.”  He allowed no margin for the luxury of cooling off.  Repentance is a turning – to turn from looking and living in one direction to looking and living in an altogether different direction.  God is over here, but you are oriented over there. You have to radically turn your lives because the way you are currently headed is away from God. 

            Essentially, this was John’s message.  As America today needs to turn away from greed, materialism, racism, elitism, and xenophobia, John said the people in the first century needed to turn away from sin and turn to God. 

Otherwise, we will miss the presence of Jesus even though, he is here.  This season, epiphany, the time after Christmas – this is Jesus’ ‘coming out party.’  We won’t see it, not now, not if we aren’t watching.  To miss it is to live apart from God.  If we live apart from God now, we will be apart from him at the Judgment.  When Jesus returns in the Second Coming to call his own into the Kingdom, we will not be among those counted as his own.  We need to turn. 

We need to turn because currently our gaze is fixed by human wisdom in the direction of today’s definition of success.  Philosophies like individualism, naturalism, and patriotism do not appear inherently evil, but when one of these ways of thinking and seeing define our worldview instead of Jesus defining our worldview, it pull us away from the God who wants to saves us from self-destruction.

“Repent!”  Turn from where we are looking, from what we are thinking, from who we are admiring, from how we are living; turn from this to God. 

In the Gospels are stories of people who met Jesus in person and still could not turn to him because they could not turn away from the allure of wealth or the entrenched racism of their day.  In the New Testament world, the segregation was Jew-gentile.  Today it is white-black, or English speaking-non English speaking; or it is citizen-immigrant; or it is Christian-Muslim.  Whatever divides people by objectifying those not-like-me as “other” – whatever that division point is, it is evil and we must turn from it.  We must in humble confession turn to God.  John preached that.

            Dr. King claimed that God showed him a vision of life – the life to come if people could learn to live in peace and harmony and love for each other; people from all backgrounds.  He said,

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

           

            John also had a sense of what would it would be like when the words he preached became reality.  He said,

¹¹ “I baptize you with^[b] water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

            So, two prophets; one condemned racial inequality, the other sin run rampant among the chosen people of God.  King’s denouncing of racism is a damning of sin – a specific arena of sin and for us in 2016, one that arena, racism, continues to trouble our communities because it exists and people of color continue to suffer injustices.  Likewise John the Baptist issued a call that we must heed; we must turn from the ways of the world to the ways of God as we know God in Jesus.

            These two prophets who preached with force and drama had vision.  They imagined the fulfillment of their dreams.  John the Baptist spoke and it was electric; he baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  He will gather the grain, and the chaff. The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  People from all walks of life abandoned the comforts of Jerusalem and flooded out to the wilderness to be baptized by him and hear him talk about the one who was to come. 

Who was this Savior John forecast?

What would life be like upon his arrival?  John offered the stark call – repent!  And, he offered the promise of baptism by spirit and fire.

Dr. King named the evil of racism and imagined a world without it. 

So what of it?  What do we make of the preaching and the vision of either man?  Were their dreams realized?  Today we have Travon Martin and Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.  Today secularism is on the rise; Christianity it so politicized, it is stripped of anything in it that resembles faith. 

John was anointed by God.  Dr. King awakened America to God’s compassion for the downcast and God’s hatred of racism and injustice.  Both spoke with power as they cast compelling visions.  So, what do we do with the world as it is?

Imagine John there in the Jordan.  Everyone is spellbound.  In those flowing waters, he appears to be the most powerful man in the world and all who come defer to his passion and his fiery teaching.  The royal official, the temple soldier, the priest, the Roman centurion; before John, they all shrink.  Submissively, they go to the waters.

Then, Jesus comes.  His eyes meet John’s.  John finds himself tongue-tied.  Matthew writes, “Jesus came … to be baptized by him [but] John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”

He who had cast the pre-vision of the Kingdom fell to pieces when the Kingdom stood before him in the person of Jesus.  John would have stopped Jesus at the start of his ministry.  Why?  I believe seeing Jesus is so overwhelming, we forget everything.  At the same time, we see everything.

We inherit John’s call to repentance and the 1960’s iteration of it in Dr. King’s call to end segregation and build harmony and love across racial lines.  We repent and we work for equality recognizing that when one group of people is wounded by prejudice, we all are.

We anticipate the dreams of these prophets.  God gives glimpses and so we can say with John, Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  With MLK, we get glimpses of the Promised Land where black boys and girls and white children and Jewish and Syrian and Chinese and Mexican children all laugh and run and play together, without fear.  We can imagine it.  We spend our lives working for it, reaching for it.

Still we know that we won’t finally reach it until Jesus meets our gaze as he did John’s.  In that moment, face to face, completely exposed before him, completely vulnerable, we feel ourselves wrapped in his arms of love.  Then, we are finally home.

We know that day will come.  Until it does, we honor the prophets who have gone before us by working for love and brotherhood and sisterhood as we understand things in light of the way of Jesus.  We can’t fully say what it will be like when the dream comes true.  So, we imagine, we work for it, we pray for it, and with hopeful expectation and full readiness, we wait for it. 

AMEN