EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Dec. 1, 2020. This was the 31st digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.
So, I love this passage out of the Gospel of Mark which introduces us to "John the Baptizer." ... One year, I'm going to show up for this sermon dressed in camel hair and a leather belt with a plate of honey and locusts!
Anyway, by a show of hands, who here in the sanctuary or online tonight knows who Jackie Robinson is?
Well, of course, most people know that Jackie Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first Black American to play in Major League Baseball. We know from documentaries and from the history books that Jackie broke the color barrier in baseball, and it is such a well-known story that it has become a piece of Americana.
Robinson, a talented and gifted athlete, not only excelled at baseball, but also football in college and semi-professionally, before he was ever signed by the Kansas City Monarchs of the professional Negro Baseball Leagues. There was a stint between college when he joined the Armed Forces and later came back. And it was when he went back to college that the Monarchs reached out and signed him to his first professional contract. And it would be another two years of Jackie rambling around in the organization's minor leagues until he became the first Black man to break Major League Baseball's color barrier on April 15, 1947.
Well, none of this was an easy road for Robinson. And that makes for a great story, doesn't it? ... The problem is it's only partially true. ... While Jackie Robinson was indeed the first Black man to play Major League Baseball, he was not the first Black man to play professional baseball.
That honor actually belongs to a man by the name of Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played pro baseball for for the Toledo (Ohio) Blue Stockings of the American Association in 1884. ... An entire 60 years before Robinson ever suited up to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
And while Jackie Robinson's path to the major leagues was no picnic, imagine Moses Fleetwood Walker's path to professional baseball in 1884. ... Walker, a free man born of a Black father and a white mother in 1884, growing up when slavery was still a fixture of American life. ... But, nonetheless, Walker overcame all of those insurmountable odds and broke into professional baseball just 19 years after the end of the Civil War.
Walker debuted professionally on May 1, 1884, and faced immediate hostility. ... The fans hated him. ... His own teammates hated him. ... And later, much later after he had passed away, one of the pitchers on his same team admitted in a newspaper article that he would shake off Walker's signs -- Walker was a catcher -- and he would ignore his signs and pitch whatever he wanted to. ... Often meaning that Walker would take a ball to the face or to the ribs or to the chest. Simply because the pitcher hated him. ... He played catcher in a day when there were no masks and no chest plates and oftentimes bare-handed. ... He was physically assaulted in games; players wearing metal spikes would deliberately slide into him at home plate. ... He was spat on everywhere he went.
But that wasn't even the greatest indignity. ... Shortly into his professional career, a rival player named Cap Anson decided one day not to take the field for his team in objection of Walker's playing in the league. ... And that solitary act turned into more player sit-outs, and eventually that one act turned into a 60-year ban of Black players in Major League Baseball.
That is, of course, until Jackie Robinson took the field and made history for the Brooklyn Dodgers. ... Or so we have been told.
So, there you go; there's your history lesson for the night and class is dismissed!
But while that is a fascinating a story, what I'm really talking about tonight is forerunners. ... Look up on the web about "John the Baptizer" -- or "John the Baptist," as some of us grew up with -- and he is often referred to as a forerunner.
I think most of us understand what that term means. A forerunner is very often the lesser-known groundbreaker who does something before someone more well known is credited for it. ... Moses Fleetwood Walker broke the color barrier in baseball long before Jackie Robinson did, and as our gospel tells us tonight, John the Baptizer paved the way for our very own Jesus Christ. ... Because that is exactly what the message in tonight's gospel tells us. An if you listened carefully to the very first reading out of Isaiah, which prophesizes about John the Baptizer's coming, he of course is the one in the wilderness crying out.
John the Baptizer, a character I think that so many of us fall in love with in Sunday school because of his crazy clothes and because of his crazy diet of locusts and honey, was the forerunner to our Jesus Christ. ... After all, it was John who was found out in the wilderness, as our gospel tells us. ... The Judeans from across the countryside, and all of the believers of Jerusalem, will go out to him to hear him preaching about the coming of this messiah and to partake in the baptism of all believers. And he was doing so long before Jesus comes into his public ministry.
In fact, our gospel is shorter tonight, but if you read further into the gospel of Mark, we know
that it is Jesus who comes to John to receive his baptism. And we know from the texts that John is a cousin to Jesus and likely helps launch Jesus's public ministry.
Forerunners: Those who come before the groundbreakers, and as history shows us,
being a forerunner often is a tragically dangerous and lonely existence with little reward. Again, just look at Moses Fleetwood Walker and how he was lost to history. ... Just look at what happened or happens to John the Baptizer, who just a short while later in this gospel faces a gruesome death because of the words he prophesized.
Yet, despite the dangers of living the life of a forerunner, that is exactly what today's gospel is asking of each of us -- each of us as followers of Christ -- to be a forerunner of Christ. We are in the same position today 2,000 years later, as John the Baptizer was in the first century. We inherit the legacy of the one who cried out in the wilderness, and while it is true we won't face the dangerous backlash that maybe Moses Fleetwood Walker or that John the Baptizer faced, it doesn't mean that being a forerunner for Christ in today's world will be easy. ... Because we all know Christ's message of clothing the naked and feeding the hungry and visiting those in jail and loving thy enemy and loving thy neighbor as oneself ... we know those messages hardly mesh with the priorities of this earthly kingdom.
We've all lived through a period of division in this country, in an earthly kingdom, over the last nine months that has proven that we are bombarded with countering messages every day. ... Messages that tells us more is always better; get yours first before someone else does; rich and powerful and beautiful are the most important things; Christ's message is for suckers and losers. ... Because of all of this, we are forerunners, Faith Family. ... In this day and age where it isn't the "in" thing to do, to stand in the public and cry out into the wilderness that we still believe in Christ's message.
No, we won't likely be spat on. ... The chances of us being beheaded over our cries in the wilderness is small, but it doesn't mean that we won't face a backlash for believing in a higher power, for believing in a message from another kingdom altogether.
So how about, Faith Family, this Advent season, this season that means the very waiting of the coming of our savior, that while we are contemplating that second coming of our Christ, do we have it in us to be the forerunners of our savior? ... Can we endure the slings and arrows that come from exhibiting a life of peace love and giving? ... Can we endure living a life that is counter to American values? ... Can we live in the wilderness and be the lonely voices crying out can we help prepare the way for the coming of the Lord this Advent season?
And, Faith Family, while it isn't easy, thankfully for all of us Jesus's ministry throughout the Gospel of Mark provides us a very simple roadmap as to how to do so. ... And that is the Good News for this Tuesday, Dec. 1, and Sunday, Dec. 6, the second Sunday in Advent. ... Amen.
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