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 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Dec. 9, 2018.
On Wednesday night, I found myself around a dinner table filled with seven of my Forum Communications Co. managers at a restaurant in Duluth. We were there to transition some of the staff who work for our Duluth newspapers onto our centralized teams here in Fargo.
At some point during dinner, one of the newer managers looked at me asked, “So, you’re really a pastor at a church? … Like a real pastor?”
“Yes,” I replied. A synodically authorized minister to be more correct, but yes.
Perplexed, she pushed on, “So you write sermons and everything?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I write sermons and everything.”
And then another of my managers, emboldened by the first, asked me about my CPE experience and what that was like. … And then just like that, the questions just tumbled out. One after another. It seemed that all of the people at the table were fascinated with my “other” job, and peppered me with questions for the next hour.
That night, after dinner and as I sat in the hotel room, I thought to myself, “What an unexpected turn the night took.” … I mean, here I found myself, at a dinner table full of work colleagues and we had a long and in-depth conversation about faith, about churches, about God and what it’s like to be a pastor! … What a terrific and God-filled moment!”
And a moment that would have never happened without my leap of faith some 15 months ago.
I’ve shared in the past with you my story about when I outed myself at work. The time that I came out with the news to my boss that I was going to seminary and that I was about to accept my SAMhood here at Faith. … About how I was fearful of what would happen to my job if The Forum executives took the news wrong, or about how my coworkers would treat me once word spread.
Happily, for me, that is all in the past, and I’ve experienced the most miraculous 15 months of my professional life since.
So, what’s this story have to do with today’s gospel?
Well, this story reminds me of the wildness and crazy turn that my life has taken since revealing my discipleship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the world. … And that reminds me of today’s star character of the gospel: John the Baptist.
I say this not to compare myself to one of our founding Christian leaders, but more to draw attention to the miraculous things that happen when we are bold and reveal our true discipleship to the world.
Now a full admission: I find John the Baptist one of the most fascinating people in all of the Bible. … Undoubtedly, you probably remember him because of snippets of scripture. … He preached in the wild. He baptized Jesus. … He ate locusts and honey. … He ended up beheaded. … Those seem to be the highlights of what many know of John the Baptist.
But, what fascinates me is John’s miraculous and courageous belief in God. A courageous belief that makes me wonder how much more we fellow Christians could accomplish if we answered our call from God?
So who was John the Baptist? … Well, we know that he was an early follower of Judaism. … That’s right, Judaism, as were all the other faith leaders of his time. … In fact, John was a Jewish prophet born near Jerusalem sometime in the first decade before Christ was born. … And he later died sometime between 28 and 36 A.D. when he was beheaded.
John came from a priestly lineage, as today’s gospel tells us, the son of Zechariah. … But unlike many of the priests of his day, he didn’t practice in a synagogue in the city. … Nope, not this prophet. He took his preaching to the wilds, as the Bible tells us, and from there he preached about the imminence of God’s Final Judgement and baptized those who repented in self-preparation for it.
And our church today reveres him for being a forerunner to Jesus Christ. … In fact, the similar stories of the two influential church leaders are striking. For instance, John too spends a period of solitude in the desert and later emerges as a prophet in the region of the lower Jordan River Valley, where he acquires a circle of disciples.
Eventually, as we all know, Jesus comes to John to undergo his rite of baptism. … And we all know that story: The heavens open and God’s speaks to Jesus and tells him that he is his beloved son, and the Holy Spirit descends as a dove.
But what I think is so remarkable about John’s story is the boldness and courageousness of his ministry, because after all, our Christian scholars essentially consider that ministry as the beginning of Christianity.
In fact, all four Gospels recognize John as the start of the Christian era, because of his teaching of a new set of beliefs. And each of the gospels in its own way tries to reconcile John’s precedence in time and Jesus’ acceptance of his message: a baptism of repentance, a new concept previously unknown in Judaism.
The gospel writer in Luke and Acts goes so far as to depict the coming of Jesus and John in two parallel series of scenes, each with angels heralding their coming, a conception, a marvelous birth, a circumcision, hymns greeting the child and predicting his destiny, and an infancy.
Even in his mother’s womb John recognizes Jesus—also still in his mother’s womb—as his Lord, something that other Jewish priests would have found abhorrent.
John gained prominence in about A.D. 27 to 29, not as a priest, but a prophet. And this, of course would have made him Jesus’ contemporary, which so remarkable to me.
And while his garb and dietary habits -- remember the camel hair garment and diet of of locusts and wild honey -- made him noteworthy to many followers, it was what he preached and practiced that was so revolutionary.
As a prophet, he didn’t practice the same customs as his contemporary Jewish priests who had a strictly regimented structure as to who could practice their faith in the synagogue and who couldn’t. In comparison, John took his mission to the streets per se and addressed people of all ranks and stations of Jewish society.
Also of note, was his message that God’s judgment on the world was imminent and that, to prepare for this judgment, the people should repent their sins and be baptized. And unlike in the Jewish tradition, his baptism was a rite that symbolized a submission to the coming world judgment, which was represented as a coming second “baptism” by the Holy Spirit in a river of fire.
And now that I’ve either totally fascinated you … or completely bored you with a historical treatise on John the Baptist, you are probably wondering what a dinner in Duluth and the historical biography of one of our Christian leaders have to do with each other.
And this is my point: Our faith calls us to be bold and courageous. I compare my story about dinner in Duluth with my colleagues to that of John’s story only insofar that without my bold decision last year to be open about my faith at work, I never would have had that conversation with my colleagues at dinner on Wednesday night.
Prior to my announcing to my boss last October that I was going to school to be a pastor, I never openly practiced my faith. Never talked about it at work. Never even really openly engaged others in conversation about faith or God in public.
But then I did, and it has led to dozens of wonderful conversations about God and faith at work over the past 15 months, and the opportunity to openly shine Christ’s light onto others.
I think, in a similar way, it was John’s bold and courageous public display of his faith, holding many strong beliefs that differed from his contemporary Jewish faith leaders, that makes him considered so important to Christianity today.
John didn’t practice his ministry in the synagogue like other priests of his time. John practiced in the wild. … John’s baptism was meant to prepare us and cleanse us for the coming of the Lord, and was a central sacrament to his faith, unlike the Jewish tradition of baptism. … John wasn’t afraid to call out the secular rulers of his time for their immoral ways. And, yes, that didn’t end well for him, but it did solidify him as an early Christian founder.
In short, John’s bold and courageous discipleship lead to the founding of our faith today. … Yes, Jesus is our Lord and Savior, but John the Baptist’s religious movement set the table for Jesus’ ministry, and served as the foundation of Christianity.
And that would have never happened had John been worried about what the other religious rulers of the day thought. Or if John had worried about public opinion at the time. Because if he had, he may never have founded the religious movement that influenced Jesus, and changed the course of the next 2,000 years.
Similarly, had you all not welcomed me here, and I accepted, I may not have shared my secret with my boss at The Forum, and never had the opportunity to share such fulfilling conversations about God and faith with my colleagues.
So, today’s gospel makes me wonder: What other astonishing things could we do as Christ’s disciples if only we stopped worrying about what the world would think of us?
How many others might we invite into a relationship with Christ if only we opened up about our faith at work, at school, with our friends, or in our social groups?
Would we create other disciples? … Would we create new church members? … Would we create new missions outside these walls? … What else, I wonder.
But we don’t have to wonder. The road map to a bolder, more courageous faith is right here in front of us. Right here in today’s gospel. … John the Baptist, Jesus’ forerunner … the wild and daring Jewish prophet … showed us the way.
He showed us how to take our ministry to the street. … He showed us how to be wildly faithful even at a time when being wildly faithful was discouraged. Maybe even seen as a bit heretical.
But John didn’t care, and I wonder what we might accomplish in the name of God, if we didn’t care what the world thought either.
And that is the Good News for this Sunday. … Amen.
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