Jan. 11, 2004

Epiphany 1

Luke 3:15-22 (NLT)

Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and they were eager to know whether John might be the Messiah. John answered their questions by saying, "I baptize with water; but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I am not even worthy to be his slave. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the grain with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, storing the grain in his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire." John used many such warnings as he announced the Good News to the people.

John also publicly criticized Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, for marrying Herodias, his brother's wife, and for many other wrongs he had done. So Herod put John in prison, adding this sin to his many others.

One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove. And a voice from heaven said, "You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you."

Sermon: Affirmation or Transformation?

We have a great time at the Bible study on Tuesday. We don’t just study. We also laugh. Recently Betty shared an insight into the healing ministry. She said if you want to see healing miracles, go to the grocery store and watch the people who park in the handicapped parking spaces! Isn’t it the truth? Just watch how many handicapped people who drive up, and jump out of their cars, and suddenly they can walk!

Jesus came to heal us. He came to deliver us, to set us free. He came with power to restore what is broken, to make whole what has been hurt. But that power comes at a cost. There is always a call to submit, to surrender to a discipline. So much of this has been lost in the church today.

I have a bone to pick with the lectionary today. This reading from Luke, as it appears in the lectionary, has several verses cut out of it. You just heard me read the whole passage, but if we had followed the lectionary, this is the part you would not have heard:

“He is ready to separate the chaff from the grain with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, storing the grain in his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire." John used many such warnings as he announced the Good News to the people.

John also publicly criticized Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, for marrying Herodias, his brother's wife, and for many other wrongs he had done. So Herod put John in prison, adding this sin to his many others.”

Now why was that cut out? I don’t think it was a concern about time. We have Gospel readings that are much longer than this. There must be a theological reason for this. Why is it that whenever something is cut out it always seems to be the hard words? I think you already know, don’t you? It’s a sign of the times we live in. People today don’t want to hear hard words. They don’t want to hear about judgment, or about the hard work of transformation. All we hear in the church today is affirmation.

That was the message we heard on Friday and Saturday. There was a gathering of concerned Episcopalians in Woodbridge, VA sponsored by the American Anglican Council. Three thousand people came to hear a similar message to the one we heard at the now famous Dallas meeting in October.

The opening address on Friday was by Bishop Duncan from Pittsburgh. The focus of his talk was discipline. “God disciplines those He loves.” And though no discipline seems pleasant at the time, it yields a harvest of righteousness.

The point he made was that discipleship and discipline come from the same word. And he asked the question, would anybody looking at the church today know that?

To be a disciple is to be under discipline. Would an outsider looking at the church today immediately say of us, “Ah, these people clearly live a different order of life, a disciplined, focused life.”

“Current Thoughts and Trends” is a magazine I subscribe to that summarizes a lot of information on what is happening in society; book reviews, movie reviews, opinion polls and surveys. The George Barna Institute recently did a poll with some disturbing results:

    While 84% of U.S. adults interviewed by Barna called themselves Christian, people termed the following actions "morally acceptable":      

• cohabitation (60%)      
• adultery (42%)      
• sexual relations between homosexuals (30%)     
• abortion (45%)     
• pornography (38%)     
• the use of profanity (36%)      
• gambling (61%)

    Generation X (people in their 20s to mid 30s) is the "the most likely to hold theological views that conflict with the Bible." Known also as "Busters," these adults are :

- Least likely "to maintain views related to moral behavior that are consistent with the Bible."

- They are the least likely to read the Bible, go to church or religious education classes, or pray.

- They are least likely to serve others, and to tithe to a church.

- They are the least likely to believe in life after death and most likely to believe we can communicate with dead people.

- They are the adults most likely to engage in sex without being married.

Discipline? Let’s go back to this Gospel reading for today and take a closer look. The first thing it says is that the people were “expectant”, they were urgently looking for Messiah to come soon. They were living in daily expectation of something wonderful, powerful and miraculous to happen. And, they were eager to know who it might be. They were looking around.

John the Baptist had already told them that the one they were looking for had indeed come and was standing among them. Imagine what that did to them. Put yourself in their place for a minute. Suppose that we as a people had that kind of expectancy. There is a miracle coming, an extraordinary person is coming who is sent from God to teach us, to show us the ways of God, indeed, show us the very nature of God in the flesh. And we have been told that he is already here, and he is among us. If you heard that, you would be looking around, wouldn’t you? Who could it be? One of us? Maybe he’s here in this room right now.

You might even look in the mirror. “Could I be the one?” Maybe you’ve already had that thought, that you’re God’s gift to the world, and you need to rebuke it! You’re not.

God’s gift to the world was His Son. John says of himself, “I am not the one.” His job is finished. He came to show the way, and then step out of the way. John came to initiate baptism as an act of repentance. Only Jesus could fulfill the meaning of baptism with Holy Spirit power, and fire. I wonder why the people who designed our lectionary stopped him at that point, because he had more to say.

He said this is going to be a time of cleaning up your life. Don’t think that He comes to bring sweet peaceful religion. He comes to tear your life apart.

If you’ve ever seen a grinding mill, especially from the perspective of a grain of wheat, it’s a violent process that is required to take the chaff off of the wheat. It’s a hard, grinding process of tearing that seed out of its hard shell, and that is the image John used to describe what Jesus is coming to do for us. To rip us out of our hard shell, and to burn that shell with unquenchable fire!

He wants to clean us up. He wants to bring to life that kernel of hope that God put in us. And to do that He first has to strip away all this garbage that has grown up around us. This is not a pleasant message to Americans today because this is not what most people today are looking for. George Barna’s research makes it clear that this is not the kind of religion most Americans are looking for, a ripping and tearing of your life apart so God can get at the good and throw away the bad.

What people today are looking for today is exactly what Kendall Harmon stated so clearly in his talk yesterday in VA. People are looking for affirmation, not transformation. They are looking for a god who tells them they are alright the way they are and they don’t need to work on their lives, don’t need the hard words of discipline.

When John the Baptist appeared in the desert, he had exactly the opposite message. He said nothing is alright. Everything I see needs to be transformed, renewed by the power of God. His message wasn’t just a sweet, comfortable sermon to the people in church. He turned also to the government. He got right in Herod’s face and said “You’re the worst one of all. You’re supposed to be a leader of these people and you commit flagrant adultery with your own brother’s wife. You should be ashamed!” That’s a pretty risky thing to do. He faced that risk and was thrown in jail.

Herod thought that would be the end of it. Little did he know that he was doing exactly what the Father has already orchestrated. John’s ministry was finished anyway. It wasn’t Herod who moved John out of the way. It was God the Father moving him aside so that God the Son could step forward and begin the ministry that John had prepared the people to receive.

He was baptized for us. And the Holy Spirit descended upon Him visibly, like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son. I am pleased with you.” Do you think God could say the same of us? Do you think He could look at His church and say, “I am fully pleased with you.” No. He can’t. But He wants to. And that is the message we have to keep in front of us. Not to be pleased with ourselves, but to become pleasing to God.

Many people today think they are Christian. According to George Barna, 84% of Americans think they are Christian. What do you think? More importantly, what does God think? I can tell you, in God’s sight, the number is much smaller. There is not a Christian majority in America today. Real Christianity exists only as a faithful remnant. What is seen in the public view is something else.

When you try to make God’s Word conform to your life, what you end up with is not Christianity. It is something else. And that something else is unfortunately what most people have today, because they don’t want to hear words that say “clean up your life” or “look for fire from on high.”

There was a wonderful verse in that first hymn we sang today. “The Father’s splendor clothes the Son with light. The Spirit’s power shakes the church of God. Baptized, we live with God the Three in One.”

It’s time for the church to be shaken up. It’s time for disciples to become once again what the word implies: people who know discipline, people who read the whole Bible, not just the comfortable parts.

Jesus told His disciples, “You will indeed be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.” That means all of it, the Holy Spirit and the fire. “And you will drink of the cup that I must drink.” That was the part they didn’t want to hear. The cup of His suffering. As St. Paul would write years later, we must become like Him in His suffering if we hope to attain to His resurrection. It is only through the path of suffering, discipline, the stripping down and breaking apart of our lives so that God the Holy Spirit can remold a new life according to His will.

I ask you to pray about this today.

-What are you clinging to that you need to let go of?

-What are you pushing away that God is trying to give you?

-What are you running from that God wants to bring to you?

-What are you running toward that you should be rebuking?

Will you pray today for the church? For the whole church? For this body of believers. Will you pray from this Gospel, that we may be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Some of have been. Some of us need to be again. Some of us need to be for the first time. Some of us aren’t sure we want to be. Some of us aren’t sure we are ready to trust God with that, and we need to be encouraged. We need to reconsider the fact that the God who wants to transform us is the same God who formed us in the beginning. He won’t make any mistakes. Will you trust Him? Will you pray today for the Holy Spirit to help you rip out, tear off every part of that hard shell that has inhibited your walk with God, and to cling to everything that God is doing and raising up in you. Hear this Word of God. He comes to give you life. He comes to give you life. Know that it is true. And cry it out to God in prayer.

“O God, hear your church. Cleanse and tend this vine. We are the branches. Jesus is the vine. Our Father in heaven is the one who does the pruning. We yield to His pruning.”

O Lord, I know that there is someone here today who has come with a broken, hurting heart, and they are wondering, “where do I begin, where do I start?” We start at the cross, where we always start. The One who was broken, bruised and died for us can show us how to die to self and begin living for God. Amen.