Who turned on the light?
Text: Matthew 3:13-17
In doing my research this week, I came across something that reminded me of the challenges of climbing into this pulpit Sunday after Sunday. A well-respected, highly-educated teacher of the faith got up into the pulpit and said “I don’t know how to preach.” Chances are most of his congregation would look at him incredulously and wondered what had gotten into him. After all, William Willimon is considered to be one of the finest preachers living in North America today. I have books of his stuff on my own shelves. He has made a career on the craft of preaching for over thirty years!
Yet, here he was, from a pulpit, saying, “I don’t know how to preach.” In fact, he says that after 30 years, he says that he knows less about preaching a sermon than when he first began. I’m only eleven years into this, and I’m starting to understand what he’s talking about. When it comes to communicating, there are so many distractions and obstacles that seem to get in the way.
It isn’t for lack of trying, to be sure. When I work on my sermon, I sit down, do my homework, and do my best each time I get into the pulpit. The same goes for the Bible studies that I’ve done. In the fall of 2006, I did a study here on the Book of Revelation… Many of you came out to it to try and get a clearer understanding, but probably left with more questions than you did going in. In some ways that was intentional, as Revelation is such a complex book that is so deeply tied to the time in which it was written, but at the same time some of it wasn’t. We do our best…
When it really comes down to it, no matter how experienced we might be, we don’t really know how to preach… It’s hard to hear the things of God. How can we talk to someone about God? How do we speak in such a way that people don’t just hear about God, but are brought to God? We don’t know how to ensure that everyone gets it all, one-hundred percent of the time. But then again, we know that. As human beings we’ve learned that sitting in a pew or a chair and listening alone is one of the least efficient ways to really absorb, comprehend, and be changed to take on God’s service. As William Willmon commented, it is just about impossible to get people to truly “get” a sermon.
But sometimes, we do. Sometimes something clicks, a light goes on, there’s a “bolt from the blue” and suddenly everything makes sense. Despite everything else, we really do “get it.”
I wish I could take credit for those moments, but I can’t. There have been times where I have gotten up into this pulpit, and preached something that I meant to be good but isn’t. The week has been exceptionally busy, I’ve suffered from a mild case writers’ block, and just have not had the genuine time to work on it. It’s poorly worded, not well researched, and frankly… if I were listening to it myself I might start counting bricks behind the cross! There have been times, when I have felt that I have not done my best, where I feel that I the “it” that I personally was trying to reach in this sermon just wasn’t there… and yet, much to my surprise someone comes up to me afterwards and says “Thank you! That was wonderful, I really needed to hear that! I got it!”
Then I go back and look over my sermon notes and say to myself “got what?” It really wasn’t that good at all! Who turned on the light? It wasn’t me!
There is a story of one minister in the United States who decided to take a Sabbatical. He took some time off to do some personal study and learning… but instead of going to some seminary and pouring over books, he toured across the country, visiting various churches, going to their worship services. After visiting some 30 churches, his response was “I think it’s a miracle that anybody ever gets anything!”
And yet, somewhere along the way, we do. A miracle happens… Suddenly, God turns on the light… and we get it.
The scene from Matthew’s gospel is one… John at the river, baptising…
We don’t know how long John had been doing this. Perhaps related to the splinter group of the Essenes, John had taken their practice of ritual washing to the unwashed masses. He talked about preparing the way for God. “Let every heart, prepare him room!” Unlike the Essenes, be believed the message was for everyone… calling people to come out and to prepare for God.
But it seems that John himself was not quite prepared for when it really did happen.
He had gotten into a routine, preaching “Messiah’s coming! Messiah’s coming!” They even go so far to interrupt his sermon and ask him… “so are you the Messiah?” Yup, people didn’t get John’s sermons either, so maybe I don’t feel so bad about it.
John’s reply is telling… “No, I am not the Messiah… don’t make that comparison… I’m not even worthy enough to fetch or carry his sandals… I baptize with water, his is the gift of the Holy Spirit… he will turn on the light.”
It’s as if John is proclaiming the Messiah, and yet when Jesus shows up, as Matthew tells it, John is totally unprepared. Jesus appears amongst people who felt themselves to be sinners, to be baptized in the Jordan. He doesn’t get baptized without an argument. When he shows up, John says, "What are you doing here?" It was a silly question; Jesus came to be baptized. And John said, "Sorry, but you've got it backwards. You should be baptizing me, not me baptizing you." But Jesus insisted. "We must do this," he said, "because it will fulfill all righteousness."
And then, suddenly, John gets it. The heavens are opened, the vision of the dove, the Voice… that veil is suddenly pulled back, and we get a glimpse of it all. The light goes on, because God turns it on. John spends all of his time preaching and anticipating and expecting… and yet when God actually shows up, he is about as prepared as the rest of us… but now he gets it.
We anticipate God doing a new thing… we expect it, we seek it out, and we hope for it… and yet when it happens, even those who are anticipating it are caught just as off guard.
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
Our task is much like John the Baptist... to prepare... to open ourselves to the possibility that God can and does actively show up in our lives... We just may not be ready for it. As much as we might think of ourselves or as others as seekers, or people looking for answers, the hard truth is that we don’t find the answer ourselves. Answers find us… and we ask, “who turned on the light?”
As Presbyterians, we baptize babies… Why? There are some good arguments against it: a baby can’t believe the Apostles’ Creed, can’t think theology, and isn’t really aware of the Ten Commandments. Yet because of this a baby or a young child is utterly dependent on the grace of God. If this baby is going to get back to God, it’s going to take a miracle… but then again, that’s the idea.
We baptize in promise, expectation. God will work in this child’s life… we may not know how or when, and we can’t measure or quantify that… but we can affirm that God will work in this child’s life. So we baptize anyone, any age, into the same promise… trusting that at some point, somehow, God will turn on the light. As a church, what we are trying to do is provide as many opportunities for that as possible… but when it comes down to it… God is the one who turns on the light…
I think I get what Will was saying when he said to his congregation “I can’t preach. You can’t hear” He’s right. I can’t talk you into the faith. I can try to explain Jesus, I can try to talk about new ways of hearing the gospel… but when it comes down to it, revelation, epiphany, the moment when we really “get it” and see God in our midst is a gift. It’s a gift from God, always has been, always will be. Those life changing experiences that we have from listening, hearing or doing, are from God and God alone. Maybe what we need to do is be grateful, and say a prayer to the one who turned on the light.
Amen.
Note: Special thanks to Willliam Willimon's Pulpit Resource for providing the spark, and help turn on the light for me. -JC
In doing my research this week, I came across something that reminded me of the challenges of climbing into this pulpit Sunday after Sunday. A well-respected, highly-educated teacher of the faith got up into the pulpit and said “I don’t know how to preach.” Chances are most of his congregation would look at him incredulously and wondered what had gotten into him. After all, William Willimon is considered to be one of the finest preachers living in North America today. I have books of his stuff on my own shelves. He has made a career on the craft of preaching for over thirty years!
Yet, here he was, from a pulpit, saying, “I don’t know how to preach.” In fact, he says that after 30 years, he says that he knows less about preaching a sermon than when he first began. I’m only eleven years into this, and I’m starting to understand what he’s talking about. When it comes to communicating, there are so many distractions and obstacles that seem to get in the way.
It isn’t for lack of trying, to be sure. When I work on my sermon, I sit down, do my homework, and do my best each time I get into the pulpit. The same goes for the Bible studies that I’ve done. In the fall of 2006, I did a study here on the Book of Revelation… Many of you came out to it to try and get a clearer understanding, but probably left with more questions than you did going in. In some ways that was intentional, as Revelation is such a complex book that is so deeply tied to the time in which it was written, but at the same time some of it wasn’t. We do our best…
When it really comes down to it, no matter how experienced we might be, we don’t really know how to preach… It’s hard to hear the things of God. How can we talk to someone about God? How do we speak in such a way that people don’t just hear about God, but are brought to God? We don’t know how to ensure that everyone gets it all, one-hundred percent of the time. But then again, we know that. As human beings we’ve learned that sitting in a pew or a chair and listening alone is one of the least efficient ways to really absorb, comprehend, and be changed to take on God’s service. As William Willmon commented, it is just about impossible to get people to truly “get” a sermon.
But sometimes, we do. Sometimes something clicks, a light goes on, there’s a “bolt from the blue” and suddenly everything makes sense. Despite everything else, we really do “get it.”
I wish I could take credit for those moments, but I can’t. There have been times where I have gotten up into this pulpit, and preached something that I meant to be good but isn’t. The week has been exceptionally busy, I’ve suffered from a mild case writers’ block, and just have not had the genuine time to work on it. It’s poorly worded, not well researched, and frankly… if I were listening to it myself I might start counting bricks behind the cross! There have been times, when I have felt that I have not done my best, where I feel that I the “it” that I personally was trying to reach in this sermon just wasn’t there… and yet, much to my surprise someone comes up to me afterwards and says “Thank you! That was wonderful, I really needed to hear that! I got it!”
Then I go back and look over my sermon notes and say to myself “got what?” It really wasn’t that good at all! Who turned on the light? It wasn’t me!
There is a story of one minister in the United States who decided to take a Sabbatical. He took some time off to do some personal study and learning… but instead of going to some seminary and pouring over books, he toured across the country, visiting various churches, going to their worship services. After visiting some 30 churches, his response was “I think it’s a miracle that anybody ever gets anything!”
And yet, somewhere along the way, we do. A miracle happens… Suddenly, God turns on the light… and we get it.
The scene from Matthew’s gospel is one… John at the river, baptising…
We don’t know how long John had been doing this. Perhaps related to the splinter group of the Essenes, John had taken their practice of ritual washing to the unwashed masses. He talked about preparing the way for God. “Let every heart, prepare him room!” Unlike the Essenes, be believed the message was for everyone… calling people to come out and to prepare for God.
But it seems that John himself was not quite prepared for when it really did happen.
He had gotten into a routine, preaching “Messiah’s coming! Messiah’s coming!” They even go so far to interrupt his sermon and ask him… “so are you the Messiah?” Yup, people didn’t get John’s sermons either, so maybe I don’t feel so bad about it.
John’s reply is telling… “No, I am not the Messiah… don’t make that comparison… I’m not even worthy enough to fetch or carry his sandals… I baptize with water, his is the gift of the Holy Spirit… he will turn on the light.”
It’s as if John is proclaiming the Messiah, and yet when Jesus shows up, as Matthew tells it, John is totally unprepared. Jesus appears amongst people who felt themselves to be sinners, to be baptized in the Jordan. He doesn’t get baptized without an argument. When he shows up, John says, "What are you doing here?" It was a silly question; Jesus came to be baptized. And John said, "Sorry, but you've got it backwards. You should be baptizing me, not me baptizing you." But Jesus insisted. "We must do this," he said, "because it will fulfill all righteousness."
And then, suddenly, John gets it. The heavens are opened, the vision of the dove, the Voice… that veil is suddenly pulled back, and we get a glimpse of it all. The light goes on, because God turns it on. John spends all of his time preaching and anticipating and expecting… and yet when God actually shows up, he is about as prepared as the rest of us… but now he gets it.
We anticipate God doing a new thing… we expect it, we seek it out, and we hope for it… and yet when it happens, even those who are anticipating it are caught just as off guard.
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
Our task is much like John the Baptist... to prepare... to open ourselves to the possibility that God can and does actively show up in our lives... We just may not be ready for it. As much as we might think of ourselves or as others as seekers, or people looking for answers, the hard truth is that we don’t find the answer ourselves. Answers find us… and we ask, “who turned on the light?”
As Presbyterians, we baptize babies… Why? There are some good arguments against it: a baby can’t believe the Apostles’ Creed, can’t think theology, and isn’t really aware of the Ten Commandments. Yet because of this a baby or a young child is utterly dependent on the grace of God. If this baby is going to get back to God, it’s going to take a miracle… but then again, that’s the idea.
We baptize in promise, expectation. God will work in this child’s life… we may not know how or when, and we can’t measure or quantify that… but we can affirm that God will work in this child’s life. So we baptize anyone, any age, into the same promise… trusting that at some point, somehow, God will turn on the light. As a church, what we are trying to do is provide as many opportunities for that as possible… but when it comes down to it… God is the one who turns on the light…
I think I get what Will was saying when he said to his congregation “I can’t preach. You can’t hear” He’s right. I can’t talk you into the faith. I can try to explain Jesus, I can try to talk about new ways of hearing the gospel… but when it comes down to it, revelation, epiphany, the moment when we really “get it” and see God in our midst is a gift. It’s a gift from God, always has been, always will be. Those life changing experiences that we have from listening, hearing or doing, are from God and God alone. Maybe what we need to do is be grateful, and say a prayer to the one who turned on the light.
Amen.
Note: Special thanks to Willliam Willimon's Pulpit Resource for providing the spark, and help turn on the light for me. -JC
Comments
Great thought. We keep you in our prayers so that you will be filled with joy and expectation every time you step into the pulpit. Not an easy feat!