Epiphany IV - Sunday January 29th, 2006
(by Rev. Glenn Brown)
There is an intensity in John’s account of Jesus, the kind perhaps felt only by prophets of old – the deep conviction that God has been trying, and continues to try, to connect with us. For John, for Christians, Jesus is that ultimate effort. Note that I say “is,” not “was.” Even though the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, continues with us to this day – Spirit, that personal, internal communication from and with God – yet the most important decision we make on a daily basis is how we understand God’s will for us by way of Jesus’ example, the God-whom-we-can-see.
Of course John does not begin his gospel by talking about Jesus by that name. Instead he talks about the Word. This is perhaps difficult to understand. The great essayist and humourist G.K. Chesterton offers us some help by talking about how Dickens composed his books. Dickens had a Word he wanted to communicate, a Word about the nature of British society in his time and the terrible effects it was having on the unfortunate. Perhaps it would make more sense if we called his Word a “message,” or a “theme.” But Chesterton calls it a “Word,” and says that all the descriptive words which flowed from Dickens were mere expressions of that Word; Dickens told stories to explain that Word, to convince us of that Word. His famous works are not the essays stating in principle what he wanted us to hear; he told stories. Dickens tested the stories, by writing them in installments, then going out to tell the stories in public, to analyze the popular reaction to the stereotypical names he designed for his characters, to the interactions among his characters. He listened for sympathies and antipathies, and molded the portions of his stories as a result of the interactions with his audiences.
What God has done is call people to live out their lives as story, because we understand story better than we understand abstract principles. The stories of Jesus and his followers are perhaps not nearly as dramatic as the stories of some prophets. Hosea, for example, was instructed to find a hooker and marry her, and to have children and give them names that reflected God’s attitude toward Israel, such as “not my people.” That is dramatic.
By contrast, the stories of Jesus grab our interest without making us think that he is crazy. We get to hear some of his teachings, too, but we also get to hear about the contexts, so that we can understand them aright.
So if we can benefit from Chesterton’s explanation, the Word of God is the basic message God wants people to understand, about the purpose of our lives and how to keep from living otherwise, from wasting our time, from doing harm. And that Word was, and more importantly, is Jesus. John calls him the light that shall never be extinguished. No matter how dark the world, when you get near that light, you are near God.
Two weeks ago I talked about Zechariah’s call to the whole world to worship God, in which he reminded Israelites of what prophets long before him had long said, that the result of worshiping God is treating other people well and properly. I think that sometimes people, and religions, think that the new covenant in Christ which we celebrate in today’s Communion service, is that we are to worship Jesus for himself. I hope that you have never been given that impression here. The ultimate result of worshipping God is active love for our fellow humans, the animals, and all creation; our failure to love God or ourselves results in such fundamental violations of Creation that our very existence is threatened. The same result must be expected from worship of Christ. We benefit from what he did on the cross and in his resurrection, but having received the benefit we are not to stop there. Jesus was the Kingdom preacher, the one who insisted that the effective work of God is present in us and among us now, and that was the point of his ministry. We need that light to keep burning for us because there is so much that happens in our lives that it is easy to lose sight of what is really important or to routinize it to the point at which it is effectively set aside.
The more I get to know people in the congregation, the more keenly I am aware that many of you do many things to benefit those around you, near and far. And I am sure that your religion motivates that.
Last week my wife and I got a phone call from World Vision, expressing concern that, while people had responded well to the Tsunami crisis, the funding for the usual on-going programs were suffering. That’s probably true for the church, too. I don’t know that it is possible for us to contemplate all that needs doing in this world without comparing the benefits of them with the benefits of funding the church. And there are so many worthwhile charities!
Research continues to show that the largest contributors in time and money to non-religious charities, are the people who also support the religious ones. That is, the worship of God actively promotes and enhances service to our fellow humans and Creation. I suppose that there are logical reasons that we cannot call this cause and effect, but the fact of the correlation is undeniable.
I think that, if we wanted to really help encourage others to serve the needs of the world well, we would say, “Worship God first, and then see what the power of God can do through you!” I keep looking for analogies, but not finding them. It is, as far as I can see, a unique religious message.
As a demonstration, I’d like to try something new: let us mount a fund-raiser in the community, to benefit someone other than the church. I know, we face the same worry as World Vision: encourage too much giving to one project, and you endanger the funding of the others. But if the worship of God leads to better service, then surely part of our responsibilities for evangelism is to encourage the community to serve others better. Let us try a project to see if we can succeed in it.
I am going to read a segment from Stephen Lewis’ 2005 Massey Lectures, “Race against Time.” Now, Lewis has a foundation which gets at this most particularly. Do we have people in the congregation who would like to design one or more fund-raisers to the community, to support that particular effort?
