I’ve often thought that being a “John the Baptist” wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Oh, not the living in the wilderness and eating wild locusts part, but John‘s vocation is very appealing to me. John says clearly and loudly “after me comes one who ranks ahead of me.” John says plainly “I am not he who you are looking for,” and “not me, over there, that’s the guy you want.” John’s vocation, John’s calling is to point to Jesus. John’s job is to be a recruiter for Jesus. God sent John to testify that Jesus is the Son of God, the light of the world. John had always known that God took human form and entered history in the person of Jesus.
Remember that scripture tells us that the two first met when Jesus’ mother Mary visited her kinswoman Elizabeth when both women were pregnant. Mary’s son, Jesus, and Elizabeth’s son, John, were cousins. I like to think they played together as children, struggled together as students, and shared their questions and worries as they grew from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood. I like to think they were confidants as each came to understand his God-given vocation. From before they were born John knew Jesus was sent by God to try to call his people back to Torah observance.
For somewhere along the way God’s perfect creation had gone wrong and was in need of fixing. And that fixing was to be the job of humanity because humans had disobeyed God with their uncontrolled greed. So God came to earth as Jesus to lead the way, to remind people to follow God’s rules, not seek after their own selfish ways. With Jesus came the possibility of forgiveness, healing, mercy, grace, joy, love, freedom, and resurrection. Everything broken and fallen and sinful and diseased is called into salvation by God’s Word, Jesus.
So here is John, pointing his own disciples, pointing us to Jesus. Later, the writer of this Gospel, John the Evangelist, has Jesus tell us plainly, “I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the light.”
As I said, I have often thought that being a John the Baptist wouldn’t be bad at all – – pointing others to Jesus, not bad at all. The trouble comes when instead I try to be Jesus.
At Christmas we all knelt at the manger and adored the Christ child. Then we leave the manger, smiling, our eyes sparkling with twinkling stars, our hearts filled with joy and we run smack into murderous Herod. We do not have to look far or wait long for the sin and injustice of the world to spoil God’s gift.
It was Teresa of Avila who called us to incarnate Christ in our lives and to love the world as Jesus did. Teresa tells us we are to be guided by Jesus’ actions. Teresa was a sixteenth century Spanish mystic and at the end of her life she told her nuns that Christ has no hands but our hands to do compassionate acts in the world. I think the whole WWJD (“What would Jesus do”) movement could be traced back to Teresa. But here’s the rub, here’s the sticking point. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. You and I are only fully human. Our job is to point to Jesus, not to be Jesus.
Here at St. Stephen’s we point to Jesus, we are guided by Christ’s actions, when we feed the community as we do every month and have done for years and years. We are doing Jesus’ ministry when St. Stephen’s volunteers prepare taxes free-of-charge for neighbors whose incomes are low and when we raise money to send missionaries overseas to build bridges with struggling Christians in less prosperous communities. We are incarnating Jesus when we plan to attend the PACT Nehemiah action on March 16 to join with thousands of other people of faith in Miami Dade to call for affordable housing, immigration identity cards, fewer unnecessary arrests, and less gun violence.
But, but … on Thursday I sat at a clergy meeting and heard at least three of the seven people around the table tell us how tired they are. I was reminded of a story I heard about a seminary professor who said that his schedule had gotten insane and his commitments were leaving him absolutely no time for his family. He was run ragged and exhausted when one of his colleagues told him she had some wonderful news to share. He was happy to hear that. He thought maybe she had completed her book or gotten engaged. The colleague insisted on taking this professor to lunch and he agreed to squeeze her in. When they sat down at the restaurant and had ordered their food he said, “Well, well, what’s the good news you have to tell me. She smiled and said, “I want you to know the Messiah has come.” He was a little confused until she added – “and you are not him.” The danger is that we can come to believe that we are Christ’s body in the world and if the world is going to be saved, it is up to us to do it.
In the apocryphal Acts of John, a second century manuscript that didn’t make it into our canonical Bible, there is a story about Jesus dancing with his disciples after they had shared supper in that upper room. I love to think that Jesus dancing was just too scandalous for those who put the Bible together to include. Too bad!
It is reported that as she was dying, Mother Teresa said, “I worked for God all of my life and I know I will soon be dancing in heaven. But I wish I had danced more during my time on earth.” As Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” Amen.