“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light … “I baptize with water [he said]. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” (John 1:6-8, 26-27)
This is the second of two weeks in church where our weekly Gospel readings focus on the person of John the Baptist.
John, as you may well realise, is my favourite Yuletide figure. He turns up in church every year at this time, signifying in his own very special way, the arrival of the ‘silly season’.
That in itself is something of an irony, of course, as John was the most sober of characters. Indeed, I imagine him spinning in his grave at the knowledge that he has somehow become associated with a season best known for frivolity and singing and the over-consumption of alcohol. I think he’d be more comfortable if he were introducing us to Ramadan or some similar period of fasting rather than Christmas!
There is irony in John’s Yuletide associations and yet there is an even greater irony, I believe, in our focus on John today.
As I say, John comes to us every year at this time as do few figures apart from Jesus and His immediate family. The focus of our Christmas readings, and indeed the focus of the New Testament as a whole, is on Jesus, and the supporting cast don’t normally get any sustained attention over a series of weeks.
John is the exception to that rule. This is the second week in a row that our Gospel reading has focused on him and that in itself is ironic, I think, as the great thrust of John’s message in today’s passage, is that our focus should not be on him!
“This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”” (John 1:19-21)
What we get from John today is a list of denials! ‘I am not the Messiah!’ says John. ‘I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet. I am NOT the person you are looking for!’
It’s reminiscent of a scene I remember from one of those early Leslie Nielsen comedies. A fireworks factory has been set on fire and fireworks are going off everywhere as the factory burns down, creating a rather spectacular scene. Out the front of the factory a policeman tries to disperse the crowd, crying out “Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here” as he tries to move people along.
John is a bit like that. “Nothing to see here” seems to have been the very heart of his message, and yet clearly John was a sight to behold!
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” Jesus asks the crowds concerning John – “a reed swaying in the wind?” (Luke 7:24). We might debate about what it was the crowds went out to see, but certainly they went out to see him! They went out in droves, for he was a sight to behold!
And so we have this strange paradox – the man who can’t help but draw attention to himself with his strange clothes, his dishevelled appearance, his distinctive smell and his fiery rhetoric that was distilled in his heartfelt cry “nothing to see here!”
I find this irony to be endemic to the spiritual life. So much of my life, as a clergy person in particular, seems to contain this irony where I’m trying to be heard in order to draw attention to someone else, and I think the clerical robes I wear embody that paradox.
I remember some years ago I was invited to take a Eucharist at another Anglican church (for a women’s fellowship group within that church) and when I showed up there I was shown a note that had been left by the rector saying ‘tell Father Dave he is not to wear any robes’!
Now I understand the rationale of the person who left that note (or at least I think I do). I assume the rationale of the rector was that he didn’t want any pomp and ceremony going on in his church, and he saw robes as ostentatious – perhaps even as a means by which I might try to draw attention to myself!
My understanding of the robes is that they serve exactly the opposite function. Their function is to draw attention away from the priest and point people to Christ.
I don’t think you can escape the fact that in any celebration of the Eucharist the person who presides at the table is playing the role of Christ. When I break the bread and consecrate the cup I am re-enacting the words and actions of Christ, and who am I to pretend to be Christ? That’s why I submerge myself in my robes, in an attempt to bury my personality under those symbols that point beyond me and point to Christ!
The judge in the criminal court wears a wig to remind us that any judgement he makes on us is not coming from him personally. He is simply a conduit for the authority of the state, and his strange dress is meant to remind us of that. Likewise, in my understanding, the special garb I wear as a priest is likewise designed to hide my personality as I play a symbolic role on behalf of the church. And that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to preside at a Eucharist for that other church in my regular clothes. It just felt too presumptuous!
Yes, some people see the robes as being ostentatious and as a way of drawing attention to yourself, and I appreciate that by the time you’re dressed up like the Archbishop of Canterbury you are starting to look something like a king at his coronation. Even so, John the Baptist, as I see it, wore robes too, even if those robes were made of camel’s hair, and his robes did help him get the attention of people so that he could tell them his paradoxical message – ‘I’m not the one you’re looking for’.
I don’t want this sermon on John the Baptist to be hijacked by discussions of historical ecclesiastical debates. Even so, having raised the issue about Eucharistic vestments, I feel I must at least acknowledge the fact that there has been a related debate going on for centuries in the church regarding which direction the priest who is presiding at the Eucharist should face!
Should the priest be facing the rest of the worshipping community or should he have his back to the congregation or be standing somewhere else again? The traditional Catholic practice was indeed to preside with your back to the congregation, and we can appreciate how that might indeed function to divert attention away from personality of the priest.
One story I remember my dear friend Father Elias (a Catholic monk) passing on to me related to what he had been taught about this controversy when he had been in seminary. He said that his teacher had said that he wasn’t sure as to whether the celebrant at the Eucharist should be facing the congregation or give them his back but he was sure that when the sermon was given, the preacher should have his back to the congregation!
I’ve never had the courage to try that. I don’t know how it would go down, though I suspect that the issue of where the preacher stands is far more relevant for those of us at the Protestant end of the Christian spectrum than is the issue of where the celebrant stands at the table.
I read some statistics many years ago that showed how Protestant churches tend to rise and fall in their attendances according to who the preacher was, whereas Catholic churches tended to remain relatively static in their numbers during transitions in their clergy.
The explanation offered was that Protestant worship services focus on the exposition of the word and hence the sermon is at the centre of every meeting. It is the expertise of the preacher, therefore, that is the crucial factor determining attendance! And that is why Protestant congregations, I think, so easily degenerate into personality cults!
And that is why at Holy Trinity no worship service ever climaxes with a sermon. The sermon comes in the middle of our Sunday worship and is just part of the lead-up to the main event each week which is the Eucharist, where the focus is on Christ and not the priest, or at least it should be, for in truth it is hard to escape the trap of the personality cult in any religious environment.
“I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet” – this was the message of John, and I assume that the reason he had to keep repeating this message was because he was dealing with personality cult issues too!
So much of the material we have concerning John depicts him as actively driving people away from himself and towards Jesus (John 3:30). Even so, long after the death of John, and even long after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the New Testament reminds us that there were groups of people still moving about who claimed to be the disciples of John the Baptist! (Acts 19) Indeed, I assume that the reason John’s disclaimers are spelt out so explicitly in the passage that we have this morning is because there were still persons moving about when this Gospel was first published who still considered themselves to be disciples of the Baptist!
“I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet” – it is so easy to let the focus of our faith shift from the centre that is Christ, and yet it is so essential that we keep that focus where it needs to be! For the Christian faith is not about me and it’s not about you and it’s not even about the church triumphant that spans the epochs of human history, for the Christian religion is not fundamentally about us at all!
Karl Barth put it beautifully, saying that the church is no more than the crater that reflects the impact of the coming of Christ in history. That’s not to minimize the role of the church or to trivialise our mission. It is to say that the church is not about us. The church is about Christ and we likewise, if we wish to be Christian people, need to be about Christ.
I’ve spent more time reading the Q’uran lately than the Christian Bible!
That doesn’t sound very good for a Christian priest, does it, but it’s true! I’m not suggesting that I now understand the Q’uran as well as I do the Christian Scriptures. Even so, I have been putting the time into trying to understand it and I can tell you that the comparison between the Q’uran and the Gospels is highly informative!
As I say, I don’t pretend to be an expert in the Q’uran or in Islamic theology but it does become clear to me, the more I read of the Q’uran, that there are significant differences between the two faith traditions.
The obvious point of divergence is Christ, of course, but I don’t think it’s simply a different doctrinal understanding of the identity of Jesus that is the issue. The issue lies deeper. There is, I think, a very different understanding of the nature of revelation and hence of the character of God!
Whereas the Q’uran is the centre of revelation in Islamic thinking, the traditional Christian perspective, as I understand it, is that the central revelation of God is not a book at all (be it our book or theirs) but rather the historical person of Jesus Christ!
The Christian focus on the historical person of Jesus likewise means that our faith is not fundamentally about eternal truths and doctrines – doctrines of salvation or of judgement or of atonement, etc. – as important as all these might be. The focus is again on the historical person of Jesus rather than on the theories surrounding Him.
This is very much reflected in the official creeds of the church which (particularly in their earliest forms) contain very little doctrine.
I believe in God the Father Almighty … And in Jesus Christ, his son, our Lord, who was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, but on the third day ..
This is the Christian faith – an assertion of a series of historical facts about a particular person – Jesus! That’s not to say that our doctrines of the eternal truths of justice, compassion and mercy are unimportant, but they are secondary – secondary to the fundamental revelation of God which is the person of Jesus Christ Himself!
And that’s why one of the most fundamental acts of Christian worship is story-telling. Because it’s not fundamentally about us or about what we do, the best we can do when we meet together for worship is to tell stories about Him!
Every week we tell a story through the Eucharist – a story of blood and suffering, of living and self-giving. And every year around this time we gather to tell that same story from a different angle. Young and old together, we gather to tell that same old story of Christ coming into our world, tiny and vulnerable. And inevitably, in the middle of that great drama we find the story of John – that eccentric locust-eating desert figure who drew enormous crowds to himself, simply to point them all away from himself and towards Jesus.
“I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” (John 1:26-28)
First preached by Father Dave Smith at Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill, on Sunday the 14th of December, 2014.
Rev. David B. Smith
Parish priest, community worker, martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of four. www.FatherDave.org
