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Sermons
Putting On The Right Uniform
Isaiah
11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12
Rev. Kenneth M. Locke
The Downtown Presbyterian Church
If we were at the airport trying to
catch a plane, and we were going towards the terminal and we came to a table
where someone was wearing ratty sneakers, beat-up jeans and an “I Love
Rock & Roll” t-shirt and the person said, “Please place all
metal items on the table, hold out your arms” and began running a wand
over us, would we quietly go along with that?
Probably not. We’d say, “Hey, hey, who are
you? What are you doing?”
But if we came to that table and
someone in dress shoes, dark slacks, a white shirt and dark tie who was wearing
a dark jacket with “security” written on it and badges and patches
and their name on a name-tag, we’d let them do it. We’d empty our pockets and let them run
the wand over us.
The difference is the uniform. We respect the authority of the uniform. If they’re wearing the right uniform
they’re legit and we need to listen to them.
The Pharisees and the Scribes have come
to hear John the Baptist. These are
powerful men, used to being treated with respect. How do you think they felt when John said,
“You scum, you hypocrites. You are
lower than a snake. Who told you to flee
the coming fire of God’s wrath?”
I doubt if they liked that very
much.
But John isn’t just anybody. John is preaching in the wilderness SE of
Jerusalem, where great prophets used to roam.
He eats wild honey and locusts so he’s not dependent on
anyone. And John wears camel hair and
leather suspenders like Elijah and the famous prophets used to do. In other words, John is wearing the uniform
of a Prophet and the religious leaders recognize it.
John doesn’t have to worry about
gently preaching the truth in love. John
is wearing the uniform of the prophets and that gives him the authority to say
whatever he wants.
Today that wouldn’t go over very
well. We wouldn’t grant authority
to someone who looked like Grizzly Adams and called us all vipers. If you are going to talk like that you had
better have a different uniform.
If a stranger came to us and said,
“The Downtown Presbyterian Church is resting on its laurels. You’re not doing enough ministry,” we would turn away.
But if someone came to us and said,
“Wow, look at all the good ministry The Downtown
Presbyterian Church is doing.
You’re feeding the homeless and helping them get bus tickets and
medicine. You’re giving them hope. You’re reaching out to the business
community and the downtown residents with your Bible studies and your
services. You’re helping people in
the arts understand they can have faith and believe in God and still have
artistic integrity.” Well, I think
we’d be glad to hear that.
And then if they said, “But be
careful, don’t rest on your laurels.
You know God can raise up children of Abraham
from stones and God can do good works without any help from us. So don’t start thinking you’re
doing enough and it’s OK to sit back and relax. As long as mentally ill people have to stand in
soup lines and scrounge to get their medicine, as long as businessmen and women
go home at night and ignore their families and as long as there are gifted
artists who don’t see how art and religion can mix, as long as those
conditions exist there is still ministry to do.”
If someone said that then we would be
more willing to listen. We would listen
because they had earned our trust by recognizing the good we are doing and by
speaking encouraging words in love.
Putting on the uniform of a positive and trusting relationship would
give them authority.
There are people who need to hear
God’s message spoken with the authority of encouragement and love. And God is calling us to be their
prophets. God is calling us to stand in
the wilderness of our culture and the wilderness of broken lives and proclaim
the vision of a peaceful kingdom where enemies sit next to each other in love
and where the government is on the side of the poor. You and I are called to be John the Baptists
of our day.
Whether it is John speaking the message
with all the authority of an Old Testament prophet or it is you and I speaking
with the authority of a loving relationship the message is
the same. Jesus is coming. Be ready.
Bear fruit worthy of Jesus’ followers and sorrow for our
sins. Help create the peaceful
kingdom.
And what does that Kingdom look like?
Well, let me tell you what it
doesn’t look like. It
doesn’t look like our culture today.
If you asked me to give you three signs of the decay of our culture I
would say this: the first is the TV show “Desperate
Housewives.” I watched about 30
minutes of it the other night and had to turn it off. Friends accusing each other
of theft, a young man running over a woman with a car and showing no remorse, a
teenage girl encouraging her mother to have a one-night stand. Newsweek Magazine called Desperate Housewives
“
Another example is the new video game about shooting
President Kennedy. Taking a national and
personal tragedy and turning it into an amusing past-time; what does that say
about our regard for human life?
A third example is what I saw last week at the
construction site next door. Two black
men were down in a hole shoveling dirt into a large scooper and two white men
were standing at the top of the hole, supervising, with their hands in their
pockets.
It wasn’t slave conditions and I’m sure
the two black men were being paid market wages, but still it was two black men
in a hole shoveling dirt and two white men supervising, with their hands in
their pockets.
That’s not the peaceful kingdom people
protested and marched and went to jail for.
So if the peaceful kingdom
doesn’t look like our culture, what does it look like? What is the vision of the future we need to
hold out to people?
In the peaceful Kingdom no one has to
go from church to church scrounging money for medicine. In the peaceful Kingdom the mentally ill and
the sane sit in comfort and talk to each other.
If you noticed the absolutely wretched smell in the ladies’
restroom last week come talk to me about it and I’ll tell you about the
mentally ill homeless woman who did it.
In the peaceful Kingdom those accidents won’t happen.
In the peaceful Kingdom the Nashville
Domestic Violence center won’t come and ask us for meeting space because
we won’t need a Domestic Violence center.
In the peaceful Kingdom there
won’t be studies about economic disparities between men and women and
white and black and brown because sexism and racism will be a forgotten
memory.
This is the vision people are looking
for. This is the dream people want but
they need someone to articulate it for them.
They need a prophet who cares about them to share that dream with them
and encourage them to build it up.
They need someone to tell them Jesus
loves them, and Jesus is coming.
People are curious. They know Jesus was born in a manger but they
don’t know the rest of the story.
God wants us to tell them about the baby who grew into a savior living
and dying and being raised for us.
People need to hear it, and
they’ll hear it when we’re wearing the uniform of love. They’ll hear it when we’re taking
John’s message and Isaiah’s message and showing it to them, living
it for them, the way Jesus lived his life for us.
By putting on the uniform of Christ
himself, the uniform of love and kindness and healing, people will hear our
message.
Friends, in these few wilderness weeks
before Christmas, when people are desperately seeking a vision for living and
they’re buying whatever vision the false authorities of stores and
catalogues are selling, let’s put on the uniform of love and with
authority share the vision of the peaceful Kingdom with our brothers and
sisters. Just as Jesus shared it with
us, let us joyfully share it with them.
Amen.
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