Tag: Christian witness

“Mixed Messages,” (Matthew 11:28-30; 16:24-26; Mark 6:30-37)

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

Here’s a trivia question for anyone who is a Beatles’ fan.  Can you name a Beatles’ song that talks about preaching?  There may be more than one, but the one I’m aware of is “Eleanor Rigby.”   One verse of that song says, “Father McKenzie, writing the words to a sermon that no one will hear.  No one comes near…”  And then comes the haunting refrain “all the lonely people, where do they all come from?”  Where do all the lonely people in the world come from?  Great question and I don’t know the answer.  But I know to whom they come.  They come to the church.

Theologian Frederick Buechner says it’s not the presence of God in our lives that keeps us coming back to church; it’s the absence of God, the hunger for spiritual food to fill the God-shaped hole in our lives.  We come looking for the rest and renewal Jesus promises in Matthew 11:28-30.  Our weary souls leap for joy when we hear Jesus say, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Where do we sign up for that R&R Jesus?

But hold the phone before you get too excited.  Just five short chapters later in Matthew that offer seems to have expired as we hear “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matt. 16:24-25)  An easy yoke or take up your cross?  Which is it Jesus – we’re getting mixed messages here!   Almost makes me want to set up an empty chair and have a little imaginary chat with Jesus about this seeming contradiction, but then I realized that gig has already been tried and it didn’t exactly make anyone’s day.   And to make matters worse, my research tells me that the verses about rest and the easy yoke appear only in this passage from Matthew.  None of the other gospels include it, but the part about self denial and taking up one’s cross, that appears in Mark and Luke also, and Matthew and Luke both have it twice in their gospels to make sure we don’t miss it.  And Jesus certainly walks that walk; so the Scriptures are clear that we have to take sacrifice and service to others seriously if we intend to be followers of Jesus.

Which makes me ask again, “where’s the rest for weary laborers in Christ’s vineyard?”  We hear the message loud and clear, deny oneself – serve others – be a servant of all.  We want to obey and follow, but we’re tired Jesus.  We’ve been at this church thing a long time and it often seems hopeless.  We feel empty, inadequate, and unable to keep our own soul and body together, let alone respond to the needs of all the lonely, hungry people – there must be 5000 of them!!!!

Where do they all come from?  Where do we all come from?  Empty nesters trying to cope with houses that are suddenly too quiet, kids in new schools searching for real friends, caregivers for the sick, single parents trying to be breadwinners and heads of household, the underemployed and unemployed, those without purpose and passion.  Some of us are struggling with addictions, with problems of aging. Some of us are victims of bullies or peer pressure.  Some of us are grieving the death of lifelong partners.  All the lonely people.

One of the other things I wish Jesus hadn’t said is that “the poor will be with you always.”  (Mt. 26:11, Mk. 14:7)  But there is no historical evidence that he was wrong about that.  I learned recently that even in the affluent suburb close to my home the number of lonely, hungry people is dramatically increasing.  That shouldn’t surprise me, but the numbers did.  750 people per month on average are coming for assistance to the local ecumenical food pantry.  15% of the kids in our suburban school district are on free and reduced lunches, and in two of our school buildings that number is over 50%.  And we know the problems are much worse in urban areas and vastly worse in other parts of the human family around the world.

Where do all those people in need come from and how can we possibly feed them all?   That’s the question Jesus’ disciples also ask in the familiar story in Mark 6:30-37.  Jesus recognizes that the disciples need a break from the ministry they are doing; so he takes them off to a deserted place for some rest, or so he thinks.  But apparently someone tweeted or texted their destination because there’s a whole crowd of lonely people waiting for Jesus when they arrive, hungry for his words and his healing presence.  Mark tells us they look like a bunch of sheep without a shepherd, and Jesus of course has compassion on them and begins to teach them many things.   And when it begins to grow late and folks are getting hungry, the disciples suggest they send the crowds off to McDonalds or Chipotle to fend for themselves.  But Jesus looks the disciples right in the eye as only Jesus can look at you, and he says, “YOU give them something to eat.”

“What?  You must be kidding Jesus!  It would take a week or more wages to feed this crowd.  We don’t have that kind of money.”  (That’s a loose translation)  But Jesus says, “How many loaves have you?  Go and see.” (6:38)

There is a story in John Westerhoff’s book, Will Our Children Have Faith; about a young couple who had everything in life except the thing they wanted the most.  They loved children and desperately wanted to have a family of their own.  But no matter how hard they tried or how many fertility specialists they saw, their sorrow grew with each miscarriage and each passing year of unanswered prayers.  Through their years of frustration and disappointment and anger, the person who supported them most through that lonely journey was their parish priest, Father John.  He counseled them and prayed with them and walked their path with them each step of the way.  And then the miracle happened.  When Samantha conceived and was able to give birth to a beautiful baby boy there was no question what they would name him.  He was baptized “John,” in honor of the faithful priest who delighted in seeing the little boy grow into the curious toddler who warmed Father John’s heart with his smiles and giggles every Sunday morning.

When Johnny was about two and a half he was out early one morning with his mother, taking the family dog out for his morning exercise.  The dog chased a squirrel into the neighbor’s yard, and Samantha went after him.  In those two minutes Johnny toddled over into the driveway behind the family car just as his father came rushing out of the house late for work.  Tom, unaware Johnny was behind the car backed over his son and killed him instantly.

Father John came to the house as soon as he heard the tragic news and found Tom and Samantha in utter and inconsolable despair sitting on the bed holding each other as they wept.  Father John didn’t know what to do or say.  No words seemed able to touch the depths of the devastation these grieving parents were engulfed in; so the priest just sat beside them on the bed and cried with them.

A couple of days after he conducted the hardest funeral of his life, Father John stopped by the home to see how Tom and Samantha were doing.  He was dreading the visit because he felt that he had been totally inadequate in his pastoral care of them on the darkest day of their lives.  So when he reluctantly rang the doorbell he was bowled over when Samantha greeted him warmly and threw her arms around him.  She thanked him profusely for all that he had done for them.  He said, “But I didn’t do anything.  I didn’t know what to say.  I just sat there and cried.”  She said, “You gave us all you had, and it was enough.”

When Jesus sends the disciples out to see how many loaves they have to feed the multitude, he doesn’t ask them to give more than they have, just all that they have.  He says, “Go see what you have and bring it to me.”  And when they surrender meager five loaves and two fish to him, they must have been thinking there was no way even Jesus could feed over 5000 people with five loaves and two fish.

But they suspended their doubts and gave him all they had, and when Jesus takes it and blesses it, not only is it enough to feed the multitude until they are satisfied, there’s enough leftovers to feed the next batch of lonely, hungry pilgrims already coming down the road.

I played a tough golf course several years ago and laughed when I looked down at one of the sprinkler heads on a long par 5 hole.  I knew I was a long way from the green, but where I expected to see the number of yards from that point to the green, instead there were these words from, “All You Got.”

That’s what Jesus gave for us, and what he asks for us in return.  I saw a piece of wisdom on Facebook recently that said, “When the going gets tough, we have three choices.  We can give up, give in, or give it all we’ve got.”

Did you notice at the Olympics that they never give out any medals for running the 99 yard dash?  To give all we’ve got means to finish the race, to stay with the mission of meeting the needs of the hungry and lonely people among us for as long as it takes.  I’ve been looking for years in my Bible for the word “retirement.”  It isn’t there because as long as we have breath we can give whatever we’ve got, all we’ve got.

We can’t do that if we are fearful and attached to things that don’t satisfy.  When Jesus asks us to deny ourselves, what he invites us to surrender is our false sense of self that is defined by our resume or our grade cards or our trophy case or our worldly possessions.  Those things have no lasting value, but the eternal peace and rest that comes from following Jesus can never be taken away.

The secret when we feel weary and overwhelmed by the needs around us and within us is to know that God doesn’t expect us to give more than we have.  That would be unfair, and we do not serve an unjust God.  But I promise you, in Christ’s name, that if we entrust God with all we have, our meager loaves and fishes will be more than enough.

(A sermon preached at Jerome United Methodist Church, Plain City, Ohio, September 2, 2012)

 

5-Hour or Eagle Energy?, Mark 1:29-39; Isaiah 40:21-31

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

Someone once compared ministry to being in a tank of piranhas where nobody wants much of you, but everyone just wants a little piece of your time.  That is also a great metaphor for life.  Who are the piranhas in your life – kids, parents, boss, teachers, students, the IRS, Facebook friends, customers, clients, telemarketers, the church, charitable organizations, starving children in Somalia, spouse—all of the above?  Jesus had the piranha problem often.  Mark tells us in the very first chapter of his Gospel that Jesus is going around doing his thing – casting out demons, healing the sick, teaching and preaching, and one morning he needs a break from the demands of his life so much that he goes off before daybreak by himself to pray (Mark 1:35).  But his serenity break doesn’t last long.  The disciples track him down and try to lay a guilt trip on him.  “Everyone is searching for you,” they say.  Ever feel that way?

Sometimes we flee from the piranha tank to get away from it all at some popular vacation destination, only to realize when we get there that a million other tourists had the same idea.  Modern technology doesn’t help.  Being connected to the world 24/7 isn’t how our creator intended for us to be wired.  We grow faint and weary from information overload, from legitimate demands on our time, and from too many needs we want to meet and too little energy, time and money to go around.

Jesus “went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”  That sentence speaks volumes to me about coping with modern day life stressors.  First, finding a deserted place is darn near impossible today.  Even at home we have televisions in every room and the omnipresent cell phone, iPod, iPad, or the communication device du jour constantly within easy reach.  If you don’t think you’re addicted, ask yourself how you feel when there’s no Wi-Fi close by or no bars on your phone.  Or, have you ever realized you’ve left home without your phone and feel naked without it?  Secondly, if Jesus needed time alone now and then, why would we ever delude ourselves into thinking that we don’t?

I love the interplay among the lectionary texts for February 5th even though I’m not sure how to resolve the tension between them.  In I Corinthians (9:16-23) Paul tells us he has made himself “a slave to all” and has “become all things to all people.”  If that doesn’t sound like a sure fire formula for burn out, what does?  By contrast when the disciples find Jesus and interrupt his prayer time with a plea for him to meet the needs of the teeming masses, Jesus answers, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do” (Mk. 1:38).  Jesus isn’t distracted from his primary mission and purpose by the demands or desires of others.  A more dramatic example of that focus occurs in Luke 9:60 where Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (See also Matt. 8:22).  Jesus clearly knows what his priorities are and how to say “no,” even to legitimate, heart-rending needs around him.  Remember that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but he is also fully-human like us and understands our limitations.

Competing commitments muddy human decision-making waters all the time.  If every choice of how to spend our time, money and energy was a no brainer between a good and bad option, no problem, we could all do it.  But it’s rarely that easy.  I wrote a short story for an English class way back in my undergraduate days at Ohio State.  The story was about a father who chose to spend little time with his family, but it wasn’t the common workaholic, materialistic-driven absentee dad version of that tale.  My variation on the theme was that this father was so busy donating his time to good causes at his church and in his community that he was hardly ever home when his children were awake and had little energy left over for any quality time with his spouse.  My English prof didn’t like the premise of the story.  He thought it would be more effective if the option between good and bad life choices was more clearly drawn.  40 years later, I still think choosing between two worthy causes is more common and much harder to do than opting for something that is obviously the more noble of two forks in the road.

Now the “so what” question.  What does this all mean for 21st century Christians caught on the treadmill of life that just keeps going faster and faster?  Where’s the emergency red button that stops the world so we can get off?   And if you think this is a new problem for our over-stimulated generation, Google “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.”  That’s the title of a musical and movie made in the early 1960’s about exactly what the title says and what Mark wrote about over 2000 years ago.

Interestingly enough, the problem is even older than that.  The Hebrew text (Isaiah 40) for this Sunday, written some 500 years before Jesus’ time, addresses the same problem.  “Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted (Isa. 40:30).  So, let’s not feel special or put upon.  This is a human problem that transcends time, age, generations and cultures.  God knew from the beginning we were going to have problems with knowing when to take a day off and sets a clear example for us to follow by resting on the 7th day of creation (Gen. 2:2).  Honoring ourselves with Sabbath rest is so important it ranks in God’s Top Ten list, right up there with not killing, stealing, committing adultery, etc.

So why is this so hard?  We all know we need rest and re-creation time.  The problem is actually living it.  For far too much of human history we have wasted valuable time and energy arguing among ourselves about which day is the true Sabbath and what constitutes resting, instead of just doing it.  Please note that how we recharge our physical and spiritual batteries is different for different people.  I am an introvert, and I need quiet solitude to be refreshed and renewed.  Extroverts, on the other hand, find a loud party or a rock concert very energizing.  Whatever is restful and renewing for you – find time to do it on a regular basis.  You’re worth it.  God says so and Jesus shows us.

I love the way Isaiah puts it.  After that verse about even young people getting exhausted, Isaiah says, “but those who wait for the lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like Eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (40:31).  The secret is waiting for the Lord.  Waiting is not easy for our instant gratification culture.  We will spend good money we don’t have to upgrade from 3G to 4G, whatever that means, to save a few nanoseconds of download time.  We don’t wait well.  Waiting means surrendering control and none of us want to go there.  But I would suggest that we don’t really have a choice.  We can either surrender control to Microsoft or the Messiah, to piranhas or peace.  Instant gratification lasts an instant or two.  Eternal life endures forever.

Finally, like most of life, this is not really an either/or choice, but both/and.  The final verse of the text from Mark for this week tells us Jesus didn’t choose A or B.  “And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues AND casting out demons” (1:39).  How could he do both?  First, he knew that proclaiming the Gospel by word and deed is one way of combating the evil demons that threaten humankind.  Secondly, Jesus knew how to say “no” to the demands of the world, take time to wait upon the Lord, and renew his strength so he could soar with the eagles.  May it be so for you and me as well.

 

Fish Tale and Forgiveness, Jonah 3:1-10

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

Last week’s text from I Samuel raised a tough question: are some sins beyond forgiveness?  I hadn’t looked ahead in the lectionary then but was pleased to find that the Hebrew text from Jonah for this week offers a great response to that question.

Ask most people what they know about Jonah, and you will get “Jonah and the whale” as their response.  It’s a familiar story kids learn about and sing about in Sunday School, but it is more than a big fish story (which is what the Hebrew says, not a “whale” per se).  I’m not a fisherman, but I’ve always been attracted to Jonah and even chose it as the text for the first sermon I ever preached, way back in 1969.  At the time my wife asked me why that text.  She said, “What does that story mean for us today?”  My response, “Don’t go swimming with big fish.”

Of course, it means much more than that if we take time to ask some basic questions, like what was Jonah doing in the water and why was he swallowed by the big fish?  It’s a very short story, only 3 pages, and it makes much more sense if read in its entirety. But here’s the abridged version:

  1.  God calls Jonah and tells him to go on a mission to Nineveh.
  2. Jonah doesn’t want to go and jumps on a ship headed for Tarshish (in the exact opposite direction) instead.
  3. God is not pleased and causes a storm at sea, and when the sailors learn that Jonah is the reason for God’s displeasure, they throw Jonah overboard.
  4. God appoints a big fish to swallow Jonah. (Not to punish him, by the way, but to save him and give him time to reconsider God’s offer.)
  5. After 3 days God has the fish spit Jonah out; and Jonah decides this time he’d better listen to God, heads for Nineveh and delivers God’s message.
  6. The people of Nineveh heed Jonah’s warning, repent of their sins, and are forgiven and saved from God’s judgment on them.
  7. Jonah pouts because he really wanted God to give the Ninevites hell, not mercy.

So there’s a lot more going on here than Jonah and the fish.  It’s a story about a refusal to say yes when God’s wishes are very plain.  Jonah’s call is not ambiguous as is sometimes the case. The message from God to Jonah couldn’t be more clear and direct: “Go at once to Nineveh” (1:1).    There is no failure to communicate here – just reluctance to obey.  And we all know how smart it is to say “no” to God; so why would Jonah even try?  To answer that question requires a little history lesson.  Nineveh was the capital of Babylon, a hated enemy of the Hebrew people.  Ironically, for our contemporary context, Nineveh sat about where modern day Baghdad is located today.  Given that context, we know what Jonah was being asked to do was take a warning to the people of Nineveh so they could be forgiven and spared from God’s wrath.

Jonah knew, as he says in 4:2, that Yahweh was a God of mercy and would forgive those hated enemies of his people.  Put yourself in Jonah’s place.  Fill in your own favorite enemies: liberals, conservatives, 9/11 terrorists, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, Muslims, Evangelicals, bitter athletic rivals, business competitors, lawyers, former spouses – whoever it is that you would like to be the very last people God would forgive.  That’s who Johan is being asked to save and why he is a reluctant prophet who dares to defy a direct order from God.  As the story unfolds we see it is one of repentance – Jonah repents of his obedience after God gives him a three-day time out in the smelly innards of a fish.  The people of Nineveh repent after they hear Jonah’s message from God.  And even God gets in on the act and repents of his judgment against the people of Nineveh.

Which brings us, finally, back to last week’s question about unforgiveable sin.  And the answer is “no.”  If God can forgive the enemies of his chosen people who destroyed Jerusalem and carried God’s people off into exile, what could be unforgiveable?

Jonah is a foreshadowing of the grace-filled Gospel of Jesus, which turns on its head the vengeful, don’t get mad, get even theology we often prefer in our Jonah-like assessment of who deserves forgiveness.  Jesus states that Gospel as clearly as God calls of Jonah.  “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”  And, ‘You’ve heard it said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:38-44).

That doesn’t sound like a God who would hold anything unforgiveable, does it?   That’s the Amazing Grace we sing about that “saves a wretch like me.”  So, then why does it say in last week’s text (I Sam. 3:14) that the sins of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for forever?  David Stackpole, one of the best students I ever had in preaching class, interpreted that I Samuel text in a way many years ago that made a lot of sense to me then and still does.  David pointed out a couple of key words in I Samuel 3:14 that are easy to read over when our attention is captured by the harshness of the other words in the verse.  He pointed out that the verse doesn’t say their sins cannot be atoned for; it says they cannot be atoned for “by sacrifice or offering.”

We sometimes fall into the trap of imposing our human limitations on God.  Someone once said, “God created us in God’s image, and we return the favor.”  In this case those limitations involve too narrow concepts of not only who and what God can forgive, but how.  The Hebrew theology of Samuel’s day saw sacrificial offerings as the default means of seeking God’s forgiveness.  Ironically, it was Eli’s son’s misuse of sacrificial offerings that got them in hot water.  (See last week’s post for details.)  Eli’s sons corrupted sacrifice as a means of grace with their own selfishness and deceit; so how could something they had no respect for and had broken trust with be a vehicle for finding their way back to God.

But because humans spoil one gift from God doesn’t mean God can’t come up with others.  To put those kind of limits on God would limit God’s power and render God unworthy of our trust.  Jonah tried putting parameters on God’s forgiveness, and we see how well that worked for him.

God’s forgiveness cannot be bought with sacrifice or offering.  But it can be accepted as a freely given gift by those who are humble enough to know we need it.  The Ninevites were forgiven because they repented and admitted their sin (Jonah 4:6-9).  There are multiple scriptures that attest to God’s merciful nature.  The prophet Isaiah (1:18) says, “Though your sins be as scarlet I will make them white as snow.”   Jesus says to his executioners from the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24).  I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Yes, I know, there are many counter texts that argue for the vengeful God Jonah wished upon his enemies (like we do).  Those texts were written by angry men who wanted their enemies to suffer, but be very careful of that two-edged sword.  Those who live by that unforgivable doctrine will stand under the same judgment.  See living in glass houses and throwing stones?

God’s grace is free.  It can’t be earned by bigger checks in the offering plate or making greater sacrifices of our time and effort.  It is simply poured out in an overflowing cup for those who repent and truly seek it.  What are you waiting for?  There is no need to carry that heavy burden of guilt and anger another day.  God who can show mercy on reluctant, disobedient Jonah and on his dreaded enemies in Nineveh can certainly forgive us too.

HEARING AND BEING THE VOICE OF GOD: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

There’s a famous line in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” where a frustrated prison guard tells the prisoner, Luke, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”  It’s a great line but not quite true.  The problem is not communication; Luke heard the message, he just chose to ignore what the prison guard wanted him to do.  I wonder if we have a similar communication problem with God.   The lectionary texts for January 8th are all about communication, in particular about the power of the voice of God.  Literally from Day One (Gen. 1:1-5) to the Baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:4-11) to Paul’s ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7), God speaks and big things happen.  And the Psalm for this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Psalm 29, speaks directly about the power of “Voice of the Lord” seven times in 11 verses and by implication several other times.

Communication scholars describe Speech-Act theory as the phenomenon by which language has the power to create or change reality.  Anyone who has ever stood before a clergy person or a justice of the peace and said two little words, “I do,” knows very well that their lives are forever changed from that moment forward.  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a little ditty most of us learned at an early age.  The problem is it isn’t true.  Words have power to hurt and heal.  Most bullying begins with name calling and naming our political or personal enemies in ways that depersonalize and demonize them is the first step toward justifying abusive and unkind treatment that can ultimately lead to violence and death.

The words we use are a matter of life and death, of light and darkness.  Psalm 29 contains a whole litany of things that the voice of God can do: thunder, break cedars, fire, shake the wilderness, whirl oaks, strip forests and cause floods.  This must be where the insurance companies get their justification for excluding from coverage (read the fine print) natural disasters as “Acts of God.”

I am more interested in what these texts say about the power of God’s voice to transform human lives than I am the cause of natural disasters.  Genesis 1 tells us God spoke light into darkness, and that speech act is far more important symbolically than the on-going debate between creationism and evolution.  The darkness God expelled on day 1 of creation is wonderful, but a more relevant question is “what has God done for us lately?”  There are still far too many black holes of darkness in our world and our hearts today that need the light of God’s powerful voice of truth.

I love this parable by an anonymous author:

A pilgrim asks a wise one about the moment when we can tell darkness from the dawn.  “Is it when I can tell the difference between a sheep and a goat?” she asks.  “No.”

“Then is it when I can tell the difference between a peach and a pomegranate?”

“No,” says the elder. “When you can look into another’s eyes and say, ‘you are my brother, you are sister,’ that is the dawn.   Until then, there is only darkness.”

Both the Mark 1 text and Acts 19 deal with hearing God’s voice through the sacramental act of baptism.  Both texts tell us that John the Baptist preached and performed a baptism of repentance and belief in Jesus as the anointed one who came after John.  Mark doesn’t address the perplexing question of why Jesus needed a baptism of repentance because that’s not the point of that text, and not the full meaning of baptism.  Repentance is a critical first step in transformation, but only a prelude to what an anointed, spirit-led disciple can do.  When Paul asks the Christians in Ephesus “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” they reply, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul proceeds to fix that problem but in doing so creates a theological dilemma for us.  Paul baptizes those Ephesians a second time.  To this day rebaptism is a controversial issue among Christians of different persuasions, along with what kind of baptism counts, how it’s done, at what age, by whom, etc.

Our different opinions on such matters can sometime be humorous.  One person, when asked if he believed in infant baptism replied, “Believe in it!  I’ve seen it.”   Or when my children were young and we were visiting a Baptist church where my daughter was playing in a piano recital.  After the recital our son went up to explore the chancel area and came back to excitedly report, “Dad, they have a Jacuzzi up there!”

Let’s put the debates about sprinkling or pouring or immersing aside for now and focus on one key point of the Acts text and Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism– what the power of the Holy Spirit does to transform lives.  It’s not the water or how or when it’s applied that matters, it’s the voice of God and whether we hear it.    Jesus’ public ministry begins from the moment he hears the voice of God saying “You are my son….”   The question is have we heard God say, “you are my daughter, you are my son, and with you I am pleased?”

Gospel interpreters sometime wonder if Jesus was the only one who heard God’s voice there beside the Jordan. Given God’s propensity to speak in parables and metaphors and in “a still small voice” (I Kgs 19:12), I’d bet he was.  And so would Fred Craddock, I believe, who loves to say that when it came to his call to ministry it would have been so much easier if God had called him in a voice loud enough that his friends and relatives could have heard it too.

We liberal, sophisticated Christians are often afraid of the emotion associated with Pentecostal Christianity.  But we dare not let that fear make us miss the positive power of the voice, breath, and spirit of God to transform lives.    Jesus is transformed into the Messiah at his baptism and empowered by the voice of God to resist every temptation that Satan can throw at him in the wilderness.  God’s voice enables Jesus to find his voice to speak truth and salvation as God’s messenger.  We don’t know where Jesus was hanging out till he was 30, but we do know that at this pivotal moment Jesus emerges to “shout from the housetops what the Spirit has told him in a whisper” (Matt. 10:27).   By the power of God’s voice he is inspired to go public with his ministry with a passion that enabled him to set his face toward Jerusalem’s cross and never look back, even when his closest friends try their best to persuade him to renounce his calling and take an easier route.

And here’s the important point so don’t miss it– it’s not just Jesus who is transformed and empowered by the voice of God.  In the text from Acts 19 we see how the ordinary folks in Ephesus are also changed into God’s messengers. “The Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (19:7).   Those are loaded terms that may need clarification.  Speaking in tongues for many of us conjures up images of ecstatic nonsense speech that is unfamiliar and incomprehensible.  But what if we interpret tongues to mean that these people were on fire for God and spoke with passion about their faith in ways that people of many different cultures and ethnic groups could understand, as they did on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2)?   Acts 19 also tells us these new baptizees “prophesied,” another term that can have negative connotations if we take prophesying to mean what psychics who advertise on late night TV do.  Biblical prophets are not fortune tellers or crystal ball gazers.  A biblical prophet is simply someone who speaks for God.  They are those who know God’s truth and are emboldened by God’s presence in their lives to proclaim good news to a world starving for some.

The world needs people in every walk of life who have heard the voice of God and are willing not only to talk that talk but to walk God’s walk.  To do that takes incredible courage and faith in a world where people of faith are often aliens in a strange land.  To have the courage of our convictions means that all of us, clergy and laity alike are called to witness to our faith by word and action, even when we know the dangers and risks involved in speaking an uncomfortable truth – in love.  The risks of that kind of truth are exemplified quite simply in the fact that the Greek word for “witness” is also the word for “martyr.”

All baptized Christians are called to be witnesses and prophets for God, and the enormity of that calling means we all need to be anointed by God’s spirit.  We cannot hope to fulfill the ministry we are baptized into without the power of God’s spirit to guide and direct us.  God knows we all need a baptism of repentance, but we also need the power of the Holy Spirit to move us from repentance and forgiveness to become proactive messengers who dare to become the voice of God that transforms lives and the world.