Scripture: John 3:22-36
Given on 03/03/2019
A couple of years ago, right before we moved to Alabama, in fact directly in between the moving trucks getting our stuff and the moving trucks delivering our stuff, we took an Alaskan cruise with my wife’s family. Now, for those of y’all who have never been to Alaska or had the chance to cruise the state, let me report that it is more immense with more sights to take in than one could possibly accomplish in a lifetime. The icy peaks are so much larger than I could have ever imagined that they could be. The glaciers spanning miles and miles of land and sea. The forests were tall and dense and seemed to have grown undisturbed since that mystical moment that God brought together seed and earth and the whole of the trip was really just a long chain of moments and experiences that will remain with each of us for as long as we live. And thinking back on that trip as I did this week, one of the things that really stuck out in my mind was actually one of the first excursions that we took upon our arrival in Alaska before we even boarded our boat. We had spent the night in town of Seward and had really not even gotten our bearings yet. Nor, for that matter, had we found good coffee, which it turns out for all of Alaska’s majestic beauty and greatness, there were very few places that served or even sold good coffee. But I digress…Our first real experience of quintessential Alaska came with a visit to a sled dog kennel and training facility that was just outside the town. Now I should say that the first thing that you should know about visiting a sled dog kennel is just the overwhelming scent off dog that encapsulates the entirety of your nasal cavity and overwhelms all of your olfactory senses. It turns out that some 100 or so dogs dwelling in the same general area creates an aroma that leaves little to no room for the smells of the light mist that was falling, or the trees that were all around, or even the salt in the air a result of our proximity to the ocean. It was complete and total dogness. That being said, it was an impressive tour with up close looks at the racing dogs, the chance to hold some of the puppies that would make up the next generation of competitive canines, a visit to the barn where they kept the racing sleds and the massive amount of equipment that came with running in races like the Iditarod that this kennel competed in each year.
And all this culminated with a chance to ride in a wagon on wheels that was pulled by the sled dogs during that sliver of the year when there wasn’t an ample amount of snow on the ground to allow for the real sleds to operate. And I’ve got to tell you, when the team of 16 dogs takes off you can really feel the power that comes when each of them are pulling in the same direction. With a minimal amount of steering the dogs knew exactly where they needed to go and almost without exception, they all moved in unison to get from the beginning of the run to the end.
In talking to our tour guide, I asked her about the training regimen for the dogs and how exactly it worked and she explained to me that the first thing you have to do is determine your lead dogs, those that will go the distance no matter what might hinder them. Then, she said, it is a matter of getting the dogs to leave behind their innate desire to go off their own way, to meander in whatever direction their fancy chooses, and to leave behind the rest of the pack in order to satisfy its own needs or desires. That you know you have a winning team when all the dogs are pulling in the same direction and even when one dog cannot keep the pace or gets injured, the team is able to compensate and help the injured animal along until a time when it can either regain its full speed or get medical attention. No dog, when hurt or tired, is ever left behind for the sake of expediency, the team just fills in the gaps and keeps going until it gets to the finish line. Now, we all know that it is not the tendency of any kind of dog to sublimate its own needs for the needs of an amorphous larger group. Dogs, like any member of the animal kingdom, including humans, are imbued by their creator with a drive to ensure self-survival. It is unlikely that a dog, absent a great deal of training would respond to anything but the most biological or physical stimuli. They do not have a great deal of ability to consider themselves as part of a larger whole, as part of a greater team, with other dogs, some like them, others, noted with humans calling the shots and yet, there is a team of 16 dogs being driven to consider the needs of the whole group, to listen to their leader, for 14 of the 16 to follow in blind faith even though the road before them is unseen. I have thought back to that tour a lot over the past few years, if for no other reason than it’s that time of year again and the winners of the past 6 out of 7 Iditarod races have come from that very kennel, but it seems to capture the essence of the biblical passage that we have encountered this morning as followers of John the Baptist seek to separate their teacher from this new rabbi in their midst.
In today’s reading, we are told that soon after his nighttime meeting with Nicodemus and his explanation that he came to the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved, Jesus and his disciples go into the Judean countryside and begin their mission in earnest. And almost immediately, they find John and his followers doing much the same thing. For his part, John is baptizing a steady stream of Jewish folks seeking to find some degree of forgiveness for their past sins and to move into a new world clean and ready to find the Realm of God erupting all around them. And because this is a time in Jewish history in which many different sects of Judaism were vying for control of the faith, there is a degree to which a certain lens of competition mixed with distrust seems to be dropped over these two revolutionary leaders by their followers. And, perhaps, at least at this point, with no real sense of maliciousness, a group of Jews come to John and asks about this other man, the one that John had spoken about and his own practice of baptizing the faithful, of healing, of preaching, of pointing to the movement of the spirit all in their midst. “Teacher,” you can almost hear them saying, “the one whom you baptized is over here and he is doing the exact same thing.” And like I said, I don’t read this as an effort on the parts of those who are querying John to start trouble between the two leaders, but there is a sense of mistrust that is directed at Jesus and his followers. Jesus and his disciples came chronologically after John but now find themselves amassing their own followers. And John’s response to their questioning is crucial to understanding the rest of the fourth Gospel. “No one,” John says, “can receive anything except what has been given from Heaven.” And he continues to remind them that he has said time and time again that he is only the one that is preparing the way, only the one that points towards the Messiah, only the one that clears the fields in order for the seeds to be planted. Further, John is prepared to gradually fade into the background as Jesus the Messiah continues to come into his own Christness, his own blessedness, his own calling to be the savior of the world. And all other noise, all other distractions, all other commitments fall away when one encounters the Christ coming into her midst, into his midst, into the world. There is only one who came from God because he is part of God and all others who seek to follow him are only ever pointing towards him and never towards themselves. Finally, John reminds his followers of the stark choice that we each face as well. The choice to leave behind all that we have and all we are, to see the new order of the world emerging all around us as we see and in seeing believe and in believing know that Christ is deep down in each of us, being a light in the darkness, the source of all love, and a beacon to guide us each back home, or the choice to remain shackled to our possessions, our egos, our comforts and to remain thoroughly and completely members of the old order of the world, the order that is falling away ever so gradually as each moment more light is shone, more grace offered, more peace in the hearts of all people, more love infusing the entirety of the cosmos. And it is that is the decision that is placed in front of John and his followers on that day as they encounter the Christ for the first time in their midst. And we see the true blessedness of John to sense the savior in his midst and seek to merely be the one who points him out to the world.
In our own time, we are faced with the same set of choices to make. In a world that is splintering more and more with each passing day, we sit at a crossroads in our own future. In a time in history in which the circle of one’s care and concern for the other seems to be shrinking, we, as the capital-C Church have the opportunity to show that above all else, it is love that unites us. In a moment in which our leaders, both civic and religious, are garnering power by pitting us one against another. In an era in which we fear the differences between us rather than embracing the tapestry of diversity that is woven through the whole of the world. In an age in which the wounds of old are still festering, it is we who are called by the Messiah to be the balm in Gilead to heal the snick souls of the world. No gathering of people in the world will ever grow if one of its chief ends is to cleave its members one from another in an effort to delineate who’s in and who’s out. We are all in and we are all out. We are all saints and we are all sinners and everything in between. And we all have fallen short of the grace of God, we all acknowledge that the wages of sin are death. We all gather together here every week and declare all that we have done and left undone in our brokenness before the throne of God and the cross of our savior. But we also read in our scripture that Christ came not to condemn that world but to save it. Not to leave the 1 in favor of the 99 but to keep searching until each lost one is found. We affirm with our text for this morning that all is a gift from above and not of our own doing. And We each are, as we have always been, children of a loving God and followers of the one who overcame death with life and life eternal and if we set our sights to following Christ wherever he goes, if we recommit ourselves to loving whomever Christ love, and if we put our complete trust in Christ, we will find life and find it in abundance and we will have a gift for the world that is irresistible and desired and needed. And so it is into this moment that the Church, writ large, can and must rediscover the zest and the zeal it had for embracing the stranger in our midst, for welcoming the lost traveler who just needs a shelter from the storm, for reaching our hands out into the darkness and pulling people into the light of the new day until each person is a’washed in the light that first birthed creation and continues to shine all the more brightly even in the midst of gathering storm clouds.
You know, each month, we come to this table and each of us carry burdens about which no one else can possibly know. We come to this table with celebrations of glad tidings of great news that illumine our souls. We come to this table in faith and in doubt, in spiritual sickness and in health, with family and friends or isolated on our own little island of loneliness and yet we each come here all the same. To break the bread, which is, by the way, delicious, that we might taste and see that God is good. To share the cup which reaffirms for each one that Christ is the vine and we are the branches and in him alone may we bear good fruit. But most of all we come here declaring the same truth each month—that this is not our table. It is not a Presbyterian table. It is God’s table and at God’s table all are welcomed to join our family of the faithful. All are invited to take just a few minutes out of the storms of life. All are called to be here in this place and to know that they are beloved and that they matter. In a world that too often tries to say who matters and who doesn’t. Here at this table. It is God who decides and I am convinced with every fiber of my being that at God’s table none are ever turned away. So let us be fed today and every day. Let us fling the doors of this place open and bring all those who hunger and thirst for righteousness into this place to be filled. Let’s go out to the highways and byways of the land searching for the lost and the hurting and let’s let this place be the place where they find healing. Now and always. Glory be to God of healing in the highest and on earth, peace amongst all God’s children. Alleluia, amen.
*-All images taken by me. All rights reserved.