“WWJBD”

John 1:29-42

My best friend and most trusted sermon critic is my wife Sandy. One thing she prefers I not do in a sermon is share quotes, especially long ones. Mostly I agree with that sentiment, but every now and then I come across books or articles that are worthy of quoting. And if they are appropriate to the sermon text and topic, I like sharing them with you. Why? Because I think you need to hear them.

Today’s sermon contains four rather longish quotes from four very different sources. I warn you up front that the last three of them are critical of Christianity in America. Whether or not those criticisms are applicable to our individual lives or the life of this church is a question that we all need to give some thought.

Years ago as I prepared to preach at a church where I normally did not, I looked down and saw a plaque on the pulpit that said, “We would see Jesus.” That served as both a humbling reminder that I am not Jesus and a challenge to present the Gospel in such a way that Jesus could be perceived.

I was reminded of that as I read the following autobiographical story by Rodger Nishioka: “A couple of years ago, a good friend and colleague here at the seminary, who was concerned about my schedule and commitments and hectic pace and looking tired, insisted on taking me out to lunch and said it was urgent. When we sat down at the table, I asked what was going on. She told me that she had some good news for me. Perplexed, I asked her what the good news was. She smiled and said, ‘I want you to know the Messiah has come!’ Now I was thoroughly confused, so she told me she had even better news for me: ’You are not him’!”

The message was loud and clear to Dr. Nishioka: he needed to stop trying to bring in the kingdom all by himself. He is the one from whom I borrowed this morning’s sermon title: WWJBD. Most of us are familiar with the WWJD bracelets, tee-shirts, and what-not young Christians were wearing not too long ago. They wore those things to remind themselves to ask the following question when confronted by a major decision: “What would Jesus do?”

Professor Nishioka, even as he wrote about how we need to reflect Jesus to the world, also raised the concern that often many of us forget that we’re not Jesus. His suggestion was that we ask ourselves WWJBD: “What would John the Baptist do?” John the Baptist knew that he wasn’t the Messiah and said so, as he pointed toward Jesus, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me…’.”

What would – what did - John the Baptist do? He pointed others, including his own disciples, to Jesus. He directed them Jesus’ way. They thus saw, heard, and experienced Jesus. And once they came to him, Jesus was very matter of fact with them. First he asked, “What are you looking for?” Then he said, “Come and see.”

And that’s the model of evangelism the first disciples adopted. Following in the footsteps of John the Baptist they pointed others to Christ, telling them, “Come and see.” Come and see, hear, and experience the hope, joy, and love found in Jesus, the same hope, joy, and love lived out by the early Christian community.

We modern disciples are called to do the very same thing as we respond to the wants and needs of others and invite them to come and see, hear, and experience the love of Jesus Christ. Like John the Baptist before us we are to direct people to Jesus. But what we’re supposed to do and what we actually end up doing can often be very different things.

It was Gandhi who said, “I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ.” That was shared by Shane Claiborne in an article titled “What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?” Wrote Rev. Claiborne: “To all my non-believing, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.”

Later in the article he wrote, “The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus… what we have here is a bit of an image crisis…”

What we have here is a bit of an image crisis, the crisis being that when people turn to the church desperate to see Jesus, they instead see Christians who have forgotten Christ. In other words we have forgotten who we are called to be. We have lost our identity.

Wrote Thomas Reeves in The Empty Church: Does Religion Matter Anymore: “Christianity in modern America is, in large part, innocuous. It tends to be easy, upbeat, convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, [or a] zeal for souls. There is little guilt and no punishment. The faith has been overwhelmed by the culture. Christianity becomes a cultural Christianity when the faith is dominated by a culture to the point that it loses much of its authenticity. What we now have might be labeled as a Consumer Christianity. Millions of Americans today feel free to buy as much of the Christian faith as seems desirable. The cost is low and customer satisfaction is guaranteed.”

Consciously and unconsciously millions of lost souls, in and out of the church, are crying out to see Jesus – to know Jesus. And what do they often find when they turn to the church? An innocuous, non-fascinating brand of consumer-oriented Christianity that has lost touch with Christ, lost touch with the One who is the source of its identity.

One final quote; this time from an article in the Presbyterian Outlook by Douglass D. Key, a PC(USA) pastor in South Carolina, entitled “Things I Learned at Pagan Pride Day.” Rev. Key wrote this after accidentally, or maybe providentially, stumbling upon a Pagan Pride celebration. Wrote Rev. Key: “Anything that is not mainline monotheism is sheltered under the umbrella of paganism these days.

For the most part, though, [these pagans] looked like a harmless band of misfits who shared a common narrative of rejection and so had taken refuge with one another.

They are the rejected, the outcast. They were never that kid; the one we call, and write, and text, and e-mail, begging her to come to youth fellowship because we know she is key in attracting 15 more kids, who will bring a dozen more, which will make our youth program a success.

They are the ones who found no hospitable place among us when we had the chance. Theirs is a narrative of rejection, not solicitation; of exclusion, not invitation. Paganism has become a refuge for them from the popular.

So, the most important lesson I learned at Pagan Pride Day is that our quest to be popular, which defines so much of what has passed for evangelism in my lifetime, leaves collateral damage in its wake. The world is filled with those we have stepped over or around in order to establish our credibility with the successful. We have built a community that witnesses more to who we are, who we find attractive, valuable, and desirable, than who Christ is and seeks to save: the lost, the lonely, the outcast, and forgotten. Look at the congregation sheltered in our pews and see that we have been ruthlessly efficient at this process of self-selection. The misfits and outcasts have gotten the message. They know where they are not wanted. So now, for them, ‘pagan’ means ‘not Christian’ – demonstrably, intentionally, proudly, persistently, not one of us.

We are a community that did not want them, while paradoxically, following a Christ who does.”

Those are harsh words, words that may make us defensive. They may not apply directly to Grace; I hope and pray that they don’t, but within them is still much food for thought. And a sobering reminder: if we do not lovingly, pastorally, and intentionally point people to Christ, especially young people, and if we do not welcome, accept, and nurture them they do have non-Christian options, neo-paganism being one of them.

People need to see Jesus, and though none of us is Jesus, we must still reflect his love to the world. We must work at discovering the deepest hungers of those around us, and in response to them, say, “Come and see. Come and meet Jesus. Come and fellowship with his disciples. Jesus loves you and so do we. Jesus wants you – and so do we.”

That’s what John the Baptist would do. Amen.