Isaiah 65: 17 – 25; Canticle 15 (for the Psalm); I Thessalonians 5: 12 – 28; John 3: 23 – 30
A meditation by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at St. Stephen’s Church, Harrisburg, IL; December 11th, 2005
Recently, when Bishop Beckwith made his annual homecoming to the Church of the Redeemer down in Cairo, I got up at the time of the announcements to welcome him “to his church”. Without so much as blinking an eye, he responded “well, it’s not my church, it’s God’s church”…..I stood corrected!
Actually, my slip of the memory and the bishop’s response are in keeping with a theme I’ve heard often over the years: “it’s not our ministry, but Christ’s ministry”. So, you can imagine, having heard this time and again from various sources, that it’s easy to become sensitive to a ministry that has an individual’s name in it, instead of the Lord’s….We could probably cite many examples, from the ranks of the televangelists, to local churches whose name reflects the importance of an individual, rather that the Lord’s.
Well, the question of whose ministry it is describes our Gospel reading for today, from John, Chapter Three…..
John the Baptist’s disciples come to him, saying that people are beginning to go to Jesus’ disciples for baptism….It’s as if (if we could paraphrase their comments) they are saying “wait a minute, don’t you (John the Baptist) hold the franchise on baptisms?”. Or “isn’t yours the registered trademark for repentance of sins?” They seem to be concerned about loss of religious turf, if you will.
This problem….that is, the competition between the disciples of Jesus and those of John the Baptist, would exist for many years….In fact, when we read Acts 19: 1 – 7, we can see that, some 30 years later or so, St. Paul encountered a group of John the Baptist’s disciples in the city of Ephesus, who had known of Jesus’ work, but who had been baptized into John’s baptism, which was a baptism of repentance of sins only. Paul told them, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling people to believe in the one who was to come, that is, in Jesus.”
Now, this sort of a concern didn’t die with the end of the New Testament period…..Evidence abounds that the same concerns John the Baptist’s disciples had are alive and well in the 21st Century…..
Look at the televangelists (they’re always a good target for criticism, aren’t they?): How many ministries bear the name of the televangelist, instead of the Lord’s name? I won’t mention any examples, but invite you to take stock in your own minds, based on your own observations. Too many, I would guess, bear the name of an individual, and not the name of the Lord.
In our local communities, is there jealousy when a ministry is undertaken by one church, and not by another? It happens, you know.
In our local church, oftentimes it is far too easy to think that people will want to be in the “limelight” as a result of a ministry they undertake. It seems as though the motivation for the ministry’s unfolding is to get the credit for the successes. People also can and do become quite territorial about the ministries they undertake…I invite you to fill in the blank for St. Stephen’s:___________________ Does any of this exist here at St. Stephen’s? Hopefully not!
All of these things invite the onlooker’s focus to be on the individual, and not on the Lord.
What was John the Baptist’s response to his disciples in our Gospel reading for today? The text from might seem to be a little confusing….essentially, John says that, even as in ancient Israel there was a bridegroom’s friend who made all the arrangements for the wedding, and then rejoiced when it all “came off” well, even so, John rejoiced in the ministries being undertaken by Jesus and His disciples, knowing that God is receiving the glory, not any human being.
So, the challenge comes to us today in the form of three questions….
- Do I really know the Lord Jesus Christ (I think getting to really know the Lord is a lifelong pursuit – there is so much to learn!);
- If I do know the Lord, then just who am I serving; and
- Can people see the Lord when they see me undertaking a ministry in the Lord’s name?
Food for thought.
AMEN.
