Sermons
A Message by the Rev. Harvey G. Throop
Palisades Presbyterian Church
San Diego, California
August 16, 2009
Don't Just Talk The Talk !
(Matthew 11:1-6)
“Go and tell … what you see and hear!”
(Matthew 11:4)
In the August 7th edition of USA TODAY sport's section, there appeared the Coaches Poll of the 25 top-ranked college football teams for the coming season. According to the poll, the Universities of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Southern California and Alabama – in that order -- are the five top-rated college teams in the nation. (By the way, the San Diego State Aztecs were not listed.)
I have found it interesting to read about the upcoming football season and the high hopes expressed regarding each of the teams. For each of them, optimism is running high for what each hopes will be a banner year for their teams.
And yet, in spite of all the pre-season hype, there exists the reality that all the talk in the world doesn't win football games. Until the players take the field and demonstrate their skills and score more points than their opponents, all the talk in the world is worth nothing. What matters in the end is their performance.
Kind of interesting how we need reminding of that periodically, isn't it? So often, though we are tempted to be swayed by talk, promises and hype, what matters most of all is performance.
Jesus knew that reality! Never did an individual's boisterous or bragging talk take the place of a person's actions. Jesus once cautioned, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
There was an interesting dialogue that occurred one day near the start of Jesus' ministry where Jesus amplified what he believed about actions. It happened shortly after John the Baptist's arrest and imprisonment.
John had been imprisoned for publicly condemning King Herod. Herod had seduced his brother's wife and made her his own wife after he had put away the woman who had been his wife. John the Baptist had denounced the king for what he had done. For doing that, John knew that his execution was imminent. He knew that he would never be set free and that his public ministry was now at an end. What a painful thought that must have been for him!
Preaching had been John's life! His message was unwavering, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). Early in his ministry, he had recognized that the time was right for God's Messiah to come. And, indeed, he had come -- in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
John had recognized Jesus immediately. When Jesus had come to John to be baptized, John declared in astonishment, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14). At long last, John's prophecy had been fulfilled, his life work accomplished. He had, indeed, "prepared the way of the Lord."
All of that was past though. Now, something unsettling was beginning to trouble John as he sat in his dungeon prison. He had been hearing bits of news from his own disciples about the work Jesus had been doing, and this news was disturbing John. For the first time since Jesus had come, John found himself seriously wondering, "Is this Jesus really the Messiah?"
Apparently Jesus did not meet all of John's notions of what a Messiah should be. Try to think of it from his perspective. John had come from a zealous tradition of desert asceticism. He and his followers had turned their backs on the civilized life in favor of a life lived close to the wilderness ... on the edge; a life pretty much devoid of comforts, dedicated to purity and separated from anything or anyone impure. They had remained in the desert.
On the other hand, Jesus and his followers were found with the common folks, even outcasts like Samaritans and lepers. Rather than seeking separation, they seemed to relish in being with them, and especially Jesus seemed to seek out the sinners, the unclean, the sick and the troubled. They went from town to town where the people were.
So John was growing increasingly anxious. He needed to know now whether his cousin, Jesus, was going to turn out to be just "Jesus of Nazareth" or "Jesus the Messiah."
For John, it was like waiting on the curb at the airport in a strange city for a friend who promised to pick you up. One car after another goes by. Did they tell you they'd be driving a Saturn, a Nissan or a Toyota ? Cars are so difficult to tell apart in the dark. You peer into the windows as each goes by. You wonder, "Are you the one, or must I wait for another?"
John could not bear to wait any longer. Every day was bringing him closer to his own death, and a dying person cannot afford to have doubts. So John called to his disciples and sent them to Jesus to ask him point blank the question to which John had to know the answer: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3).
When they asked Jesus John's question, Jesus didn't respond with a simple, "Why yes, I am the Messiah!” He did not point to himself. Instead, he pointed to the effects of his work among the people.
Jesus' movement was leaving a wake, like the wake a large ship leaves when moving through a small water passage. Along the shore wherever large ships sail, if you were to see great waves lapping at the shore, you would know that a large cruiser has just disappeared around the bend, leaving behind in its wake the stirred-up waters.
This is apparently what it was like for those around Jesus. Jesus said to John's disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matthew 11:4,5).
The answer Jesus gave served a double purpose. It not only described what had, indeed, been taking place, but it also implicitly referred to the prophecy of Isaiah that, in Jesus, was now being fulfilled. Jesus was saying to John's disciples, "Watch what I am doing -- then you can have no doubts!" "Go and tell John what you hear and see."
I wonder the extent to which we Christian congregations could answer that same way today.
It seems to me that the Church is always in the position of having to validate itself in the eyes of people. For many folks, churches are suspect. Instances when their professions have been distant from their practices have been so frequent that there is never a time when we can let up in our witness for Jesus Christ!
Sometimes, Christians convey the mistaken notion that we join the Church primarily to socialize with other Christians. While that may be a part of what takes place, it is not our primary purpose or function. Christians are called by Jesus Christ to live out our faith in the world.
One day, when Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment in the law, he responded, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37, 39). By so answering, Jesus was really defining what it means to live as a Christian -- to love God with a total love, and to love one's neighbor as oneself.
By the word "neighbor," of course, Jesus was saying that in this world, if there are hungry people without food, sick people without medicine, homeless people without shelter; if people are being persecuted without just cause, or denied rights because of prejudice, then these are among the places where Christians need to be involved.
On another occasion, Jesus said to his disciples, "You are like salt for all humankind" (Matthew 5:13). In Jesus' day, salt was highly valued: first, because it was associated with purity; second, as a preservative; and third, because of the flavor it gave to food.
When Jesus said, "You are like salt for all humankind," he meant: first, that Christians should be examples of moral purity; second, that his followers should preserve whatever is good in our world; and third, Christians should seek to add the flavor of Christ to life.
The great prayer by St. Francis of Assisi speaks about the Christ-like flavor a Christian can bring to the world.
"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, let me sow pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life."
One more teaching of Jesus where he addressed our discipleship in the world was when he said, "You are like light for the whole world. Let your light shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:14, 16).
Our Christian faith is meant to be seen. The New Testament scholar, William Barclay, once wrote, "There can be no such thing as secret discipleship, for either the secrecy will destroy the discipleship, or the discipleship will destroy the secrecy!"
A Christianity that is not seen is of little use to anyone. Our Christianity should be visible in everything we do, from the way we treat our co-workers at work or our classmates at school, to the attitudes we express around friends, the service projects in which we involve ourselves, and even in the way we order a meal in a restaurant. In each of these, we demonstrate our discipleship to Jesus Christ.
Life brings to every Christian an opportunity to speak some word for Christ, to witness to Christ's love, to make some protest against evil or to take a courageous moral stand in his name.
As followers of Jesus Christ, both individually and together, we are summoned to live out our discipleship in ways that will demonstrate God's love for the world as well as our own commitment to accomplish God's purposes in it.
A little girl was over in the corner of her Sunday school room drawing furiously, preoccupied with what she was doing. She wasn't even noticing who else was in the classroom. The teacher went over and said, "What are you doing?" She said: "I'm drawing a picture of God!" Well," said the teacher, "Nobody's ever seen God. We don't know what He looks like." The little girl replied, "They will when I finish!"
My fellow Christians, there are countless numbers of people in Allied Gardens, Del Cerro, San Carlos , Tierrasanta and beyond who don't have a clue what God looks like. Our task is to show our neighbors, our community, our city and our world a picture of what God is like as God works in and through us to bring His will to pass.
