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Almost two years ago, I became a superfan. I met someone and within minutes of knowing her, I decided that she was my role model, my teacher, my guide. She had been a professor on sabbatical when I started at Virginia Seminary in the fall of 2017, so I knew nothing about her until the first session of her Wednesday-morning systematic-theology class in February 2018.
It was love at first sight.
And so...I wasted no time embarrassing myself on social media, posting about how much I admire her. I compared her to Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings, and wrote things like “Wednesday morning, Addison room 101, my happy place.” I tried to draw people’s attention to this remarkable person. She had—she has—a certain quality. She is a priest, and yes, she teaches me how to be a priest: she listens intelligently; she praises God with both heart and mind; she is fast with disarming humor; and she preaches even the most complicated doctrines with a pastoral ear for ordinary human desires, and sorrows. But her example of faithfulness is more fundamental than just that of a good priest. She is an exemplar for any baptized Christian who wants to pray, live, and work alongside all of us in a community that praises the One God with one voice.
“Look!” I seem to be saying, to anyone who will listen. Look at this theologian! Look at this priest! Look at this baptized Christian! I am a superfan. I finally confessed to her, in her office, that I had developed a reputation around campus as something like the chairman of her fan club. She smiled quietly, but expressed no surprise whatsoever: she is not on social media, but word gets around. She reassured me that I need not feel embarrassed. She was kindly in her response, and she protected my feelings.
(Look! She is so kind!)
All of this means that this morning, I finally have something in common with John the Baptist, that great but troubling Advent saint, a saint I have never much warmed to, a dusty, disheveled desert gadfly who keeps yelling at people. Today, he sees Jesus walking nearby, calling his disciples (a couple of whom had gotten up that morning as John the Baptist’s disciples), and John says, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!” This is a startling statement for his first listeners. They surely know the multiple references John is making. The Lamb of God is an apocalyptic image from Hebrew scripture, the lamb who in the last days will overcome all evil. “Lamb of God” also evokes the Passover lamb whose blood was smeared on the doorposts in that great night when Israel was delivered from slavery. (In John’s Gospel, driving this point home, Jesus is crucified at the precise time when lambs are being killed in the temple for the Passover.) And finally, the lamb image connects Jesus to the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, who says nothing when being led to slaughter. “Look!” John says. “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!”
John the Baptist is a superfan.
But he is also much more than that, much more than simply me getting excited about an excellent teacher. John is teaching us how to do evangelism, how to tell good news to other people. Episcopalians sometimes bump up on the word evangelism. It can evoke certain forms of religious testimony that don’t always fit our church’s culture. (Though I can tell you: I know many Episcopalians who love to tell others about Jesus, and are delightfully evangelical in the way lots of people expect evangelism to look and sound like. And not just Presiding Bishop Curry!) The good news is that evangelism takes many forms, and can definitely be something that you and I do in our daily lives of work, family, neighborhood, and church.
John the Baptist shows us how, but I will give him a little help from someone in our own time, the preacher Frederick Buechner. He has written a lot about Christian vocation, and vocation period, and he has this to say: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
I have many “gladnesses.” I love long-distance running, and Marvel superhero movies, and morning coffee with two sugars, and a thousand other good things. But what is my deep gladness? What is yours? What is the gladness that fills you with delight? It might be something like my love of running—participating in that sport has a personal meaning that runs pretty deep for me. But what runs deepest?
Sometimes we find our deep gladness in community, when we explore our individual passions in concert with each other. Our anti-hypothermia shelter might be a great example of this: many of us love to be one of the sanctuaries for our unsheltered neighbors whose lives are at risk if they have nowhere to go at night. Our volunteers are mobilizing now, the emails are flying, the sign-up sheet is beginning to fill, and it promises to be another successful week of social-justice ministry here at St. Andrew’s, a church that has a strong passion for service.
Sometimes we find our deep gladness when we simply sit quietly for a while and reflect on what might be a larger theme of our life. How might God be moving in this one human life you call your own? I was a therapist for many years, alongside my church work, and for me, when I reflect on things, I realize that my deep gladness is relationship repair. I think God is all about relationship repair. That’s a flat-sounding phrase, but it’s a good description for what I think grace is. God is acting in my life to help people repair relationships with their loved ones, with their hated ones, with their own selves, and with God.
But that’s only one way to look at it. Years ago a friend of mine said, “For me, God is all about food.” She focuses on hunger ministry, and is a powerful deacon and prophet of the church. And her way of seeing things leads to a third way to discern what your deep gladness might be, by taking us back to Frederick Buechner’s metaphor: vocation is where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.
A third way to discern your deep gladness is to discover a hunger you care passionately about, and see your gladness through that lens. The world hungers for so many things. Tomorrow we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, and our nation once again focuses on our shared deep hunger for racial justice. People hunger for actual healthy food, yes, but they also hunger for safety and security, for hope, for shelter… They hunger for insight, for rescue from wildfires, for physical health… They hunger for laughter, for rest, for spiritual serenity… They hunger for the healing power of music, for financial recovery, for education, for a theological answer to a hard question… The hungers seem to be endless.
But so is the gladness.
John the Baptist proclaims a glad message of hope for his people, for Israel, but also for all people who long for liberation and a restored relationship with God. He knows the deep hunger of all people for God’s embrace. When he sees Jesus, he says (twice in our hearing alone), “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!” In saying this he meets the people’s hunger with his own deep gladness. Some of his followers stepped away and began following Jesus, and that was fine with John, better than fine: that’s what he wanted most.
We now step into the shoes of John the Baptist, here in our own place and time. We sing today the words of the psalmist, and they become our words:
“I proclaimed righteousness in the great congregation; look, I did not restrain my lips; and that, O LORD, you know. I have not hidden your righteousness in my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your deliverance; I have not concealed your love and faithfulness from the great congregation. You are the LORD; do not withhold your compassion from me; let your love and your faithfulness keep me safe for ever.”
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Preached on Epiphany 2A at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, Virginia, January 19, 2020.
Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-12
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42