5/5/68

Scripture: Luke 7: 18-35.

I suppose that a politician has to depend on an accurate understanding of what crowds will think and do. He knows that they can be fickle; they can be strongly supportive of an idea or a personality; or they can turn their backs in the most surprising and disappointing way. And the politician’s job is not just to please the crowd, but to lead people in the performance of civic responsibility. Abraham Lincoln is said to have observed that “you fool some of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Harold Bosley suggests a paraphrase of Lincoln’s remark that might run like this: “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

Thoughtful writers have repeatedly taken grim notice of the fickle character of public approval. Plato gave up on democracy because he was sure that the mob will be given to villainy and then to tyranny. Well, Plato’s despair is enough to give all of us pause. But most of us Americans have more trust in democracy and democratic processes than that, even though we are occasionally disappointed. Machiavelli was so unconvinced of any dependable nature in ordinary mankind that he thought democracy to be a lost cause. So far as he was concerned, he turned toward a benevolent, but firm, monarchy as the only dependable form of government. The trouble with Machiavelli’s persuasion is that we can not rely on the unfailing benevolence of a despot, either. And many of us would much prefer to take our chances with democratic procedures; bearing down on the responsibility that goes with such measure of freedom.

Jesus was giving his own unique reaction to the dependability of the crowd when he confronted a very select company of Scribes and Pharisees who gather around him, as they had gathered around John the Baptist. They were comparing the two prophetic persons -- John and Jesus. Jesus had heard their complaints about John; and now their complaints about him, Jesus. It was as if they were saying: “John was too stern, too grim, too aloof, too hopeless. You are too joyful, too approachable, too much of a mixer with everybody who wants to see you. John fasted; you feast with your fellows. John mourned over the Day of the Lord; you rejoice over the coming of the Kingdom of God.”

So went the comments among the people, and their learned leaders. Jesus saw at once that they were dodging the main issue in what he was saying --- just as they had evaded the main point in the preaching of John. They were pinning attention on things they liked, or didn’t like about John and Jesus instead of facing up to God’s judgment on them and their wickedness. They were trying to give Jesus and John a “brush-off;” and they were succeeding to their own satisfaction.

Jesus was not about to let them succeed at it. He spoke to them, perhaps in irony or perhaps in humor --- it is hard to say: “You remind me of children who say you want to play games, yet you don’t want to play any game that is suggested. If someone says, ‘Let’s pretend to be in a funeral procession and wail and chant dirges,’ you say, ‘No; that’s too sad, too depressing.’ But if someone says, ‘Let’s play at being part of a wedding where we sing and dance with joy,’ you say, ‘No; that’s too happy, too cheerful; who wants to play that?’” Perhaps Jesus was saying to them, in effect, “You are undoubtedly wise men, and your wisdom will bear some kind of fruit even though you are now behaving like fault-finding children.” We can be pretty sure that his hearers did not miss the point of his remark. We can be fairly certain that they did not like it. I guess that we don’t miss the point of it, nor like it, when it focuses on us. There is no evidence at all that his hearers, there, changed their habits of dwelling on, and carping over, little details -- and dodging the main issues. It always remains to be seen whether we do any better than they.

Jesus charged those men with equivocation and with open insincerity in evading the purposes of god to which he and John were bearing witness. He called for earnestness, for integrity and honesty, in facing God’s purpose. According to Mark’s gospel, his ministry was opened with the sounding of the most unwelcome note to fall on human ears: the note of judgment --- “Repent! The kingdom is at hand!” [Mark 1: 14,15]. John had said it before Jesus. Jesus picked up the same note and sounded it with firmness. But the ones who heard it refused to take it seriously. John, and then Jesus, tried to force that generation of hearers to face themselves in the light of God’s will; to see their spiritual poverty and to acknowledge it; to recognize their superficiality and complacency. Jesus, and John before him, called for deeds and not just words, deeds of earnestness, deeds of penitence, deeds of obedience; deeds becoming to one who was a citizen of God’s kingdom.

Jesus was not the first to see and to know that the heart of his message was being dodged by people who simply refused to face what he was saying. The prophets before him had gone through the same thing again and again. It is still sobering to read their pleas for a hearing; and yet to see them treated as objects of curiosity, ridicule, anger; or to see them simply ignored by their generation. Perhaps the children of those who mistreated the prophets might honor and hail and revere them as God’s proven, chosen leaders in the spirit. And yet the prophets of a later generation fared no better than their predecessors. The same cycle appeared, repeating itself in the experience of Jesus. John’s protest seems to have gone begging entirely, except as it was conserved in Jesus. While John was the center of a good deal of contagious enthusiasm for a while, there seemed to be no carry-over in terms of change of social institutions or permanent influence on the life of people.

In John’s case there were a few who hung on to his message before drifting away into oblivion. It looked as if the same thing could happen to Jesus’ teaching -- a few who hung on, while most would drift away. But, while most Scribes and Pharisees could not be reached, and much of the public was too fickle to stay with anything, there were some disciples where the life and works of the Master found effective lodgment. And this fellowship of disciples became the center of the Christian Church. It was a very small fellowship for some time. But it continued to grow and to become the carrier of the legitimate protest and the note of judgment sounded by both John and Jesus. The church of Jesus Christ has continued to be a fellowship whose primary task is to preach the gospel of judgment, of saving grace, and of love for God’s sake. It was not alone the task of early disciples, and of churchmen of later centuries. It is just as fully our task.

The Christian Church is on the march today with a vigor and purpose seldom seen in her long and checkered career. From one end of the earth to the other, she is astir and on the move. Young churches in lands that Christianity called foreign mission countries have asserted their autonomy. The Presbyterian church of Korea has 19 missionaries abroad! While welcoming counsel from abroad and needing advisory assistance, they are asserting their own leadership in becoming indigenous to their own people. The Roman Catholic Church has made startling changes and new strides since the Vatican Councils initiated by Pope John. Protestant and Catholic churches alike are trying to find ways to be more evidently relevant to the current needs of people in our contemporary world.

The church is aware that great issues are being joined in every life. There is happiness in the effort; but a consciousness that the issues are tremendous in scope and depth, and utterly tragic in import. The whole range of life, and the fate of what we have called civilization, hang clearly in the balance. The church is facing up to this fact; aware of her guilt and her complacent neglect; painfully conscious of her inadequacy to deal with what must still be learned; confident that she has been given guidelines that are still relevant and determined to apply them. Part of her message is the same message committed to her in the preaching of John and the teaching ministry of Jesus to the generation that heard their voices -- the message of the judgment of God on us and our generation.

This is part of the motif of great efforts at cooperation among churches in the National and World Councils of Churches. Effective pronunciation of the message of judgment depends on our unity in sharing the gospel --- not uniformity of structure, but unity in Christian purpose. If we speak together on this matter we have a chance to be heard. If we speak separately, few will pay attention. The issues which enjoin our cooperation are more important than the issues which separate us. Through some effective degree of togetherness, we can sound a note of judgment in our generation with such seriousness that it will be heard. The church can exalt high moral and spiritual purpose in our common life that may lead us out of the swamps and wastelands of endless compromises, ambiguous moralities, and pseudo religions that now threaten us from every quarter without and within.

Wherever church men and women get together there is agreement on the overarching duty of the church today to teach and preach and practice the gospel. It is the unbroken witness of every Ecumenical Council or Conference of the last three decades. It continues to be the basic assumption on which church conferences proceed as they wrestle with the economic, social, racial, and national and international issues of our time. When the World Council met at New Delhi, the great cry was to stop focusing on structure and organization and to begin talking seriously about mission and evangelization of the world. We are not here to spend our lives on manipulating the intricacies of ecclesiastical structure, but to preach and teach and practice the gospel.

And this is what one would expect to be experiencing in the church today. Every generation for 19 or 20 centuries has been forced to consider the meaning of the gospel for its own life just as we must do now. Sometimes the focusing agent has been a powerful personality like Paul or Calvin or Wesley; or Washington Gladden or Walter Rauschenbush or Toyohiko Kagawa, who through sheer power of insight, conviction and life have been able to bring their contemporaries to new awareness of the reality of the gospel. At other times, the forcing agent has been the obvious contradiction between the inherited interpretations of the gospel and the nature of the world in which we live.

How dull can we be if we are not aware of some of the obvious contractions of today? (1) The gospel preaches peace --- not just the “let-me-alone” kind of peace, but constructive, cooperative living; and yet we are in a continuing state of war --- cold war and hot war. (2) The gospel preaches fair play and justice; a lot of our world-ferment cries out of injustices of every sort. (3) The gospel proclaims love; the world seethes with hatred. (4) The gospel urges forgiveness; the world practices vengeance and retaliation at an appalling level of efficiency. (5) The gospel urges people to seek first the kingdom of God, thereby finding peace of mind and spirit and achieving true security; the world is seeking security by building up situations of physical strength, accumulation of every sort of weapon of destruction and by creating in men’s minds the expectation of conflict in power.

Given these glaring contradictions between our gospel and our practices in the world, we who believe in the gospel, yet live in the world, have our work cut out for us. It would be serious (1) to play down the seriousness of the contradictions, hoping thereby to reduce the tensions and possible tragedy of our witness to the gospel. It would be serious (2) to wait for a more convenient season to push the claims of the gospel. It would be serious (3) to assume that we who try to proclaim the gospel have all the answers in detail to the great problems faced by mankind today. That is patently untrue, and we are first to admit it, even as we go ahead insisting that the gospel points the way toward answers that we seek.

We are probably agreed that we are playing for the stakes of life and death for our civilization as we proclaim the gospel today. It may easily be either life or death for the whole human race on the face of this planet. Yet the gospel is pertinent even to issues like these. And we proclaim the gospel not because of our superior wisdom, or spiritual worthiness, but because we believe it, and believe it to be the way to life. We believe it contains the strength we need to walk in that way. This gospel begins for us, as it did in Jesus’ day, with the unwelcome note he proclaimed: “Repent ye, for the kingdom is at hand.” Where else can the Christian gospel begin?

It has been pointed out that the gospel summons our assent to four closely related statements about the nature and meaning of this judgment which we proclaim. (1) God alone is the final Judge of all the earth. (2) The judgment of God has appeared to us incarnate in Jesus Christ. (3) That judgment still stands. (4) We Christians are custodians of it --- not as a possessive privilege, but as a life-sharing responsibility. That is our mission.

Our idea that God is Judge of the earth is even older than Christianity. The Hebrews had discovered it the hard way several hundred years before it appears in the New Testament. The prophets had proclaimed it. It plays a prominent part in the Christian gospel from the time when Jesus began his public ministry. The admonition, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” means that a serious redirection of life must be made at once.

When Clovis, the wild king of the Franks, halted his own baptism long enough to ask the missionary, Remigius, what this new way of life would mean, he got this answer: “Adore what you used to burn, and burn what you used to adore.” That was plain enough for Clovis and it is much too plain for most of us. Yet it is in keeping with the entire emphasis of the gospel in New Testament times. The early preachers did not attempt to play down the radically different nature of the gospel, lest men be offended. Rather they sounded it forth loud and clear as a hope that men might be saved from their sins.

Jesus was radical in his demand on would-be followers: “No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” [Luke 9: 62]. Matthew dwells heavily on Jesus’ judgment and lament over Jerusalem as the city that killed the prophets and must, in its turn, be destroyed. [Matthew 23: 37-39]. God, as interpreted by Jesus, leaves each of us free to make choices -- as the rich young ruler was free to make a choice. He even creates the alternatives. But He is the judge over whether or not our choices are in accord with His righteous purposes for the world’s people.

You know the result of Jesus’ preaching. Some listened attentively. A few were challenged to change. Most turned away, treating him as a fanatic or misguided young idealist. Some simply laughed at him; some hated him. But to the few who remained, not quite sure of their choice, he asked, “Will you, too, go away?” [John 6: 67]. And they made answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” [John 6: 68].

In their thoughts, their preaching, their writings; in the churches they built as congregations of faithful people, Jesus Christ became the incarnation of the continuing judgment of God on the lives of people, a judgment we receive and articulate in our time. It is our deep conviction that God’s judgment of what is right stands at the center of life and history. It requires decision. It requires discipleship. We may try, like Augustine, to put off the decision, or wait around for somebody else to decide first. We may not like some of the choices we have to make. But we’ve got to make up our minds.

We must be prepared to redesign our life purposes and actions in light of God’s revealing will. And we may share in the transformations of living witnesses --- His glory breaking through in radiant expression.

Let us not accept any brush-off for our church or the church universal. But let us bear our witness without fear or favor, confident or our calling, rejoicing that we have been called of God to be witnesses to his righteousness, and justice and love as we see it in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 5, 1968.

Also at Kalahikiola Church, March 9, 1969.

Also at Waioli Hui’ia Church, March 12, 1972.