Word to the Wise
Sunday, January 9, 2011 - Christmas Weekday
[1 John 5:14-20 and John 3:22-30]No one can received anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Christ, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease. [John]
Today's gospel scripture, on the next to last day of the Christmas/Epiphany liturgical season, takes us all the way back to the beginning of the story of the origins of Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke, the story of the birth of John the Baptist virtually parallels that of Jesus. But at Luke 3:16, John explicitly denies he himself is the Messiah. In the Gospel of John, the Prologue explicitly mentions the "man sent from God, whose name was John," who was not the light but came to bear witness to the light. In the early Christian community, there appears to have been some concern that there were folks who remembered John the Baptist quite well and still lived according to the teaching that accompanied his baptismal ministry. This would undermine all that John was meant to accomplish in the long run - i.e. to prepare the way for the Messiah. The closing words of today's gospel scripture, quoting John, sum up the situation neatly: "He must increase. I must decrease."
Those words should be written in the mind and heart of every preacher, especially those who preside over vast evangelical "empires." Those preachers or religious leaders who find "increase" too tempting are simply into power. Time and again they come to a sudden and disastrous "decrease." That is not what ministry should be about. Celebrity ministry emphasizes the messenger more than the message. Jesus, for many reasons, tried hard during his ministry to avoid "celebrity" status. John the Baptist, who was already a "celebrity," even while he was in jail, made it clear that he was simply "the herald." That's what real preachers and ministers are. We are all heralds who want the message to increase and the herald to decrease. AMEN
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