December 18, 2016TRAVELING ADVENT HIGHWAYS 4. The Highway of Enthusiasm1

Matthew 3:1-12; John 1:6-8, 19-28

INTRODUCTION

Do we have any enthusiasts in worship today? Do you know anyone you would call an “enthusiast?” Obviously, there are no shortage of interests and activities one can be enthusiastic about. Tell me what you are enthusiastic about or about any other “enthusiasts” you know… [Get responses].

What is an “enthusiast” any way? I looked up the word in my dictionary, which gave this definition for “enthusiast:” a person who is highly interested in a particular activity or subject, such as “a sports car enthusiast.”

Synonyms they give include - fan, devotee, aficionado, lover, admirer, follower.

The meaning of the English word, “enthusiasm,” has changed a lot over the centuries. Scholars who study this sort of thing have determined that the word first showed up in English literature in 1603 and it meant “possession by a god.” That was a pretty literal translation of the Greek word, enthousiasmos, which comes from the adjective, entheos, “having the god within.” (The Greek word for “god” is theos.)

But over the years, the meaning of enthusiasm has changed. It moved first from “possession by a god” to mean “a rapturous inspiration like that caused by a god.” Eventually it came to mean “an overly confident belief or delusion that one is inspired by God.” After a while, enthusiasm was understood to mean “unregulated religious fervor or religious extremism.” It’s only fairly recently that the word enthusiasm is used to talk about being “highly interested in a particular activity or subject,” whatever it may be. Today, you can be enthusiastic about anything from bird watching to basket weaving, from cycling to computers, from sculpting to skydiving, from archery to zoology without religion or God ever entering into it in any sense. It simply refers to those things that really “float your boat!”

Anyone familiar with Methodist history will recall that back in the 1700’s when the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, (a priest of the Church of England), began preaching many of his fellow priests and members of the upper class dismissed him as an “enthusiast.” It was not meant as a compliment. They thought of him and others like him as religious extremists that had lost touch with reason and decorum.

For the last few weeks of the church season called “Advent,” which is meant to prepare our hearts, minds and spirits for the celebration and anticipation of Christ’s coming into our world, we have been traveling down some Advent highways. First, we were given the opportunity to consider the Level and Straight Highway and our role in leveling and straightening the Lord’s path into our lives and world. The second highway of Advent was the Highway of Reversal, which doesn’t mean that we shift into reverse and go backwards in our relationship with God, but that in many ways, God’s work in our world inverts those things we think are important; that God’s kingdom turns our world upside down in ways that lift up the lowly and bring down the proud and arrogant. It reverses things. Last week’s Advent highway was the Highway In Between, the path we all walk between what Christ started and what Christ will someday finish.

Today, the Advent highway I want us to journey down on this Sunday before Christmas isthe Highway of Enthusiasm. But I want to be clear what I mean by enthusiasm and what it means for us to be “enthusiastic.” It is a lot more than having a strong liking or passion for the church or doctrines or even being a cheerleader for Jesus!

To get at this, we’re going to hear a couple passages in the New Testament about the same person, John the Baptizer, who almost always shows up in our scripture readings this time of year as we get ourselves ready to celebrate Christmas. Was John an “enthusiast?” If so, in what way? And how does his example of enthusiasm guide us as we travel the Highway of Enthusiasm to Christmas?

Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks on a jury for a trial, listening to the testimony of witnesses for the prosecution and defense that I want to offer to you the testimony of at least two witnesses about John the Baptizer. The question is, “Is John guilty of enthusiasm and if so, what sort of enthusiasm is he guilty of?”

First on the stand is Matthew, who wrote the first Gospel in the New Testament. Let’s listen to his testimony about the Baptizer…

Scripture Reading: Matthew 3:1-12

  1. This traditional reading for Advent is about the forerunner of Jesus, who takes center stage but has no apparent desire to upstage Jesus. In fact, he sees his job as preparing the way for Jesus. And in Matthew, he’s a firebrand preacher. Did you notice how he was dressed? In rough clothing. Did you notice his sparse diet? Locusts (yum, yum) and honey. Did you notice the way he confronted the people who had come out to hear him? He called them to confess their sins and repent… and he baptizes those who do.
  2. He especially takes to task the religious and temple leaders of this time, calling them children of snakes and warning them of impending doom unless they change their ways. He also tells them that being the children of Abraham gives them no free pass from God’s judgment. John points to one who is coming after him, saying he is stronger. “If you think I’m being tough on you, just wait until then one coming next arrives,” John seems to be saying.
  3. Now Matthew never tells us of John’s emotional state during all this, but reading between the lines of his message, surely John is not giving some dispassionate lecture. He’s emotionally charged and letting them have it.

Would you say he was enthusiastic?

But there’s another witness I want you to hear. This testimony comes from the author of the fourth Gospel in the New Testament – the one we know as John. He also describes the work of the Baptizer and how he went about it. Let’s listen to what he has to say…

Scripture Reading: John 1:6-8, 19-28

  1. What sense do you get from this portrayal of John and his message? It’s different than Matthew’s testimony, isn’t it? John the Baptizer as portrayed in the first chapter of John is a calm, reasonable man having a patient conversation with some priests and Levites. John doesn’t slam them as he did in Matthew and there is nothing here about John’s rough clothing or Spartan diet.
  2. This delegation of religious leaders and authorities had been sent to ask John if he thought he was the long-awaited Messiah. John puts that notion to bed immediately. “Then who are you?” they wanted to know. “Elijah?” (They asked this because the common belief was that the ancient prophet would reappear to announce the arrival of the Messiah.) When John said “no” they if he was another prophet. No. “OK, we give up. Who are you?” John answered, “I am the one Isaiah spoke of – a voice crying out in the wilderness, make the Lord’s path straight.
  3. If John wasn’t the Christ, Elijah or another prophet, for what purpose, they wondered, did he baptize? John said he baptized with water, but among them was one they hadn’t recognize yet, one who is greater, and John’s baptism of repentance is getting everyone ready for him.
  4. So…if you were to determine your verdict on the testimony given in the Gospel of John, would you say John the Baptizer was guilty of enthusiasm? He’s not the fiery preacher or the confrontive rabble-rouser we hear about in Matthew. His answers are direct, plain spoken, and reasonable.
  5. Was the Baptizeran enthusiast? Was he enthusiastic about his work? While the John described by Matthew is different than the John described in John’s Gospel, after considering both testimonies we could conclude that like most of us, the Baptizer was neither all emotional firebrand nor all even-tempered rationalist but somewhere in between.

Was he an enthusiast? Yes, especially if we are using the original meaning of the word enthusiasm, which was “possession by a god,” and recognize that the God who possessed John is the same God revealed to us in Jesus, whose arrival John was preparing the way for.

  1. John faithfully announced the coming of the Messiah, he confronted those who, because of self-righteousness, weren’t getting the message, and he declared himself unworthy to carry the sandals of the one to come. That sounds like being possessed by God to me!

I.

  1. By now you’ve surely asked yourself where I’m going with this! What does John’s “enthusiasm” have to do with us on our Advent journey to Christmas?

Here’s the thing…

On the first Sunday of Advent, as we started down the Advent Highways to Christmas, we talked about our role in straightening and leveling the way of the Lord into our lives and into our world.

The next Sunday we talked about how the way of the Lord reverses the givens and the assumptions we have about how life in this world should and could work, and who gets to decide.

And last week, we talked about being on a long highway in between the beginning of the kingdom of God in the past and its promised fulfillment in the future, and all we are called to do along the highway in between – never losing our focus or our hope.

  1. Today John the Baptizer sends us down the Advent Highway of Enthusiasm. If enthusiasm means “allowing God to possess us,” then how enthusiastic are we about our faith? The Christ whom John prepared the way for, the one whose birth was announced in angel song, the one who grew and lived and died to proclaim the kingdom of God, needs enthusiastic people. And if you’re thinking that Christ doesn’t need you because you are not “enthusiastic”… because you are not an extrovert; because you’re not an openly emotional or demonstrative or outwardly expressive person, then the mixed testimony about John the Baptist invites us to think again.
  2. For example, let’s take a quick look at two people in the congregation of a pastor named Stan Purdum. One is Sandy who attends worship regularly, where she can be seen lifting her hands heavenward during songs and prayers. Her eyes well with tears when she hears touching stories, appeals for charity, or the personal troubles of fellow parishioners. She went on mission trips and could be quite very emotional when she shared her experiences with others. She was on a mission team that had a ministry to the local prison and had to be especially careful about not being a sucker for all the sad stories. She has absolutely no problem saying she loves the Lord… and her life matches her words. It’s easy to say she’s enthusiastic about her faith.
  3. Then there’s Phil. No one who knew Phil would call him a starry-eyed romantic. He never waved his arms in worship and was one of the most matter-of-fact persons you would ever meet. In fact, he was so unemotional that sometimes others would assume he was uninterested in what they were saying, although he always was. When the church needed someone to read the Scriptures, Phil was always among those who would volunteer. When an adult class needed a teacher, Phil stepped forward and he took the time each week to print out the Scripture, read the lesson, look up additional information, and even research a joke he could use to start the class each week. When the church decided to launch a website, Phil gave his time to learn how to build one and launch it. Phil was diagnosed with cancer and fought it for as long as he could. And yet, even when he knew his days were numbered, he shows up in worship week after week after week. People don’t put out that kind of effort and energy into things they don’t care deeply about. He had a very different personality than Sandy, and yet was just as enthusiastic about his faith.
  4. For both Sandy and Phil, and all the people they represent, their enthusiasm for Christ was and is a warm place between hot, unfocused, fanaticism and cold, unfeeling rationality. Jesus needs “enthusiastic” people – “God possessed” people of warm hearts of all temperaments.
  5. The enthusiasm of John the Baptizer is a mood and an attitude of Advent. We can learn from him that enthusiasm is not merely an emotion or a feeling; it is allowing God to possess us. The poetry of the popular Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” says it well:

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray:

cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!

  1. Be born is us… bless us… possess us. For some of us, our enthusiasm will show itself in some emotional expression. But we can see it also in persistence, we can see it in perseverance, we can see it in courage, we can see it in stepping up to the plate, we can see it in showing up, we can see it in the things we happily spend our energy on, we can see it in the depths and resilience of our commitments.
  2. Traveling this Advent Highway of Enthusiasm can bring us to Christmas with delight, ready to celebrate what God has done in Jesus, the light of the world. It can also rouse in us to be enthusiastic witnesses to that light, whoever we are and wherever we may be on our journey of faith!

1 Credit to Stan Purdum’s book, Travel the Highways of Advent for material used in this sermon.