On a sunny day in September 1972, a stern-faced, plainly dressed man could be seen standing still on a street comer in the busy Chicago Loop. As pedestrians hurried by on their way to lunch or business, he would solemnly lift his right arm, and pointing to the person nearest him, intone loudly the single word “GUILTY!” Then, without any change of expression, he would resume his stiff stance for a few moments before repeating the gesture. Then, again, the inexorable raising of his arm, the pointing, and the solemn pronouncing of the one word “GUILTY!”The effect of this strange faccuse pantomime on the passing strangers was extraordinary, almost eerie. They would stare at him, hesitate, look away, look at each other, and then at him again; then hurriedly continue on their ways. One man, turning to another who was my informant, exclaimed: “But how did he know?”1
Those of us who live in cities can spot street preachers from blocks away. They are easy to identify with their big megaphones and even bigger bibles. Their message is almost always the same. Those who pass by are “guilty as sin” and they need to repent or face the dire consequences. Most times we can avoid them but there are other occasions where they insert themselves wherever we are.
James Thurber in his essay “The Get Ready Man” remembered that once the “Get Ready Man” interrupted a production of “King Lear” at the local theatre.
The theatre was in absolute darkness and there were rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightening offstage {when} the Get Ready Man added his bawlings to the ranting of the King and the mouthing of the Fool. Right in the middle of the play from the balcony there came the shouts “Get Ready! Get Ready! The World is coming to an end!”
They found him finally, and ejected him, still shouting. Neither father nor I, {Thurber wrote} completely got over the scene... The theatre in our time, {he speculated} has known few such moments.”2
I’ll bet not. It takes a while to get over any encounter with those who remind us of our shortcomings which is why I tried to deftly avoid John the Baptist last week by talking about his parents, Zachariah and Elizabeth, in the hopes of giving him a wide enough berth to avoid him entirely. But apparently, I didn’t swerve far enough because John the Baptist is still here.
It seems that we are not going to able to get to Christmas without hearing John preach.
Long ago in another place in time I quoted a sermon by the late, great, preacher of preachers, Dr. Fred B. Craddock when he let his imagination run wild over the figure of John the Baptist.
He was an oddity. He had long hair, and when I say he had long hair, I don’t mean he just had long hair. It wasn’t like the young businessmen in Atlanta with a little ponytail. He never cut his hair. I mean, he never cut his hair. He had a long beard, not a neat beard like some of you have. I mean, he had never trimmed his beard. He ... was strange. And dressed in an unusual way – camel’s hair and a leather band around the waist. And his food – he never went home with anybody for lunch, and I’m sure no one accepted his invitation.
I loved the imagery until after church when a really nice woman who we had spent weeks actively courting for membership came up to me and said, “What do you mean he never cut his hair? What do you mean he never trimmed his beard? What do you mean he never took a bath?” and stormed out.
I wanted to run after her myself shouting: “Hey! Hey! Hey! Don’t blame me! Blame Fred Craddock!” But she was gone, never to be seen at our church again.
While we might try to avoid hearing John and his kind preach I’m with Dr. Peter Marty, who wrote:
What fascinates me about John is that our first-century friends made the decision to go out and hear him in the wilderness. They took the initiative. He didn’t come to them to dwell in their midst and inhabit their lives, as Jesus did. They had to go to him, leaving behind their comforts, conveniences, and suburban cul-de-sacs.3
At the risk of getting in trouble again let me tap into Dr. Craddock’s overactive imagination:
Plows were left in the furrows, bread was left in the oven, shops were left unattended, school was let our early because the crowds were moving into the desert to hear this extraordinary preacher.
I’m sure that many of the people who went were just curious, curious about the way he looked and the way he talked. I’m sure some the young people went out there just out of curiosity, nothing to do, sat out on the hoods of their camels and just watched the crowd and listened to John, bored perhaps. But most of the people who went were very sincere. There was something persuasive about him.4
Start a sermon like that and the congregation just might come to believe you have real anger issues. Preacher friends and I can’t remember in all our years of preaching ever starting a sermon by calling our congregations a brood of vipers, a bunch of snakes. We’ve thought about it but thinking and doing are two different matters.
Besides, the people’s reaction to John was amazing. They don’t announce in returned anger, “Well, I don’t believe it!” They don’t storm back to their villages and farms. They don’t try to cut off his head. Sadly, that will come later but it will not be one of them but be by a leader who demands ultimate, unquestioning, loyalty from any in their kingdom or court.
Instead, the crowds ask: “Then what are we supposed to do?”6
Just as no preacher I know would start a sermon the way John did, no preacher I know would ever expect that kind of reaction. Believe me when I tell you, “What do you want us to do?”7 is not a reaction most preachers are used to getting but it is what happens when we hear John preach.
I find it curious that John doesn’t tell the tax collectors to quit working for the Romans and their ... collaborators, nor are the soldiers called to quit serving Caesar and his empire. Both the despised tax collectors and the feared soldiers and called ... to respond to the advent of the Christ, right here and right now in their ordinary everyday lives.8
An encounter with Jesus, the baby in the manger, the full-grown adult who John is pointing us to, makes us different. When we have heard John preach our reaction is “what shall we do?”
And this doesn’t mean just to repeat pious phrases over and over. This doesn’t mean to try to impress people with our knowledge of scripture or theology. It doesn’t mean that we only care for our close relatives and friends. But it does means that we broaden our scope, our horizons, and begin to live like the world really is coming to an end.
When we’ve really heard John preach we may just wind up like Ebenezer Scrooge. He, and Dickens’ play, A Christmas Carol is playing almost everywhere about now.
His main complaint about Christmas is that it costs him money. Money is everything to him, it is his first love. He has sacrificed everything for it including the love of another person.
is complaint with the poorly paid Bob Crachit is that he wants a day off with or without pay and that will cost Scrooge money in, if nothing else, lost business.
He throws the gentlemen asking for donations to the poor out of his office because he pays taxes, lots of taxes, don’t they know, and his taxes pay for poorhouses. There is nothing more he wishes to do but be left alone.
After an evening meal and bed, alone as always, he is visited by three ghosts, past, present, and future, that frankly sum up his life in one word, “guilty.” “How did they know?” might have been his response and it could have been his only response.
But spoiler alert! Scrooge wakes up a changed man. Maybe he had heard the three ghosts and they sounded a lot like John preaching. And, as someone pointed out: “Scrooge’s first merry Christmas cost Scrooge a fortune.”9
Have you heard John preach? Have you heard him bear witness to the light whose coming we will celebrate in just a few days?
Have you heard John preach? It may not cost you a fortune, but it will give you back your life.
“Share now. Be merciful now. Do justice now. Inhabit your life, no matter how plain, how obscure, how unglamourous, how routine”10 now.
Hear John preach now, and you really will be ready for Christmas.
________________
1. Karl A. Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin? (New York, NY: Hawthorne Books, 1197), 1-2.
2. James Thurber, “The Car We Had to Push,” in My Life and Hard Times (Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 13-14.
3. Peter Marty, “The Eerie Call of John the Baptist,” The Christian Century, December 1, 2023, https://www.christiancentury.org/first-words/eerie-call-john-baptist
4. Fred B. Craddock, “Have You Heard John Preach?,” essay, in The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2011), 109–14.
5. William H. Willimon, “A Sermon About Sermons,” Pulpit Resource, Year B, 52, no. 4 (2024): 33–35.
6. St. Luke 3:10. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE:Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).]
7. St. Luke 3:10. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 1971.)]
8. Willimon, loc. cit.
9. William Willimon, “How Much Does Christmas Cost?” Pulpit Resource, Year B, 46, no. 4 (2024): 33–35.
10. Debie Thomas, “What Then Should We Do?” Journey with Jesus, December 9, 2018, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2030-what-then-should-we-do.
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