Sermon for Friends Congregational Church

“Jesus’ Autograph”
Delivered by Reverend Dan De Leon

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Psalm 40:1-11; Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

It’s January 20^th, the year of our Lord, 2008, the second Sunday after Epiphany, and, as They Might Be Giants say, “You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older.”  So, I ask you: Have you received your 15 minutes yet?

We joke about everyone getting those 15 minutes of fame; our name in lights some way or another.  A high schooler from our own youth group, Kalena Miller took a chunk out of her 15 minutes by dancing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade a few weeks ago.  And through the use of youtube video technology and blog pictures, my 12-day-old daughter has reached her 15 minutes and then some already.  I can’t wait until she’s old enough to understand me, so I can tell her, “It’s all downhill from here, baby girl.”

What I’m saying is that our 15 minutes aren’t enough anymore.  We always want more.  So we turn to celebrities: the famous folks who grace magazine covers and dominate news headlines.  These are the folks who don’t just get 15 minutes, they get 15 years and then some.

These are the folks we pine after from our lowly 15-minute slouches.  We want just a taste of what it’s like to be them—just a glimpse into their glimmering fame.  And if you think that’s a bogus assumption, tell that to the radio, TV, magazine, newspaper and internet search engine industries that make billions from throwing these celebrities in our faces every day.

It seems to be all about them, and we want a taste!  We want their autographs.  We want our pictures taken with them.  We want them to say something meaningful to us, or do something cool, like when Mean Joe Green threw his dirty, sweaty towel to that kid in the old Coke commercial.  That’s all we want.  That might make us feel important.  It might make us feel…special.

When I was in middle school, I saw Bernadette Peters at the airport, Steve Martin’s girlfriend in the comedy cult classic, The Jerk, but I was too afraid to approach her.  When I was in college, I saw Lyle Lovett eating at the table next me in a little café, but I didn’t ask him for his autograph.  Just a few weeks ago Stacy and I saw Slash, former guitarist for Guns n’ Roses, leaning up against a wall in downtown Austin, but I didn’t ask if I could take a picture with him (even though I played air guitar on a tennis racquet to one of his songs when I was in the 8^th grade).

And when Stacy, Mac and I went to Hartford for General Synod in June, we sat in front of former UT women’s basketball coach, Jody Conradt, and all I could say was, “Coach, this one’s name is Mac.  Maybe if we have a little girl, we’ll name her Jody.”  Obviously, I was lying.

But what difference would it have made if I had reached out to those famous people.  How would it have made me a different person if I’d gotten Bernadette Peters’ autograph, or Lyle Lovett’s picture, or some words of guitar hero wisdom from Slash?  Why do we have this mythical belief that when we brush up against greatness, we are validated, we are important…we are special?

That’s what the first disciples wanted.  They wanted to brush up against greatness.  They wanted to feel special.  They were as ordinary as you and me.  They were the blue collar and white collar 9-to-fivers of their time.  They were tax collectors, lawyers, carpenters, stonemasons and fishermen, and they wanted something more than their normal lives.  They wanted a taste of the big time.

But their headlines were different from our magazine covers and internet pop-ups.  Their headlines were the words from the prophets: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Kings will see you and rise up, princes will bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.’”  Before they were the disciples of Jesus, these ordinary men wanted to rub elbows with the one those prophets of old were talking about.

They didn’t want to follow Jesus.  They just wanted his autograph.  Andrew was hanging out with John the Baptist, because John the Baptist was celebrity material.  He spoke out famously and baptized people gloriously.  Andrew might have felt validated hanging out with this guy, because this guy was where it’s at.

But the moment John the Baptist notices Jesus walking by, and he says, “Look!  It’s the Lamb of God!  He’s the one I said was greater than me!,” Andrew and another disciple race after Jesus, but all they want is a glimpse into Jesus’ greatness.  They just wanted an autograph.

You can see Andrew and this other guy racing up to Jesus, like the boy who called out to Mean Joe Green in the Coke commercial.  Only Jesus doesn’t throw them a towel and move on.  Jesus doesn’t give them an autograph or some pithy piece of advice.  When Andrew says to Jesus, “Um…where are you going,” Jesus says, “Why don’t you follow me and find out.”

The Scripture doesn’t spell out their reluctance to follow Jesus, but you know it’s there.  All they wanted was a taste of what made Jesus great, and Jesus said, “Follow me and you can have this greatness, too.”  They wanted an autograph, and they got an invitation.

That’s all that we Christians really want these days, too: just an autograph.  We don’t want to follow Jesus, we just want his autograph.  We’re no different from Andrew and the other disciple who run from John the Baptist to Jesus at the drop of a hat.  They wanted to find the right Messiah, the right icon to associate themselves with.  They wanted to brush up against the most prominent greatness around.  And we do that, too.

Christians go from church to church, from denomination to denomination wanting to find the right Jesus and get their picture taken with him.  Church goers want to know where it’s at.  They don’t want a life-change, they want an autograph.

“Hey, I’ve got the Matthew McConaughey Jesus over here!”

“Oh, that’s yesterday’s news.  Let’s check out the Britney Jesus over there.”

“You’ve got to be crazy to hang out with that Jesus.  What about the Brad Pitt Jesus?”

“Tempting, but I think we should check out the Oprah Jesus.”

“Now you’re talking.  Then I might reach under my chair in church and find an LG refrigerator with a TV in it.”

We want to associate with the biggest, glitziest Jesus we can find so that we can feel like we’re in the right place.  But Jesus is not a gift from God to boost our status and validate our lives.  Jesus is not a gift from God to prove to the world that our opinions and our preferences are correct.  Jesus is a gift from God who comes into this world to change our names, to change who we are…to change our very lives.

We all have a handful of people we’d like to meet, and half the time the people we want to meet the most are dead: Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Jimi Hendrix, Abraham Lincoln, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Jr.  But when we think about the people we would like to meet, we usually think in terms of what we’d like to ask them: President Lincoln, what was your inspiration?  Jack Ruby, did you really do it?  Mother Teresa, what was it like serving God in the face of so much injustice?  Kirk Cobain, what was going through your mind?

These are the people that the world crowned as the ones who knew more than we did.  They were what life was all about.  And we want to meet them on our terms, ask them our questions, use their lives to inform our ignorance and give us a taste of greatness.  We want their autographs!

But we can’t come to Jesus like this.  Look at how many times in the New Testament Jesus is asked a question and he doesn’t answer it, he counters with his own question.  Jesus isn’t about giving us what we want.  He’s not about autographs and pictures or handy words of advice.  Jesus is about the business of changing the world one life at a time.

Andrew asks Jesus, “Where are you going,” and Jesus says, “Follow me and find out.”  And after spending just one day with Jesus, Andrew goes to his brother Simon, tells him all about how amazing it is to be close to this guy.  So Simon goes to Jesus, and Jesus looks at Simon and says, “You aren’t Simon any more.  Your name is Peter, which means rock, anchor, foundation…We’re building something here for everyone in this world to stand on!”

Everyone.  We look to famous folks because we think it’s all about them, and we want to know what that’s like to be them.  But when we catch up with Jesus and we say, “Hey!  You’re the one that these prophecies are about.  You’re the one that will place our feet on solid ground.  You’re the one to restore our righteousness.  I’ve heard so much about you.  Do you mind if I hang around you for a little while so that people can see that I’m with you,” Jesus looks at us like he might have looked at Andrew and then Simon.

And Jesus says to us, “I am the way and the truth and the life, but it’s not all about me.  It’s about everyone.  I come to bring Good News to the world, not to sit on a throne so the world feels vindicated for worshiping the correct king.  I come to share God’s love everlasting and overflowing with everyone.  It’s not just about me.  It’s about the whole world,” proclaims the Christ.

Jesus is the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News.  And the Good News of God’s love can’t be for any one person or icon or public figure.  God is too big for that.  And God’s gift of the Living Christ is too big for that.  We can’t chase after Jesus in this world hoping to find the right Jesus, because then we take God’s love and make it all about “me.”  We compromise the Gospel.

This is what I was talking about back in August in one of our Vacation Bible School discussions.  We were talking about our many different perspectives on baptism: what it means, why it’s important or unimportant, and what this means for the Church.  And finally one person said something like, “Wow.  This is a challenge.  We have to be Church together even though our views of what Church is and ought to be are so different from person to person in our church family.  So what do we hold in common?”  And I offered this: “We are blessed in our differences, but we, in this family of faith are held together by the charge that we will be uncompromisingly Gospel.”

We will be uncompromisingly Gospel.  See, the Gospel message can’t just be about you, because if it’s about you, then it’s about me, too; and if it’s about me, then it’s about my family; and if it’s about my family, then it’s about your family; and if it’s about your family, then it’s about your children; and if it’s about your children, then it’s about their friends; and if it’s about friends, then it’s about our enemies, too.  Whew!  That’s a lot.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have an ethic or a personal belief system or a set of rules that incorporates all of those people equally; without judgment or condition.  I don’t have a human outlook that speaks without bias to the equality of all of God’s creatures; the equality of all of God’s creation.  I don’t have it within me.

And so I thank God for the Gospel, the Good News of Christ.  I thank God for the Good News that says to those of us who hunger, “Here is the body of Christ.  Eat of it and be filled with the strength of God’s vision…”

The Good News that says to those of us who thirst, “Come and follow Christ and model your life after his instructions and his teachings and you will never be thirsty again…”

The Good News that says to those of us whose spirit is broken, “Never lose hope, because God never loses faith in you.”

The Good News that says to those of us who mourn, “The comfort of God surrounds you right now like a blanket swaddles a baby, and that comfort can never be taken from you.”

And I thank God that when I come to Jesus Christ (just like all of us have come to church this morning) with all of my anger, frustration, confusion, self-deception, doubt, fear, trouble, and worry, Jesus says to me, “I’m glad you came to me, because I have Good News for you.  And this Good News isn’t just about me; it’s about everyone.  That means it can’t just be about you.”

The Gospel is compromised when we hoard it, and the Good News is ours only when we share it.  So let’s ask ourselves, “Are we willing to let our lives be changed so that who we are and what we do can bring other people to know the love of God?”  It’s like they say, “You may be the only Bible anyone ever reads.”  So, let’s not put the Good News on a shelf until next Sunday.

Do we want to follow Christ, or do we just want his autograph?  Amen.