John 1:29-42
I am easily distracted. It’s true, I am. This is something that has been true about me my whole life! Like, when I go to see a play or a musical I am often watching the stage crew or other cast members rather than the main character as I am more intrigued about what is happening behind the scenes and off to the side that I miss what the main character is doing. Or as a kid walking through the grocery store, I would be distracted by the new Lunchable or candy bar and just as I’m about to run in to someone my mom says look! Watch where you are going! My gift of being easily distracted often has people saying to me, Look! Look over here! And often I miss what I was supposed to be looking at because there was something more interesting to my brain.
In our Gospel text, I think John is also working with people who have the gift of being easily distracted. John says, Look! Look! This is Jesus, the Messiah, the lamb of God! This is the One we have been waiting for! Not me but him! LOOK! Then, we get to the next day, same easily distracted people who apparently missed Jesus the day before and John says again, LOOK! There’s the Lamb of God! And this time the disciples caught Jesus in time and heard what John was saying.
John continues to say look! There is Jesus! He is the messiah not me! I only baptized with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Look you easily distracted people that is your guy! John continually points to Jesus, the messiah. He shouts and shouts at easily distracted people to proclaim that this person right here is the Word made Flesh and he is here to bring about the reign of God. LOOK!
Martin Luther King Jr. did similar work to John the Baptist. Martin Luther King Jr. shouted and preached and marched saying Look! This is God at work! God is riding with the freedom riders. God is marching from Selma to Montgomery. God is in racial justice work! God is here so look!
Martin Luther King Jr. often preached and spoke about bringing about racial justice but that this work could not happen apart from God. That this reality could not be brought to fruition without following the call of Jesus Christ. As did John, MLK Jr. spoke to easily distracted people and said here is God at work let us join this work being done! Look over here!
Neither of these men proclaimed to be Christ or the Messiah in their work but both were humbled and driven by the witness of Jesus. In all that they did and said they pointed back to Christ the one who was inspiring and driving their work. They attempted to get other easily distracted people to look with them to join in this kin-dom work that was happening all around them. John had Jesus in the flesh to point to and say, Look that is Jesus at work! And MLK Jr. was a powerful preacher with his words he would proclaim Christ and witness to the work being done.
When Jesus met his new disciples, they asked Jesus, where are you staying? Jesus invites them to come and see. After John had shouted for days, Look! Look! That is Jesus! The disciples were finally ready to go and see what Jesus was doing.
Martin Luther King Jr. also invited many people to come and see the work he was doing in Christs name. As he led a march in Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge people came out on their porches to see what all the commotion was about. Martin shouted out, come and see! As he gathered crowds for another one of his riveting sermons people slowly approached as the crowd begged them to come and see the future being set before them by this prophetic preacher.
His prophetic words still ring true today and I want to share an excerpt from his sermon, “Where do we go from here?” that he preached in 1967:
“I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.
And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.
Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol will be housed by a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy, and who will walk humbly with his God. Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied, and men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, “White Power!” when nobody will shout, “Black Power!” but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power. And I must confess, my friends, that the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. And there will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again, with tear-drenched eyes, have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. But difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/where-do-we-go-from-here)
In all the work that John and MLK Jr. did they invited people on the journey to come and see how Christ can be at work in our world. Neither of these men saw the future they dreamed of come into reality. Both were murdered for speaking truth to power and never saw the fruits of their labor on this Earth. Even so, they said Look! Come and see this work being done because we are led forth by Christ! They invited people to bend that moral arc of justice toward the kin-dom of God we are all being called to.
The moral arc does not bend on its own and it surely won’t bend without God. So, let us bend that moral arc together saying Look! Look! There is God at work! Come and see with me! Let’s bring about the reign of Christ by inviting others on this journey of justice work in the name of Christ. Let’s march on towards this brighter future with the faith of John and the courage of Martin Luther King Jr. proclaiming Christ as we go to all those easily distracted people around us. We might not see the end of this moral arc but what a privilege to have been part of the journey. Thanks be to God, amen.