“Great Expectations”

“Great Expectations”

Text: Luke 3:15-22

© January 7, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen

If you found something tucked away inside your bulletin today, it wasn’t a mistake. Did you find a rubber band inside your bulletin? If you did, it’s because it was put there on purpose. And by the time we’re done this morning, hopefully that rubber band will help you remember and think about today’s sermon.

You see, in everyone’s life there are two levels we have to deal with in some way. Down here on this level is what most of us call “reality.” It’s the way we are right now. It’s what we’re used to. It’s what, for the most part, we’re comfortable with. It’s the way that things have pretty much been in the past, and it’s the way that we figure things will pretty much be in the future.

But the second level that’s there in everyone’s life, whether we realize it or not, is the vision that God has for us. It’s the way that God wants us to be. It’s the way that God wants us to change, to grow, perhaps in rather surprising and drastic ways.

And that’s where the rubber band comes in.[1] Because those two levels that are there in our lives – the reality of who we are right now, and the vision of what God wants us to be – create a kind of tension for us that we need to end up resolving in some way. In other words, as those two levels tug at us, eventually something has to give.

And basically that tension can be resolved in just one of two ways. The one way is that we can allow reality to take over and say, “Hey, maybe I’m not perfect the way that I am, but I don’t want to change, or at least I don’t want to change as much as God wants me to,” and so we allow our present reality to pull down that vision that God has for us, so that we pretty much give up on that vision that and just stay the way we are right now. We let our current reality shape who and what we’ll be in the future.

But there’s a second way that we can deal with that tension. And that way involves allowing the vision that God has for us to take over so that we say, “Hey, I’m not really sure how it can be possible for me to fully become the person that God wants me to be, but if that’s the way that God wants me to be, then despite what my reality is right now, I’m going to trust God to help me make those changes that need to be made to get me there.” And so we allow the vision that God has for us to pull us up from the way we are right now so that as time goes by we gradually move closer and closer to the goal that God has for us.

And really that second way of dealing with that tension is what baptism is all about. Because most basically baptism is about saying, “God, because I belong to you, because I’m your child, I want you to wash away and put to death everything that might hold me back from being the person that you want me to be. In my life, help me to change who am I right now so that I can become more and more like that vision that you for me.”

And in the reading that we listened to today from the Gospel of Luke, about Jesus’ baptism, that’s essentially what happened. When Jesus was baptized and as he was praying, it says that the very sky was ripped open, giving Jesus an opportunity to peer into heaven and get a glimpse of the vision that God had for Jesus’ life. And not only that, but the Bible says that God sent the Holy Spirit down, the power that made it possible for Jesus to achieve that vision. And it’s that very same Holy Spirit that God makes available to us, to give us the power to achieve the vision that God has for our lives.

Back during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s the Boston Celtics basketball team dominated their sport. During that period, the Celtics won the league championship 11 times in 13 years. In other words, they achieved the vision that they had for themselves in 11 out of 13 seasons. In all of professional sports, I don’t think any other team has come anywhere close to doing something like that.

And at the heart of the Celtics’ success was a player by the name of Bill Russell. And one of the things that helped him to be so great at what he did was that after each game, he rated himself, he evaluated himself – on a scale from 1 to 100 on how he played. But even though he was one of the greatest players ever, he never gave himself a rating of more than 65. In other words, he never was completely content with the way that he was. Instead, he constantly forced himself to realize that there was something higher, something better, that he could be working toward. And it was by focusing on that vision like that that made Bill Russell the great player that he was.[2]

Now, our goal in the church, of course, isn’t to turn everyone here into better basketball players. But the same basic principle applies when it comes to the Christian faith. Are we too quick to settle for the way that things are right now in our lives? Or are we constantly searching for that vision of something higher, something better, that God wants us to be moving toward?

For instance, we have a pretty good church here. We really do. We have one of the largest youth programs in the area, we run the local food pantry, we do what we can to help people when they’re going through times of crisis, and the list of what we do could go on and on. And so a very real temptation for us would be to say, “You know, especially for a church our size, we’re doing OK.” And saying that, we might be tempted to figure that if we just managed to continue on that level that we’re at right now, that would be a pretty good thing.

But that’s where the rubber band comes in again. When it comes to where we are right now, and the vision that God has for us, do we say, “Hey, we’ve come pretty far, and where we are is an OK place for us to stay”? Or are we able to keep ourselves focused on the vision of what God wants us to be, that involves something even higher and even better than where we are right now, and allow God to move us forward toward that goal?

For instance, at a meeting this past week, our Congregational Life Commission took a good hard look at our church and we realized that in some ways our church is like a lot of other churches. Like a lot of other churches, most of the people come into the sanctuary for worship on Sunday morning about 5 or 10 minutes before the service starts, and within about 2 minutes after the final Amen at the end of the service, just about everyone is out the door and gone. And we asked ourselves: even though that’s been the reality in our church and even though that’s the reality in most churches, is that the vision that God has for us? Can we really be a community of faith where people know each other and care about each other the way that God wants us to, if that’s what we do week in and week out?

And so the Congregational Life Commission is working on a rather bold new idea. We’re thinking creatively about how to make lunch available after worship every Sunday, so that every week people of all ages will have an opportunity to spend some significant time with each other, getting to know each other better and building the kind of caring relationships that the church is supposed to be about. And we’re hoping that in March, that will be able to start.

Or with our food pantry, for years and years we’ve done a really good job of making groceries available to people here in Crafton and Ingram. And we ought to feel proud of ourselves for what we’ve been doing. But again, do we allow ourselves to become content with where we are right now and what we’re doing, or do we dare to look to God and see what else God might have in mind for us as we try to care for the hungry and hurting people in our area?

This week a group in our church is going to get together and begin to explore that very question. Because while giving food to people is certainly an important thing to do, we need to realize that most of the people that we’re helping don’t have a meaningful connection with any church, and in many cases they have prayer concerns and other kind of needs that aren’t currently being addressed. And so this week we’re going to begin exploring what kind of vision God might have in mind for us, and see how we can begin taking some steps to move in that direction.

But as our church tries to move from our current reality toward the vision that God has for us, we need the people of the church to be involved in that same kind of journey. In the Bible, God calls on us to love other people, to love others so much that we would even be willing to give our lives for them. In the Bible, that’s the vision that God sets in front of us. When it comes to loving other people, when it comes to being involved in serving other people, how are you doing – what’s your current reality? But instead of being content with where you are right now, are you willing to pray and ask God to give you a vision of what it is that God wants you to be doing?

Or when it comes to your own personal spiritual development, how are you doing? How’s your prayer life? How’s your knowledge of the Bible? What’s your current reality? And how does that current reality compare with the vision that God has for you? How does your current level of spiritual maturity compare with the goal that God has in mind for you? And what are you willing to do to move from where you are right now to where God wants you to be?

In the bulletin today and for the last couple of weeks has been an insert about joining a covenant group. Those inserts aren’t there for decoration. If you’re serious about wanting to grow in the kinds of ways that God wants you to grow as a Christian, fill out the form and become a part of one of those groups. No matter whether you think your current level of spiritual maturity is high, low, or somewhere in between, that’s a great way to take some steps to move toward the vision that God has for you.

Or if you’re available Wednesday mornings, come for Bible study. Right now we’re doing a series about the Ten Commandments, and what they mean for our lives. Or in Sunday School, we just started a great new series about how to live the Christian life. We’re studying the Bible, but we’re also taking a practical look at what we can do in our own lives to share the good news of Jesus with others, different ways we can pray, different ways that we can show care and concern for other people, possible ways we can put our faith into action at school, at work, in our families. And so even if your current reality is that you don’t go to Sunday school, let that reality change so that you can take some steps to move toward the vision that God has for you.

Change is never easy, even if it’s a good change that we’re trying to make. The tendency in most of our lives is to just accept the way that we are and to assume that that’s pretty much the way we’re always going to be. But even as we tell ourselves that, whether we realize it or not, God has a vision for us. God has in mind for us something higher and something better than where we are right now. As children of God, as people who God loves, dare to open your eyes to that vision and allow yourself to be changed into the person that God wants you to be.