A Not So Simple Gospel

1978-01-15·Sermon·John 10:22-30

A NOT SO SIMPLE GOSPEL John M. Buchanan
John 10:22-30 BSPC
January 15, 1978 Columbus, Ohio

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It belongs to our humanity to crave simplicity. | Our
fascination with the_past, our rampant nostalgia, are born
——— Te nel

of the notion that things were simpler then.| Our love affair

with the cinema Western reveals the same deep craving.\ We

——

wish for a world in which right and wrong were clearly dis-

cernable, @ a world in which truth and falsehood were self
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evident.\ And sometimes our need overcomes our common sense

and we behave as if the world were really like that.
Ove trovole is freedom -
Freedom is the precondition of anxiety. | If you have

—

no choices to make you will not be anxious.\ Laboratory mice
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are perfectly content to find their way through a maze, day

after day, until they encounter two doors and must decide.

Then they act strangely, showing all the symptoms of anxiety.
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Vs 4o Wale cecisims,
Freedom is the pre-condition: \ compLexity forces Qur—hereé. —

—

And in a world become overwhelmingly complex we'd like nothing

better than a little simplicity, a little straight talk.

Sometimes that impetus toward simplicity is disastrous.
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Political tyrrants, for instance, depend on people's impatience

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and willingness to sacrifice complicated realities like human
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rights for simpler things like the trains running on time, or

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"law and order." \ But sometimes the impetus is altogether

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healthy.

The linguists in our society are suggesting that we are _
C.5S-léuis, T Hick,
losing the ability to speak simply and plainly.\ Breest—eampbell

has written that("every profession is a conspiracy against the

language.'"'] Ask a lawyer, doctor, educator, theologian, scientist

technician, a question and ordinarily you will not get an
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answer you can understand \| The January 2 Time Magazine, Essay

on the State of the Language quoted a Labor Department Memo:

E& lost time injuries that do not result in medical expenses.

should not be reported, "| anf dared the reader to understand it.

———

Who will ever forget Howard Cosell calling a smoke bomb an

"instrumentality of destruction" or describing the Kansas City

Chiefs as "overwhelming underdogs" or a particular player as

‘ad
"loaded with inexperience. "\ “On the very first page of Edwin

Newman's book, Strictly Speaking, former Presidential Press

Secretary gn Ziegler is quoted, having asked for an extension

of a subpoena so that the President's Attorney\'could evaluate
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and made a judgment in terms of a response." ) Newman caught

Harry Ashmore talking about an election as("the quadrennial
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challenge of giving focus and perspective to the polemics

of contending partisans," end Dr. Oscar Sussman of the New

Jersey Health Department wondering whether wo(vean stop some-

—_——

thing, preventive medicine wise, from happening?" )(p. 2-3)

Professional politicians become experts at obscurity.\ Former
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New York City Mayor Robert Wagner was asked on "Meet the Press"

if he would endorse Robert Kennedy's candidacy for the Senate.

Newman dutifully records three full pages of verbiage at the
— ik a ae ee

end of which the Mayor had not yet said yes or no.\ (p. 82-84)
Wiehe eee

More seriously, it will be a very long time before I will for-
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give myself for hearing the Pentagon phrase ("protective reaction

strike’) and refusing to acknowledge that what was being des-
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cribed was the dumping of napalm on Vietnamese villages.

— Sierra

The obtuseness of the language used by leaders is in-
teiteeeee ie |

—

excusable. \ Our craving for simplicity is altogether healthy.
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And yet there is a compelling. other: side tothe issue: | A

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frequent admonition which ministers hear is{ "just preach the
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simple gospel."'] Sometimes we deserve that. \ 1 dearly loved

——— a AT

a story I heard the Rev. Earnest Lewis tell last year.| St.

hte ie anand

Peter and the late Paul Tillich, immenent theologian, were
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OO ar eral aaa!

approaching the pearly gates, \sesus met Peter first and said,

(eter, who do you say t that I am?" Jj Peter said,({"You are the

Christ the Son of the living God,"/and Jesus said, "That's

right, Peter. | Come on in.” | men Jesus said, "Dr. Tilliich,
Me | ence ts

who do you say that I am?" ) The venerable theologian responded:

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| "Ontologically, you are the ground of all being, Being as such.

Existentially, you are the D vine/Human Encounter, man's ulti-

ater iets

mate concern about being and non-being resolved once and for

all.| Echatologically, you are future hope, the essence of a
Lamia | aenadinie aera tenancies

; Fad
new weltenschaung for the whole COSMOS , Bitsldhpqulimntelbdentsiaiiaeestsiiiedio, ''
neers, i me |

And Jesus said, "Huh?"

—————

Pardon the irreverence, but sometimes we deserve that.
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Albert Camus, not himself a Christian, kept demanding clarity

from those who were. \ the wort expects us to be loud and

clear, he wrote, 2 SO that the simplest person will know what

we mean, | ana my colleague, Arthur Romig, in his years of

ministry in China, knows -— and tells me gently on occasion —

that if you can't say it plainly enough so that an unlettered

peasant can understand, in his language, you better think it

through again.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, on the one hand, is the very essence

of simplicity.| "God so loved the world that _he gave his only

son: that whoylever believes in him should not perish but have

eternal Lite." ) (ohn 3:16) That needs no elaboration. | that

is the good news. | And yet when I hear someone referring to

——

the "simple gospel" I become uncomfortable because my experience
—

has been that it is not simple.| I confess that I rely on its

simple truth as a foundation, but that over the years I have

struggled with it, and wrestled with it, and argued back at
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it and some days believed none of it at aii\ With some envy
weep fe

I confess that I have not found the Gospel simple ,at—ei1. And
el ——————

with some conviction I submit that when people talk _about the

simple qosee\ hey arc of fen Yalking abou* —

simplé-mindedness. \z submit that our text this morning -
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teaches that lesson rather pointedly.

It was the Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah, an eight day
Si

——————

ceremony which remembered and celebrated the purification
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and reconsecration of the Temple in 165 BC by Judas Maccabeus,

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after its desecration by the Greeks under Antiochus Epiphanies.

"It was winter" the author reports, an unnecessary observation

because the Feast of Dedication always began on the 25th day
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of the twelfth month. \ ana although he had not read Steinbeck, shale

I wonder if he was not pointing to "The Winter of (their)

piscontent, "fer that is what it was. \ the fourth Gospel is
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concerned with time_and cycles,and sequences. \ ana, in fact,

this was the Winter FEstival prior to the Spring Festival

known as Passover during which official discontent would re-
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\
sult in an execution. | He was teaching indoors, walking in
—

the portico of Solomon, and a delegation of Jerusalemites

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said, in effect (‘preach the simple gospel." ("How long will

you keep us in suspense? they asked. | "12 you are the Christ,

tell us plainiy."| Some interpreters feel that it was a trap.

If he had said,("Yes, I am the Christ." they could have arrested

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him on the spot for blasphemy. \ Others, however, hear a sincere

question. \ They wanted to know, simply and plainly, if he was

the Christ.

His response is interesting. |e said, (‘1 have told you,

and you do not believe."}] As a matter of fact, he had not told

them, in their terms. \zarlier in the Fourth Gospel, he has

———

referred to himself as the Light of the World, the Bread of
ae “ eee

Life, the Good Shepherd, the Son of Man.\ But he had not said,
(" am the Christ, the Messiah of God, for whom you are waiting
and looking." \ Instead he said,("look at my works:" | it what

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I am doing does not convince you nothing will.") Muhammed Ali's

pfotestations that he is the "greatest" fall on scornful ears

until he steps into a ring and documents his case.\ Bvery

football team in the country charges onto the field chanting

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"“wetre number one," but there is something terribly conclusive

and convincing about what transpires next in a sixty minute
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contest. | That is the evidence.
‘Seater

Why didn't he take his chances and simply say "Yes, I

— ss

an"? | way the obtuseness, the angling? \ way the obscurity of
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parables and similes and metaphors? {way the cryptic allusions
ees meiliie ———_" ee ae

and that finaly thundering silence in front of Pontius Pilate?

Perhaps it is only a matter that he was not the Christ they

were expecting: \that it would have been_wrong for him to say

['ves. I am the Messiah who will lead you in revolution against
mn who wit gs

ft
the Roane. Jor "yes, I am the Lord of the Law and I will

vindicate your rigid legalism." | Perhaps it is no more com-

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plicated than that. [ But perhaps it was more a matter that

some questions, the really important questions, will not be

answered with one word. \ Perhaps it was a matter of his

knowing that a man answers that question for himself after
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a struggle and that the resolution slides out of the category
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of documented proof into that dusky place called faith.

But what a temptation it must have been for him to say
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[oem it all: | ves, I am. \ Take it or leave | And what

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a temptation for his church down across the centuries, even
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this church-here~and now. | It is what our clientel wants.

—_—

Simpls plain answers. \ there is pain in watching people aban-
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don the places where the struggle ensues in favor of those

whet the gospel is simple and simple-minded. | Frederick

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Buechner writes: ("the pressure on the preacher is to promote
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the Gospel, to sell Christ as an answer that outshines all

—— ed

the others." | (Telling the Truth, p. 36) \ ana Ernest Campbell,

very wisely, (‘the church is always tempted to give easy

answers to hard questions, to succumb to the heresy of exact-
SS

ness. \ there are questions of the heart that cannot be answered

with the plainness of a TV commercial...there are certain parts

of life to which a man must respond as a poet." |(Locked in a Room

With Open Doors, p. 50) yA
Campbell's suggestion that there is a "heresy of exact- i,
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ness" is a fascinating one. | nstory, I think, documents it. N i
The harder we try to pin down the Gospel in simple assertions, sa
the further we remove ourselves from its intent \ The more
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orthodox we try to be the smaller the circle becomes until the
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church appears as an exclusive club in which each tries to

“Nout -— orthodox" the others. \ witn threats from the outside

the church notoriously tries to retreat behind a wall of

ben ad ideal

doctrine and dogma. \ when Charles Darwin published The Origin

of the Species, the church responded with a new wail of orth-

odoxy called fundamentalism in which the answers are simple.
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As scientists continue to inquire into the origin of the uni-

ill oo ‘a
verse and the nature of matter, the church is inclined to pv
beat a hasty retreat behind a fortress of rigid piety. {Vv

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We live in a complex time, an important time in terms of
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the quality of human life for generations to cone. | The Chris-

tian Church, the Body of Christ, is a part of this world, and

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at its best is a contributing participant in the dialogue.

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Our witness is not to be confined to our own family reunions
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on Sunday morning, \ We are to speak our word out there where
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nothing is simple: \ where no one listens when simplicity is a

masquerade for simplemindedness. |\Whether we like it or not
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some very complex questions are on the agen da of our society.
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We may wish they would go away, but they will not.\ We may

respond to them by retreating behind our wall of dogma, and
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prove to the world that we are irrelevant & *the question of

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the rights of homosexuals will not disappear because we find

the topic distastetut.| The Presbyterian Church, along with
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every other national church, and every other national professional
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group is confronting the issue.\ A blue ribbon Task Force has
"gaia DE reine,

been studying for two years and the next General Assembly will

struggle with the report.\ Your Session has begun to talk about

sain tala —_—_

it and has referred it to a special committee for response.| It

is a very complex question - and there are others: (7)
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genetic manipulation, abortion, drugs, sexual morality and

family stability, war ;\nong are simpie: \ none are resolved
ese ~§ «ee | E> ~eopeesmemaniniemmenpety

by ignoring them: \a11 of them need the sensitivity, the

love and grace which should be the characteristics of the la
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people of Jesus Christ.

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Our craving for clarity, our desire for exactness my ie w
meaxiaa” Lob, favden. ~~
be a simple matter of intellectual laziness. | Gy =S--=hemes

observed that our genération has methodically stamped out
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“imagination" as a function of the human mina. | Television is
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the culprit, he thought. | pack in the days of radio, a lis-
(ier,

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tener needed an imagination. | I knew what the Lone Ranger

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looked like \ In my mind's eye I could see him riding Silver.

Television has made the imagination obsolete in favor of
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ro wea lich ,
graphic ~ And sometimes part of the truth is lost

in the process,

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You have probably heard of the letter in Saturday Review

some years ago from a mother whose daughter wanted to know where

she was when the mother was a little giri.\ One reader's response

brought to bear the simple scientific data about that special
F milmaton
place in the mother's body, the father's se etc., ete. | A nun
“Lohen Upy wrevher wer a Little girl,
submitted another answer: % ou_were in the mind of wu & Ya ket
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@xacthness can be misleading: \ it can also eliminate t#e truth.

(See Campbell, op cit p. 50-51)

Jesus refused to respond in a simple snewee..| So it has

always seemed healthy to me to preserve and protect the mys-

tery of that which fo) lained d th mp lexit
y cannot be explained, an e complexity

——E

of a Gospel which means to be taken seriously in a complex
— al

world by complex men and women. | men, in grief, someone asks

us "Why? | way did this Beaver, "we need to learn that it is
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appropriate to say "I don't know." In fact, there is a

a — — at Cy Fess
sense in which the most honest religion always begins with
; —— a Chupwled,~
wet e reverent agwosticism; [the Com=@ewiren that there is more to
ee eel ——— a —
God than we will ever be able to describe, define or compre-
me —— SS
hend.

——-

Faith is not knowing. \ Having Christian Faith is not

knowing certain facts to be true. \ From a Flanders trench

in 1914 Donald Hankey wrote a paragraph that has since become

Me OU SSS

helpful to many people who have tried simple answe rs and

Sa,
found them wanting. [Faith is betting your life that there
—————— -

is a God...the odds are all against you, the shells screaming

over your head seem to mock at you, and theme are comrades

—————

at your side who smile at you for a simpleton, but_you hold

SSS

on.\ You refuse either to give in or give up, for you know

that to surrender faith is to make the final surrender.| It

means subscription to the judgment that there is no sense

and no purpose in life or history, that the whole tangled
— a aaa a

story of the race is ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound

perenne ———— neem

and fury, signifying nothing.'" (Robert McCracken, Questions

People Ask, p. 43)

Jesus would not submit himself, nor his ministry, to

simple mindedness. \ We did not tell them plainly. | apparentty,

he wanted to call something out of them: \ ne wanted the commit-—

ment of mind as well as heart: \ne wanted disciples willing to
ad ——_—

follow on an exciting pilgrimage of growth and strugele.\ It

———,_

required strong people and still does: \peopie willing to bet
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their lives on him in the absence of the simple evidence they
beeen ad SS oe

wished to have.
—

So, te us, who would be his people today. | There is
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pressure from two sides | A secular culture would have us

sn aterm en et a

abandon it ali. | A vigorous evangelicalism would have us say
Letitia al

more than we can with integrity. \ To his inguisitors ~ the

ner

ones who wanted him to say it plainly, Jesus finally respon-

ded: [ sy sheep hear my voice, and I know them...and I give

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them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one

shall snatch them out of my hand." [ (John 10:27-28)

You may never have it all down plainiy.\ But if you

follow this Lord, he will know you, and leve you and give you
meet] ie TR

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eternal life, and nothing will ever separate you from him.
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You can count on it. Amen.

Our father, we wish the wholematter were simpler than
it is. Stand with us as we struggle: give us faith beyond
our knowing and courage te follow Christ our Lord, in whose

hame we pray and hope and Live. Amen.

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