A NOT SO SIMPLE GOSPEL JMB

Capital Luth. T.S.
John 10:22-30
March 3, 1978

TI was standing in a corner at a Rehearsal party for
the wedding of my wife's niece in New Castle, Delaware
recently, minding my own business, when a young man, an
usher - recently graduated from college, approached and
said, “Are you a curistian?"| 1 said, "Yes." He said,

"J mean: are you born again?" Tt should_have known better

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but I responded, (rwe12 now, that depends on what you mean..."

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And he interrupted: ("How come you Presbyterians can't say

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yes or no? [re's a simple question, isn't it? You either

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are or you aren't." \ From that point the conversation

deteriorated.

Qur Culler Ls arty
It belongs to our humanity to crave simplicity. | our

fascination with the past, our rampant nostalgia, are born

of the notion that things were simpler then. \our love
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ing. \We wish for a world in which right and wrong were

clearly discernable, a world in which truth and falsehood

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were self evident. \ and gometimes our need overcomes our

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common sense and we behalve as 4f the world were really

like that.

Sometimes that impetus toward simplicity is disastrous.

Political tyrants, for instance, depend on people's impatience

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and willingness to sacrifice complicated realities like human

rights for simpler things like the trains running on time, or
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“law and order." But sometimes the impetus is altogether

healthy.

The linguists in our society are suggesting that we are

losing the ability to speak simply and piainty. | c. S. Lewis, I

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think, has written that (every profession is a conspiracy

against the language." ) Ask a lawyer, doctor, eaducator,
theologian, scientist, technician, a question and ordinarily

you will not get an answer you can understand. | On the very

first page of Edwin Newman's book, Strictly Speaking, is

quoted Harry Ashmore talkiing about an election as \'the

quadrennial challenge of giving focus and perspective to
the polemics of contending partisans,") Professional ppli-

ticians become experts at obscurity. (rormer 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 gerbiage at

the end of which the Mayor had not yet said yes or no, (po. 82-84)

More seriously, it will be a very long time before 1 will o

Hee ee ET EEEnMRAERAT

forgive myself for hearing the Pentagon phrase "protective

reaction strike" and refusing to acknowledge that what was
———— en

being described was the dumping of napaim on Vietnamese

villages,

The obtuseness of the language used by teaders is in-
Fannie minced
excusable. | ops craving for simplicity is altogether healthy.

A frequest admonition which ministers hear is "just preach tke
paabtanoaanalt

simple gospel." | Sometimes we deserve that. \I deariy_iloved

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ca story erd-the-Rey-Rarnes¢-Lewts-tett _tastyear, St.

Peter and the late Paul Tillich, immenent theologian, were

approaching the pearly gates. \ Jesus met Peter first and said,

"Peter, who do you say that I am?" Peter said, “You are the

Christ

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

yight, Peter. come on in.” | Then Jesus said, "Dr. Tillich,
—— 2 Se

who do you say that T an? | The venerable theologian responded:

pao een

nontologically, you are the ground of ail peing | Bein as such,

Fristentially, you are the Divine /Human Fneounter, man's uiti-

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mate concern about being# and non-being resolved once and for
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all. \uchatolosically you are future hope, the essence or 4

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new weltenschaung for the whole cosmos." \\ And Jesus said, Huh?"
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Pp anoe , bat Sometimes we deserve that.
Albert Camus, not himself a Christian, kept demanding clarity
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from those who were. \ The workd expects us to be loud and

clear, he wrote, So that the simplest person will know what
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we mean .\ And my colleague, Arthur Romig, in his years of
ministry if China, knows — and tells me gently on oecasion -
that if you can't say it plainly _enoush go that an uniettered
peasant can understand, in his language, you petter think it

through again.

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

essence Of simplicity, (soa go loved the world that he gave

his oniy son. that whoever pelieves in him should not perish

but have eternal 1ife." (John 3:34)) That needs uo elabora-
.

tion. \ mat 4g the good news. \ana yet whan I hear someone

referring to the "simple gospel" T become uncomfortable

because my experience has been that it is not simple.\ I

confess that I rely on its simpie truth as 4 foundation,

but that over the years Ihave struggled with it, and
wrestled with it, and argued back at it and some days believed

none of it ak ail. \ wien some envy t confess that T have not
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—1 - —*
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found the Gospel sinpte. | ang with some conviction I sub-

mit that when people talk about the simple gospel they are

often talking about simple-mindedness. | I. submit. that..our

text_this-merning ~teaches that lesson rather pointedly.
I¢—was- the Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah, an eight day

ceremony which remembered and celebrated the purification

and reconsecration of the Temple in 165 BC by Judas Maccabeus,

He was teaching indoors, walking in the portico of Solomon,

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and a delegation of Jerusalemites said, in effect, "preach

the simple gospel." | "How long will you keep us in suspense?"

they asked. “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” |Some

interpreters feel that it was a trap. | 19 he had said, "Yes

TIT am the Christ." they could have arrested him on the spot

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for blasphemy. btners, however, hear a sincere question,

They wanted to know, simplg and plainly, if he was the Christ.

His response is interesting. \ He said, "I have told you,

and you do not peiieve." \as a matter of fact, he had not

told them, in their terms. \ Rarlier in the Fourth Gospel, he

has referred to himself as the Light of the World, the Bread

of Life, the Good Shepherd, the Son of Man. | But he had not

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said, {"I am the Christ, the Messiah of God, for whom you are

waiting and looking.” Instead he said, br00k at my works:"

if what IT am doing does not convince you nothing will.
Why didn't he take his chances and simply say \"Yes, t

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am?"? [ as the obtuseness, the angling? \ why the obscurity of

parables and similes and metaphors? \wny the cryptic allusions

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and the final, thundering silence in front of Pontius Pilate?

Perhaps it is only a matter that he was not the Christ they
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were expecting: that it would have been wrong for him to
say "yes, I am the Messiah who will lead you in revolution
against the Romans,"/or "ves, I am the Lord of the Law and I

will vindicate your rigid legalism.'\ Pernaps it is no more

complicated than that.\ But perhaps it was more a metter

that some questions, thé really important questions, will

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not be answered with one word. | Perhaps it was a_ matter of

his knowing that a man answers that question for himself
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after a strugrel and that the resolution slides out of the

category of documented proof into that dusky place called

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faith.

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But what a temptation it must have been for him to say

"Damn it all: ves, I am, \Take it or leave iti" }/ And what

a temptation for his church down across the centuries. | It

is what our clientel yants.| Simple plain answers. |there
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is pain in watching people abandon the places where the

struggle ensues in favor or those where the gospel is simple

and simple-minded. | frederick Buechner writes: { "The pres-

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sure on the preacher is to promote the Gospel, to sell

Christ as an answer that outsines all the other." ) (Telling
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the Truth, p. 36) And Ernest Campbell, very wisely, [""the

church is always tempted to give easy answers to hard ques-

tions, to succomb to the heresy of exactness. \There are

questions of the heart that cannot be answered with the

plainness of a TV commeraial.,..there are certain parts of

life to which a man must respond as a poet." (Locked in &

Room With Open Doors, p. 59)

Campbellas suggestion that there is a "heresv of exact—

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ness" is a fascinating one.\ History, I think, documents it.

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The harder we try to pin down the Gospel in simple assertions,

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

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the church apnears as an exclusive club in which each tries

to "out-orthodox" the others, \ With threats from the outside

the church notoriously tries to retreat behind a wall of

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doctrine and dogma. | When Charles Darwin vublished The

—_———

Origin of the Species, the church responded with a new wall

of orthodoxy called fundamentalism in which the answers are

simple. [4s sctentists continue to inquire into the origin

of the universe tnd the nature of matter, the church is

inclined to beat a hasty retweat behind a fortress of

rigid piety.

We live in a complex time, an important time in terms

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of the quality of human life for generations to come, \ The

Christian Church, the Body of Christ, is a part of this

world, and at its best is a contributing participant in

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the dialogue. \ our witness is not to he confined to our
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own family reunions on Sunday morning.\ We are to speak

our word out there where nothing is simple: \where no one

listens when simplicity is a masquerade for simple-minded-—

ness. \ Whether we like it or not some very complex questions

are on the agenda of our society. \ ve may wish they would go

away, but they will not. We may respond to them by retreat-

ing behind our wall of dogma, and prove to the world that

we are irrelevant\ | Genetic manipua&ation, abortion, drurs,
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sexual morality and family stability, war; none are simple;

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none are resolved by ignoring them: [aa of them need

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the sensitivity, the love and grace which should be the

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characteristics of the people of Jesus Christ.

Jesus refused to respond in a simple anwer.\ so it

has always seemed healthy to me to preserve and protect the

mystery of that which cannot be explained, and thee complexity

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

world by complex men and women. \ When, in grief, someone

asks "Why? | way did this happen," we need to learn that it

is appropriate to say, "I don't_know."” \tn fact, there is
a nell en maaan ee

a sense in which the most honest religion always begins

with that confession: \ wath a reverent agnosticism; jthe acknow-
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ledgement that there is more to God than we will ever he able

to describe, define or comprehend.

Jesus would not submit himself, nor his ministry, to

simple-mindedness. \ He did not tell them plainty. \ apparentiy,

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

ment of mind as well as heart: \ he wanted disciples willing to

follow on an exciting pilgrimage of growth and struezée.| Tt

required strong people and still does: \peopie willing to bet

their lives on him in the absence of the simple evidence they

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wished to have.
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So, to us, who would be his people today. \ There is

pressure from two sides. [a secular culture would have us

abandon it all. | A vigorous evangelicalism would have us

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say more than we can with integrity.\ To his inquisitors -

the moes who wanted him to say it plainly, Jesus finally

responded: [ry sheep hear my voice, and f know them...and
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1 give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and

no one shall snatch them out of my hana."\ (John 10:27-28)

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

follow this Lord, he will know you, \and love vou and give

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you eternal life, and nothing will ever separate you from

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him. [ xeu can count on Pit. Amen.

—_.

Sur Father, we wish the whole matter were simpler than

it is. Stand with us as we struggle: efve us faith beyond

our knowing and courage to fottéw ChriSt sur Lord, in whdse

name we oray and hope and live. Ame