“You Are What You Eat”
Scripture Reading: Mark 1:4-11
Sermon Transcript for February 19, 2006
By Rev. Bill Keith
There is an old story, and it really is an old story because I heard it on the Tonight Show and it was the Tonight Show when Jack Parr was the host. That shows you how old I am! He always had comedians on, of course, and this comedian’s name was Myron Cowan, long gone by now. He was a wonderful story teller and Jack asked him to tell one of his stories. And he said, “Well, did you hear about the man who was sort of elderly and he always went to the same restaurant every evening for dinner and he always ordered the same thing. So the waiters knew what he wanted and then they didn’t have to bring him a menu because he always ordered the same thing. And what he ordered was matzo ball soup. One evening he came in and sat down and the waiter saw him and so he brought out the matzo ball soup and set it in front of him. And he backed up and went in the corner and sort of wanted to watch him. He stood back to relish and savor this man just how beautiful it was that he would eat this wonderful, delicious matzo ball soup. And he stood there watching. Well he stood there but the man didn’t eat. And he was a little concerned and so he came over to the man and he said, “What’s wrong with the soup?” And he said, “Nothing is wrong with the soup.” And he said, “Well, is it too hot?” And he said, “No”. He said, “Is it too cold?” And he said no. He said, “Are there not enough matzo balls in it?” And he said, “No” The man said, “You try it.” He said, “Where is the spoon?” He said, “You see?”
One of my favorite cartoons, and it is actually on a get-well card, it’s a get-well card I like to send to people that is sort of fun. It’s a Far Side cartoon; you know, Gary Larson. In that Far Side cartoon on the front of this card are two chickens. One chicken is in bed obviously sick with a thermometer in its mouth and a cold pack on its head looking very ill. Another chicken is standing over him with a tray and on the tray is a bowl of soup, steaming bowl of soup. And the chicken with the tray says, “It’s good for you; it will make you feel better; and it’s nobody we know.” It’s all a matter of context.
Well, here we are with John, the Baptized, John, the Baptizer really. John, the Baptist, had a limited diet we read. He lived on locusts and wild honey. He lived off the land. He was much like the early Methodist circuit riders who had to live in the wild from what they could hunt and what they could pick. He was that kind of preacher. But you would not want to say that you are what you eat; you are not what you eat! You wouldn’t want to be what John, The Baptist, was if you ate what he did. He was preaching a theology of repentance and forgiveness. And the reason he was preaching that was because the Israelite people had turned away from what they knew was right. They had turned away from the Bible; turned away from those Ten Commandments. And he was preaching repentance, returning back to the Law. What he was saying was that they had wandered away from their heritage, from their roots much like the people of Israel when they left Egypt and Moses led them to the Red Sea and toward the Promised Land. But then before they got there they got in bad shape. They started forgetting who they were. All the prophets of the wilderness were like that. All were talking about returning to who we ought to be, bringing their people around, turning them around. That’s really what repentance means, to turn around.
Now John was preaching and practicing confessional baptism, a baptism of repentance not initiation although that has a place. But this is baptism for repentance, for cleansing, for reconstitution of who we are, of refreshing who we ought to be, remembering who we are. That’s a great book, if you want to read a book about baptism. Remember Who You Are, Bishop Will Willimon wrote it before he was a bishop. Often I give it to folks who are anticipating baptism or who are having their children baptized. Remember who you are.
Now, when I was pastor in Columbus, my congregation, some of the ladies in the congregation made a stole for me. It’s an interesting stole because it is a stole for baptism. It has baptismal symbols on it. Sometimes it is easier for people to understand about baptism if they are looking at the symbols. So there is a shell here, a shell from the sea, obviously, the source of the water and water dripping out of it. In some traditions, of course, they use a shell or something that looks like a shell to baptize with. Over here is a rainbow with a cloud and the sun. And that is to make us remember Noah and the Ark and after the flood, of course, there was a rainbow in the sky so that God said, “So I remember not to destroy the world again.” It’s the covenant rainbow, the promise rainbow. And coming from that rainbow is a dove, a descending dove which we will talk about in a moment. But probably the most interesting thing on this stole is the hands down at the bottom. We had little children as most church do and so they went to the little children and had them trace their hands, you know. And they had little paper tracings and then they took material and made hands and put them on the stole. So these are the hands of the children at the church at the time. You remember that song, don’t you?
Jesus loves the little children
All the little children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
All are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world
That helps us remember about baptism. The four crosses on the bottom are for the four gospels. Remember our baptism and being thankful.
Now, a few years ago we went to Israel, took a group to the Holy Land. And part of that trip was to go to the Jordan River. Now let me tell you a little bit about the Jordan River—it’s not like the Ohio River or the Mississippi River or even the Wabash River. It’s pretty much a creek, okay? It’s not very wide. And so what they do with the Jordan River in order to make a place for all the pilgrims to come to do baptisms is to dam it up so that they have sort of a pool. Now, they obviously have that worked out so that you can do that. And our guide said if some of the people would like to have their baptism renewed or if they would like to remember their baptism or people who had not been baptized before could have them baptized. And so there were people in our party who wanted to do that. And so they had dressing rooms there and robes, and so we went and got ready for this baptism and a little service there in the Jordan River. I did that too and got ready and took off my shoes and socks and walked out. Did you know it is hot in Israel? And there was a concrete place and I was walking barefooted and I didn’t walk there long. I went back and got my shoes very quickly because it was pretty hot. Well, in order to immerse somebody in baptism by immersion you need quite a bit of water about waist deep. The water even in this pool they had backed up was not nearly that deep. And so I had to sort of baptize folks and then they had to sort of swim off because, you know, I couldn’t get them back up. And that was all right.
We went to a lot of places in Israel. Of course, we went to the garden tomb, we went to the Sea of Galilee, we went to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and all those kinds of places. At the end of the trip we, of course, got together, all of us, and we talked about what was the most significant thing that happened on our trip. And some talked about different things, but the people, the four or five people who had their baptism renewed, said that was the most significant thing to me. I didn’t ask them why they wanted that done, but it was significant for them. Maybe they needed to wash something away.
Well, the other thing we hear about is what John, the Baptist, was wearing. Well, it’s not what you wear either because he wore camel hair. Now I have a camel hair jacket, but my guess it didn’t look like the one that John wore. John probably was not dressing for success, you understand. In fact, he probably needed one of those extreme makeovers. He no doubt smelled. He did, in fact, live in the wilderness a sort of strange life. But people came to him because he was a prophet of destination. Not because of his wardrobe and not because of his fine cuisine, but they came because of what he believed in. He said, “Repent, turn around, start over.” Sometimes when we look at a map we say, “Oh, I think I know where I am and I am going to go there”. And it is not where you thought it was. And sometimes you say, “Well, what we need to do is go back to where we were and start over and maybe we can figure out where we need to be.” That’s what John was saying. We need to start over.
A prophet is one to whom God’s word has been delivered, lived, and proclaimed. John preached about living water, water that is moving, water that is not polluted, water that is not stagnant. So Jesus came to that water. Jesus and John were related. Their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, were probably cousins and lived close to each other in neighboring towns. But John said, “I am not worthy to carry his shoes. He is more powerful than I am. I just use water, but He uses Holy Spirit.” But we unlock that Holy Spirit part a little bit; I have sermons on the Holy Spirit and this is not one of them, but if we talk about God’s Holy Spirit, we talk about that spirit of healing, and mercy, and forgiveness, and grace, and love all tied up in that gift of Holy Spirit, in that little package of luma, that Greek word meaning spirit. That spirit word really also means “fresh air” and the wind that blows with that fresh air. Now, that is phenomenal isn’t it? That spirit landed on Jesus like a dove. We don’t need to read a whole lot into that. That dove was that gentle, soothing, calming, powerful spirit that really moved us. There are people I know with that kind of spirit who never waiver, who always remain faithful, who are kind and endearing and thoughtful, alive to the present. Jesus, of course, was that way in the world.
Judy O’Bannon is a friend of mine. Yes, that is that Judy O’Bannon. When I was a pastor in Corydon she and Frank lived across the street. And they were very active in the church where I pastored. Eventually one of their daughters was getting married and I was to perform the ceremony and we were talking about many things you talk about with a wedding. And one of the things I always ask is who is going to be the florist thinking that would be someone from town. But, no, she said, “It’s a lady I know from northern Indiana.” She said, “I call her the ‘peony lady’.” I said, “Why is that?” And she said, “Well, she has lots of peonies. And it is the state flower. And she is going to decorate the church with peonies.” Well, I thought she was going to bring a few peonies; and the morning of the wedding she came in and kind of took over the kitchen and she had baskets and baskets of peonies, probably twenty baskets of peonies all different colors. It was absolutely gorgeous. But Judy said, “You know what is really interesting about her is her Christian faith.” “It’s not really about the peonies, “she said. And I said, “What do you mean, Judy?” And she said, “Well, here’s an example of what a disciplined person she is.” She said, “Once she decided that she was going to memorize the Psalms, all 150 of them, and she was going to do it by memorizing a psalm a day. And she would take one psalm and memorize that that day and then she would take the next one and the next one. I think she had to break and 119. If you look, it’s pretty long. But it took her more than half a year to do that. That’s pretty disciplined, isn’t it? That’s the kind of spirit she had”
So dear friends, it’s not what you eat, it’s not what you wear, but it is what you believe. You are what you believe! I heard a comedian one time say, “Don’t tell me your doubts. I have enough doubts of my own. Tell me something you believe in!” You are what you believe. The question today is do we have our priorities straight? Is God first in your life? Is Jesus on your thank you list? Do you forgive? Do you forget about it? You know, I think a lot of people say, “Well, I forgive you.” But then they let it hang on and burden them and hold them down and destroy them and annoy other people. Has anger overcome you? Has jealousy invaded your very being? Or has mercy and humility and love dominated your life? Jesus says, “Come to the waters of repentance and find a way to wash away the guilt, the hate, the pettiness, and the pain.” Come to God; let the Holy Spirit in, that living Lord.
Now I want to tell a story about two old men. This is actually my father’s story. He’ll be here later. But the story is this. When he was a young pastor barely in his thirty’s; I was a little kid three or four years old. We went to church in Huntingburg. Huntingburg at that time was almost totally a German community. There were two old men in that church, Dad said they were in their 80’s, and they didn’t come to church any more. Dad inquired about why they didn’t come to church and nobody really knew that but they knew that they didn’t get along. They didn’t get along to the extent that when, it’s a small town of course, and when they were going down the street downtown and if one saw the other they would cross the street so they didn’t have to pass each other. So my dad, being a young, brash pastor, went to see them. He went to the first man and he said, “What gives here, you and this other guy, what’s going on?” He said, “Well, he borrowed a plow from me one day and he didn’t bring it back.” “Oh”, my Dad said, “He didn’t bring it back.” “Well, he brought it back but he brought it back too late.” “Oh, really.” So he went to see the other man and he said, “I understand that you and this other man have this problem. Can we work this out? Would you be willing to go to him and ask for forgiveness?” He said, “He’d never forgive me. He’s too mean.” And he said, “Would you be willing to try?” He said, “Okay”. So he went and changed his dirty overhauls into something cleaner and he got in my dad’s car and they went over to this other man’s house. But before they got out of the car he said, “Preacher, you go first so that if there is any shooting, you get it.” So they went on the porch and knocked on the door. The other man comes out. Dad said there weren’t many words exchanged, but they grabbed each other by the arms and began to cry. And he prayed with those two old men and left. And they sat down on the porch and began going over old times. Sunday morning they were in church.
Come to the water of repentance, God’s forgiveness, God’s love. Let us pray, “Mighty God, we are thankful for the living water you give, that water that is given to us by Jesus through His death on Calvary’s cross and His resurrection to give us life, to give us wholeness, to wash away our sins. Use us, oh Lord, as a redeemed, repentant people to forgive each other and to forgive ourselves. All this we pray in the name of Jesus, our Christ. Amen.”
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