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David Orendorff        Luke 3:7-18        December 13, 2009

John the Baptizer calls the people of Palestine to repentance, to quit living like poisonous vipers that kill and to become compassionate servants who give life.  To illustrate the change he calls for, he baptizes, washes with water, all who would repent.  But John knows that to wash the outside is not enough and that God is about to send one after him who will deep clean souls with fire.  The fire of the one who follows will leave only the true seed, the kernel of pure compassion that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked and visits the sick because it is who we are made to be.  John knows that God is sending one who will by his holy life make life holy.

Dr. E. Stanley Jones also believes and lives the transformation of soul in a faith based relationship with Jesus.  Dr. Jones has inspired four generations Orendorff family.  His books have been passed from my grandparents Pop and Mom, to their children, grandchildren and soon to their great grandson Aaron.  As a part of my spiritual practice of study I was rereading one of Jones’ books, “The Christ of the Indian Road.”[1] First published in 1925 it describes Jones first ten years of experience as a missionary in India.  His experience includes conversations with Mahatma Gandhi, the great poet Tagore and many national leaders of the independence movement and elite of India as they struggled with the coming of Christianity and independence from the British Empire.

What connected this reading with John the Baptist’s announcement of the one who will baptize with fire was Jones’ illustration of the difference between acting kind (washing the outside) and being kind (a transformation of the soul) by repeating a conversation with “a thoughtful Hindu” who said to him, “If you call one of us a Christian man, he is complimented, but if you call him a Christian, he is insulted (p. 112).”  At the heart of being a Christian man or woman, Jones insists, is the experience of a compassionate, service oriented person, a person like Jesus.

The Christian life is a life that is in constant transformation as the soul is changed from “glory into glory.”  Without that change we have nothing to offer the world except more of the same broken promises and failed loves.  By the fire of Christ we are refined to the gold of our creation.

In his chapter on “Jesus Through Experience” Jones insists that philosophical and theological arguments, though interesting and sometimes even insightful, are not the truest expression of Christ alive.  That the truest knowledge of Christ alive is in the experience of changed lives.  This fire of refinement is sometimes hot and intense as we make sudden shifts.  Fire burns and can hurt.  But fire can also bring a slow pasteurization so that our essential qualities are cleaned but not destroyed.

Another Hindu, this one head judge of a native state, spoke at the conclusion of one of Jones’ public meetings saying, “You have heard tonight what it means to be a Christian.  If to be like Christ is what it means, I hope you will all be Christians in your lives.”  Then Jones’ writes, “turning to us who were Christians, he said: “I have one word to speak to you: If you Christians had lived more like Jesus Christ, this process of conversion would have gone on much more rapidly. (p. 122)”

I have told you before of my transformation.  I listen with joy at the witness of transformed lives given by many of you in class, at Amazing Grace seminars and in simple conversation.  It is how Christ alive in us perfects us that makes the world know that being a Christian person, a person like Jesus, is true and the hope of salvation for all.  Non-Christians watch us not to see our religious affiliation but to see Christ in our lives, to see if we live as Christian people.

Jones writes:

This lesson of being a witness was burned into my very being by a tragic beginning of my Christian ministry.  When I was called to the ministry I had a vague notion that I was to be God’s lawyer - I was to argue his case for him and put it up brilliantly.  When I told my pastor of my call he surprised and thoroughly frightened me by asking me to preach my first sermon on a certain Sunday night.  I prepared very thoroughly, for I was anxious to make a good impression and argue his case acceptably.  There was a large crowd there full of expectancy, for they wished the young man well.  I began on rather a high key.  I had not gone a half dozen sentences when I used a word I had never used before (nor have I used it since!) - “indifferentism.”  When I used that word I saw a college girl in the audience put down her head and smile.  It so upset me that when I came back to the thread of my discourse it was gone - absolutely.  I do not know how long I stood there rubbing my hands hoping that something would come back.  It seemed an age.  Finally I blurted out, “Friends, I am sorry, but I have forgotten my sermon!”  I started down the steps leading from the pulpit in shame and confusion.  This was the beginning of my ministry, I thought - a tragic failure.  As I was about to leave the pulpit a Voice seemed to say to me, “Haven’t I done anything for you?”

“Yes,” I replied, “You have done everything for me.”

“Well,” answered the Voice, “couldn’t you tell that?”

“Yes, I suppose I could,” I eagerly replied.  So instead of going to my seat I came around in front of the pulpit below (I felt very lowly by this time and was persuaded I did not belong up there!) and said; “Friends, I see I cannot preach, but I love Jesus Christ.  You know what my life was in this community - that of a wild reckless young man - and you know what it now is.  You know he has made life new for me, and though I cannot preach I am determined to love and serve him.”  At the close a lad came up and said, “Stanley, I wish I could find what you have found.”  He did find it then and there.  He is a member of that church now - a fine Christian man.  No one congratulated me on that sermon that night, but after the sting of it had passed away, I have been congratulating myself ever since.  The Lord let me down with a terrible thump, but I got the lesson never to be forgotten:  In my ministry I was to be, not God’s lawyer, but his witness.  That would mean that there would have to be living communion with Christ so that there would always be something to pass on.  Since that day I have tried to witness before high and low what Christ has been to an unworthy life (p. 149-151).

Someone has suggested, if you ask a congregation of Christians, “What do you believe?’ there will be a chorus of conflicting beliefs, for no two persons believe exactly alike.  But if the question is asked, “Whom do you trust?” then we are together.  If the emphasis in our approach to Christianity is “What?” then it is divisive, but if the emphasis is “Whom?” then we are drawn together at the place of this Central Magnet(163-164).

We are Christian not because we believe alike, but because being transformed by Christ we love alike.  And we love alike because we have been loved alike by Jesus.  It is the whom of Christ we trust.  It is the whom of Christ that transforms our lives.  John the Baptizer asks for an ethical change, for those who come to him to be washed clean.  It is a change of behavior, a change on the surface of things and it is a good beginning.  To John the Baptizer’s call for changed behavior, Jesus adds the opportunity of a transformed life, a soul purified by the fiery compassion of a savior.

Christians are not so much members of a religious organization as they are people who seek and open themselves to the fire of Christ; the forgiving, healing, and transforming compassion of God.  May we be such people and may the changes made in us over a lifetime of devotion be our witness to the wonder of the coming Christmas and the greatness of Christ alive with us.

Shalom and Amen.