Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Those Christian Kooks

There’s a great scene in the movie, The Dead Poets’ Society, where the teacher, Mr. Keating, has his students in the courtyard of their all-male boarding school.

He has three of the boys start walking around the courtyard.

No other instructions, just walk around.

It’s not a very big courtyard, so they start walking around the perimeter of the courtyard while the other students watch.

It’s not long before they are walking in stride together, one after the other, in perfect rhythm.

The other students catch on and start clapping.

Mr. Keating starts yelling out military marching cadences, “left...left...left, right, left.”

And then, “halt”.

They stop.

He points out to them that although they had all initially started walking in their own way, they quickly had adjusted to one another to the point that all three were walking in lockstep with one another.

And the rest of the boys, too, had joined in by clapping along.

It’s an object lesson in the power of conformity.

As Mr. Keating puts it, the difficulty of maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others, because the need for acceptance - which we all share - is powerful.

I feel the need to point out that sometimes we go against the grain, but it’s often more out of pride and arrogance, we like to be different, that somehow we’re ones who know better.

Sense that we’re special somehow.

But Mr. Keating is exactly right in his teaching moment.

The need for acceptance is very powerful.

Which is why I think it’s so instructive that Dallas Willard uses the idea of the divine conspiracy to talk about what God is doing in ushering in Kingdom of God.

We’ve been calling it the Christmas Conspiracy because this is where it starts, with the birth of the King himself, Jesus.

It’s instructive because part of the dynamic of being someone who embraces a conspiracy theory is that you’ll be seen as different.

A little off.

A Conspiracy kook.

A crank.

And because the need for acceptance is powerful, sometimes we resist that - because who wants to be seen as that?

As being different.

Weird.

And yet, it’s the very fact that we see things different - recognize what most do not see - that Kingdom of God is right here and now among us, that God’s life and power and goodness and glory are now all available through Jesus - that’s gift that we bring.

It’s the very fact that we are different (I hope and pray we are) - that we are like Jesus, living in the way of the Kingdom - we love the way he does, we stand in grace, we forgive, we live out generosity - that’s gift that we bring.

We have an opportunity to bring that gift into this neighborhood, which is what I want to talk about this morning.

That’s our main point this morning - it’s our willingness to be different - to be like Jesus - that is gift that we bring to this neighborhood.

And I want to talk about it by looking at Jesus and his coming to us.

How he, as Eugene Peterson puts it, moved into the neighborhood, and the gifts that he brought.

Look at John 1:14-18 to do just that.

But I’m going to do it a little different this morning - read passage twice, once in NIV, second time through using The Message - because the language brings out some wonderful things about this passage.

Moving into the Neighborhood

John 1:14-18, NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him.

He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”)

16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

And now, same passage, from The Message

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son,

Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

John pointed him out and called, “This is the One!

The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me.

He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”

We all live off his generous abundance, gift after gift after gift.

We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving,

This endless knowing and understanding— all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.

No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse.

This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it, The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.

Don’t let the familiarity of what we believe to be true make you numb to how crazy this claim is.

Central part of the conspiracy, the part that when you take it seriously, is kinda nuts.

It’s conspiracy kooky.

The claim is that this Jesus - this man, this flesh and blood man - is the Word.

At the very beginning of this chapter John told us who the Word is - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Just stop a moment and hear that.

To make it a little more plain: Right at the very start of all space, time and matter - in the beginning - was Jesus, and Jesus was right there with God and Jesus was God.

That’s who this man is.

But that’s not all: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Everything that exists, he made it.

In my devotional time the other day I was reading through Revelation 4. And in verse 11 it speaks to Jesus as creator.

It says, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

What struck me was phrase “by your will they were created.”

I started reflecting on that thought, that all things have their being, their existence, for one reason and one reason only.

Because God - Jesus - willed it into existence.

You were willed by God.

He willed you, and you specifically.

He wanted the you with the way you look, and your unique gifts and abilities, particular laugh that you have, those things that grab your heart - your passions.

None of that was an accident.

It didn’t just happen to be.

God willed you in particular so he could delight in you in particular, to enjoy you for the unique creation that you - and you alone - are.

And not just you, but every person you encounter - including everyone who lives in this neighborhood was willed by God.

That’s an amazing thought.

That’s a praise-God thought - you are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.

All of this is why this is Conspiracy-level kookiness.

It’s like saying - you see that guy over there.

No, not that one, one next to him, dark hair, kinda plain looking.

That’s God.

The true God.

Been around since dawn of time - everything you see around you - he made it.

Of course it’s only crazy if it’s not true.

But it does help to explain why so many folks missed it.

Why so many, as it says in verse 10, did not recognize him.

The God of all glory and power and wisdom walking around the neighborhood as another just ordinary person.

But it wasn’t just that he was so ordinary - it’s that he spoke and lived in such an unexpected manner.

He was different.

What do I mean by that?

Everyone - that includes people in Jesus’ time - and it includes us - we all have expectations or narratives (those little stories in our minds) of what we think God is like - some people see God as stern parent, or as a Santa Claus figure or great cosmic cop or maybe some powerful by generally absent figure.

If he exists at all.

But Jesus showed us what God the Father is like, vs. 18, The Message - No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse.