Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. — Malachi 3:1[38]
I identify with John The Baptist
because of the quirkiness of his ministry. He didn’t look like a
prophet, he didn’t talk like a prophet, he didn’t go where
prophets went, he didn’t hang out at the Prophet Club. Thought
entitled by family lineage to an honored place among the
Levitical priests, John chose to follow God’s direction, which
led him to the tall grass along the interstate where he howled
at passing traffic. John was likely seen, at least initially, as
a lunatic. One of those homeless people we dismiss every day as
mentally handicapped. He probably smelled bad. He was likely
ungrounded. He didn’t look like a pastor you could take
seriously and he did not operate within the comforting polish of
the holy synagogues.
What I’ve never quite understood, however, was why. Why would
God want His man to be seen as this lunatic? And, if John were
preaching God’s divine revelation, would that not best be served
in a crowded place? Outside Walmart? What good would it do for
me to stand along I-25 and scream at passing traffic? Who would
listen? What good would that accomplish? Yet, this is, more or
less, precisely what I’m doing. So far as I am aware, the
PraiseNet is virtually ignored here in Colorado Springs. The
work we do here has been characterized by at least one pastor
as, “an enormous waste of your gifting.” Isn’t that what they
said about John? Wasn’t John involved in a ministry nobody
understood, nobody supported, that existed outside of the
religious community?
My conclusion about this matter sis simple: when God calls you
to do something, you would do best to obey God. Too many of us,
called by God, report to the pastor who then douses our
enthusiasm and employs us in ways he sees fit, appropriate, or
necessary to the church. I suspect most pastors, black or white,
have done this. Why? Because your vision is for you. You may be
the only one who sees it, the only one who feels it viscerally,
down in the gut. When God calls you to do something, it wakes
you up in the morning. It follows you around, nags you, reminds
you. But there is fear. There is doubt. This is natural and to
be expected. So, what do we do? We go see the pastor. We
explain, usually in some half-hearted and insecure way, the
vision God gave us. But God didn’t say, “Go ask your pastor if
this is okay.” God said, “do this.” Sharing your vision with the
pastor is for one purpose only: that the pastor may then move to
prepare and equip you for that service. Pastors: it is not your
job to tell somebody what God has told them to do. It is your
job to serve. To prayerfully listen, to hear them and to hear
God.
Now, just because God told you to do something does not
necessarily mean tomorrow. If God told you to go fly an
airplane, you’d still need to get your pilot’s license. Whatever
God has laid on your heart requires investment and patience and,
likely, time. That’s the pastor’s role: to help you move from
inspiration to practice. To advice and counsel, to empower.
My fascination with John centers around why. Why would God
have John (or us) out there in the weeds? Who was he talking to?
Was he even heard? Biblical scholars have a lot of theories
about this. Based upon my own life experience and my own
calling, here are a few of mine:
Prophecy Fulfilled
This is the kind of self-reinforcing argument that infuriates the seeker. It is the easy way out: Why did John The Baptist preach in the wilderness? To fulfill Malachi’s words [3:1, 38, 4:5-6]. This makes God seem like He does things just to do things: that there is no greater purpose to His works. While it is an important truth, it does not answer the question of God’s plan for John. God didn’t lead John into the wilderness just to lead him into the wilderness, so we’re still left with the question of why.
An Out-Of-Town Job
John couldn’t be heard in town. In the synagogue, his teaching
would have been routinely attacked. He would have spent all of
his time arguing theology and have ultimately been shouted down
by religious leaders more invested in their privileged positions
than in God’s truth. There is not a single church in this town
where I can speak as freely as I can speak here. Not a single
church in town where I can preach, unedited and uninhibited,
undiluted, the message God has given me. I have served at many,
many churches over the course of my lifetime. I can count, on ne
hand, which of these churches took me seriously. All the rest
were an utter waste of time.
There are things God will inspire you to do that you cannot do
in church. Church, as we know it, suffers from a largely
institutionalized rigor mortis. The shot-callers at church tend
to be seniors who also tend to be wary of if not intimidated by
progressive thought because they find it threatening. Younger
and more active people gravitate less toward church leadership
because they are too busy with family and life. The church is
simply not wired for innovation, revelation or progress. The
church is largely invested in its past, in tradition, and many
church leaders feel protecting that tradition is their major
responsibility. This represents poor teaching and leadership on
the pastor’s part. The church does not exist to perpetuate
itself. It is a resource for God’s people. Setting up roadblocks
to God’s progressive and orderly self-revelation works contrary
to that objective and makes God seem double-minded. We tend to
treat the church like a shrine. God intended the church to be a
Home Depot: a living and active resource for builders. If you
have a clear vision from God, a revealed and tested truth, often
the last place you should subject that vision to is the church.
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." —Malachi
4:5-6
Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist. —Matthew 17:11-13
Truth And Religion
This is the biblical model: God’s truth coming to the church,
not the other way around. Moses brought truth to the children of Israel
who, left to their own wisdom in his absence, made themselves a
golden calf and started worshipping it [Exodus 32]. This is the
brilliance, the logic of Church Folk. Moses
didn’t hand the tablets over to these geniuses and go, “Well? What do you think?”
When God showed Jacob the vision of the ladder [Gen 28:11-19]
Jacob didn’t scratch his head and say, “Let’s have a committee
look at that and give us their recommendation.” John The
Baptist, the last prophet, brought his divine revelation to the
established religious order of the day. Jesus Christ brought an
external truth and revelation to the Jews—to the Church Folk—who
rejected it. The Apostle Paul, who had never walked with Jesus,
who was not one of Christ’s disciples, experienced a theophany—
a manifestation or appearance of God—and
brought truth to the fledgling church, correcting Peter, the
church’s hand-picked leader, who had begun to appease Judaizers
and Gnostics [Galatians].
Revelation within the church is typically repressed and
politicized, subjected to political tests rather than spiritual
ones. Divine revelation typically comes from unexpected sources.
Not necessarily nor exclusively from the pastor, but it might come from some
sister, some brother, not in the inner circle and not taken
seriously within the church. The people most plugged into God
are often those least vocal and least visible in the church. The
people bum-rushing the podium every chance they get are often
the least spiritual among the group.
An idea or concept divinely revealed from God can transmit to the
church via any number of means. The church, typically, hears only
its pastor. All other voices are suspect and are subjected to
political tests. Sister so-and-so sits on no board, has no
political power within the church, therefore the revelation she
shares with the church is not valued or trusted. This is, of
course, Theology For Nitwits. It is why revelation rarely
comes from within the church body but comes to the church body
from an external source. It is also why revelation, regardless
of whether it comes from within or without, is routinely
rejected by the church. The church is often run like a hardware
store or a corporation, and a good idea could not possibly come
from the kid in the mail room.
Because divine revelation gets so beat up within the organized
church, those to whom God reveals truth often become doubtful
and question their own revelation and fail to act upon it. I
myself have gone to pastors with a message from God and pastors
have looked at me like I was crazy, which discourages me from
obeying God and delivering His subsequent messages. Part of the
fault is my own: the proper way to share God’s divine revelation
is to ask. “The Lord has given me a message for you. Are you
willing to receive it?” This shifts responsibility from you to
the hearer. You are unlikely to hear a “no” to this question,
even if the pastor thinks you’re nuts, some insignificant nobody
in his little fiefdom. But once he says, “yes,” it is on him to
believe or not, to act upon it or not. Your job is to deliver
the message. The responsibility is on the hearer to receive it.
It is for this reason that many pastors, as they become
increasingly successful, hear less and less from God: they are
evaluating the message by its messenger, a dangerously
unbiblical practice.
John, standing on a street corner in town, would have been
easily dismissed and mocked. He might have been arrested or
stoned to death. For his voice to be heard, without it being
limited, marginalized, politicized or otherwise tampered with,
he had to pursue his own avenue. Those of us sitting, week after
week, waiting for our chance at the pastor’s pulpit where we
routinely compromise our message so as to not offend or
challenge the pastor’s teaching, do a gross disservice to the
very God Who inspired us, Who called us to a glorious work and
service. Biting your tongue when proclaiming God’s word is
blasphemy. It is an affront to the cross that makes one unworthy
of God’s calling.
The Road Less Traveled::
Too many "ministers" just want to be seen on Sunday morning.
People truly called of God will follow wherever He leads, even if that is no place at all.
Discovering Your Own Voice
Living like a homeless scavenger and shouting like a maniac at
passing traffic? Welcome to college. John The Baptist received
his Masters degree in the tangled weeds of the wilderness beyond
Bethany. We speculate John received formal training among the
Levites or at the feet of his father Zachariah, but also that he
spent most of his formative years among the Essenes, a peculiar
evangelical Jewish sect for whom baptism was a means of Gentile
conversion to the Jewish faith.
Sometimes God will lead us to our own wilderness because we
haven’t found our voice yet. In the old days, pastors would
drive young preachers way out of town, stop in the middle of
nowhere and coach their protégées on discovering their own
voice. This is difficult to do at home without somebody
hollering at you to quiet down, and difficult to do at church
without someone wandering in and subsequently ridiculing you. It
is important for young ministers to discover their own voice but
it undermines their credibility, in the eyes of the
congregation, for anyone to observe this process. Church Folk
are not usually respectful of preacher-grooming. We expect or
possibly believe strong preachers simply arrive that way. We
have no patience for the development process, and watching a
preacher come spiritually of age undermines our confidence in
that preacher. It’s the Nazarene syndrome: a prophet honored
everywhere but home. Our tradition is to respect the pastor and
the pastor alone. So-called “associate” ministers are usually
dismissed as not serious.
John The Baptist’s most profound work was baptizing our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. While there must certainly have been other
significant moments and significant people John Baptized, it is
Christ’s baptism that signaled the end of John’s ministry and
the beginning of Christ’s. That was John’s big moment, one which
likely would not have come to pass had John followed in his
father’s footsteps at the temple.
Discovering your own voice is a personal, private and often
lonely journey. We are not likely to know if our moment—the
single most significant moment of our service to God—is before
us or in our rearview mirror. It is possible God will lead you
to your own wilderness experience to specifically equip you for
that moment.
Christopher J. Priest
14 August 2011
editor@praisenet.org
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