Sermon Matthew 3:1-12 John’s Fire & Spirit <\/p>\n
By Fr. Bill Wigmore<\/p>\n
(This sermon was delivered to a group recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.)<\/p>\n
Well once again welcome & good evening howre you all doin tonight?<\/p>\n
Tonights the second Sunday in Advent
and as we said last week, Advent is roughly the 30-day
season that comes just before Christmas.
Its a time of preparation
Of getting ourselves ready for a change
The change that God brought about 2,000 years ago on Christmas Day;
and the changes that need to take place in our hearts today.<\/p>\n
And so each year, the gospel readings help get us ready;
And each year, long about this time, we receive our annual visit
from a very strange-looking dude by the name of: John the Baptist.<\/p>\n
Now any time a Baptist shows up,
you can be pretty sure hes gonna start quotin you some scripture! <\/p>\n
And this Baptist doesnt disappoint!
He quotes Isaiah the prophet, saying:
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.<\/p>\n
Johns message is the same every year.
Get ready for whats coming.
And at first glance, John seems like a really odd choice<\/p>\n
to be picked as one of Gods messengers.
If he showed up in most churches today the way hes dressed,
hed never make it past the first set of ushers!
Hes sportin a loin-cloth made out of camels hair! (Thats really gotta itch!)
And instead of bringing a big, box of cookies for the church choir,
hes totin a bag full of bugs locust and a few crickets –
– some wild honey drippin from an old can of Bugler.
Hes probably parked his Harley right out on the front lawn.
What kind of a crazy Baptist is this?<\/p>\n
And thats just what the people of his day were also asking
So Johns starting to draw quite a crowd.<\/p>\n
People are coming from Jerusalem and from all over –
Theyre streaming out into the desert to see what this strange looking guy is up to.
And the thing we might miss about this scene
is that all these people should never be going there.<\/p>\n
These people are Jews, theyre supposed to be going to their Temple
Thats where Gods supposed to be — and thats where
theyre supposed to go to offer him sacrifice.<\/p>\n
But somethings terribly wrong in their Temple
God doesnt seem to live there any more!<\/p>\n
So heres John, standing knee-deep in the river Jordan
and announcing Gods coming to meet you here –
Now hurry-up and get yourself ready!
Johns message is sometimes translated as repent
but the Greek word used in the gospel
really goes a whole lot deeper than that.
Hes really telling people they need to change
And they need to change radically.
Half measures will avail them nothing!<\/p>\n
So one by one the people come.
And after they do their Third Step there on the shore,
they step off the bank and step out into the river.
John plunges em down deep
No gentle drops of holy water sprinkled on their heads
He sends em down – way down below the surface
and they come up out of that water feeling
new, and clean, and ready to live a whole new life.<\/p>\n
So lets leave John standing & dripping there in the Jordan,
and turn for a minute to tonights other reading
because it too introduces a pretty strange character
Hes a wise but also a little bit of a wild-man by the name of C.G. Jung.<\/p>\n
And Jung is sometimes credited with being the one
who set the whole AA recovery thing in motion
through an alcoholic patient of his named Rowland Hazard.<\/p>\n
Rowlands story appears in the Big Book, but hes not mentioned by name,
and his story doesnt often get too much attention.
Tonight, well try to make up for that!<\/p>\n
It seems Rowland was truly one of us
He was a drunk whod tried every treatment available –
But he always wound up schnockered and in trouble again.<\/p>\n
So Rowlands family had money
and they sent him all the way over to Switzerland to get treated by Jung,
one of the very best shrinks in the world.<\/p>\n
Rowland goes willingly he wants to get well –
and he does all the treatment thats prescribed.
He gets in there and works really hard
He analyzes his dreams and he does
all his inner-child stuff <\/p>\n
Rowland thinks hes finally gotten a handle on this drinking
thing now so back he comes to the States.
And he does stay sober for: maybe a month!
But then Rowlands drunk again
and as the Big Book says, he doesnt know why.<\/p>\n
So back he travels to Switzerland for a second time.
He goes back there to see the one guy in the world who he thinks can help him <\/p>\n
And what happens next proves the real turning point for him
and maybe it ought to be for us too: Jung refuses to treat him.
He tells Rowland that hes tried helping him
He tells him hes already given him everything that psychiatry had to offer
but that wasnt good enough.
He pronounces Rowland an alcoholic of: the hopeless variety.
Rowlands standing there stunned. Hopeless!
His very last hope the great Doctor Jung – just stamped a great big H on his forehead!
So after a minute or two of doin the deer in the headlights thing,
he asks his famous teacher:
Is there anything anything at all that I can do?”<\/p>\n
And heres where Jung makes his great contribution
to our understanding of what recovery is really all about.
He tells Rowland that what he needs to do is to change.
He needs to undergo a very, very deep sort of change
Maybe in the same sort of way that John was telling his people
that they needed to change <\/p>\n
But Jung called it by a different name
He called it a psychic change and psyche means soul –
Rowland needed a spiritual awakening in his soul
an awakening that involved (and Im quoting now from the Big Book)
huge emotional displacements and
re-arrangements (of) ideas, emotions, and attitudes
Those things that were once the guiding forces of his life –
now they need to be cast to one side,
and a completely new set of conceptions and motives need to dominate.<\/p>\n
Jung said hed seen alcoholics and addicts recover through such a change.<\/p>\n
Here and there, once in a while,<\/p>\n
a conversion experience happens.<\/p>\n
Now Rowlands face brightens a bit and he says,
Well, Doc, looks like Im in luck!
See, I go to church, so maybe thatll do it for me.<\/p>\n
But Jung bursts his balloon and tells him
that going to church probably aint gonna work,
just like going to the Temple wasnt working for
the people back in the days of John the Baptist.
Some of us need changes far deeper
than most churches are usually willing to take you.<\/p>\n
So now back to the Jordan – and here, enters Jesus.
The story says hes been up north in Galilee,
but now hes come down to be baptized by John.<\/p>\n
John hesitates.
You oughta be the one baptizing me! he protests.
And then, sounding kind of like a Nike ad, Jesus says: Just do it.
And so, John does.<\/p>\n
Jesus slips beneath the waves, and what Jung would tell us
is that the water in this scene represents the unconscious.
Jesus enters what the Big Book calls the 4th level of our existence-
He enters a new consciousness a new awareness of who he is and why hes here.
Water is a powerful symbol
Were made mostly of water
In the womb we float in it
When were born were washed with it
Water keeps us alive and without drinking it, wed die
And even when we do die,
were washed in water one last time.<\/p>\n
We cant usually see whats happening under water
Just like we cant usually see whats happening
in our own un-conscious
But we can experience the 4th dimension of reality thats there inside us!
We can experience the unconscious!<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, thats exactly what we human beings are made for!
And if we dont experience it if we dont connect vitally with that Power deep within, then were gonna be restless, irritable and discontented.
The psalm says to God: Our souls dont find their rest
until they rest in you.<\/p>\n
So when Jesus comes up from the water <\/p>\n
the story tries to tell us that something very deep has happened to him down there.
What was un-conscious in him – now becomes conscious!
The writer tries to expresses it in the form of a vision. He says:<\/p>\n
Suddenly, the whole sky opened up
and Jesus saw the spirit of God coming down in the form of a dove
And then, when Gods spirit perched right on him,
he heard a voice say: You are my Son, the delight of my life!
Chosen – and marked by my love.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week I helped support some people
going out on whats called a Vision Quest.
Ten or twelve men and women, one by one,
heading out alone into the wilderness
to see whats inside them and to connect with it at a whole new level.<\/p>\n
They were each going to go and sit on a blanket for one to four days and do only one thing: Beg God for a vision! Theyd fasted & prayed
Almost all of them were people in recovery
Some had just a few years some had twenty or more.
I ran into an old friend at the camp a guy I hadnt seen in years <\/p>\n
He now has thirty years clean and Im coming up on 35 sober
We laughed and said Of course wed wind up here
Where else are you gonna go
with that much sober time under your loin cloth?<\/p>\n
And we agreed there isnt too much happening in our temples these days;
But God can still be found in the wilderness
hes waiting for any and all wholl step off the edge and come to him.<\/p>\n
John said:<\/p>\n
I baptize you with water <\/p>\n
but theres one coming after me<\/p>\n
wholl baptize you with fire and with spirit.<\/p>\n
I think thats pretty much what Jung was trying to tell his young friend Rowland.<\/p>\n
I cant help you, because what you really need is the power of God in your life.
And what you need is a God who lives not in your head
but a God who burns deep down in your soul.
A God who comes to you like fire and who sets your heart aflame.<\/p>\n
(We all used to drink what the Indians called: fire-water
These readings are saying:
wed better discover an even bigger fire burning inside us if we hope to recover.)<\/p>\n
I was praying about how to end this sermon- (and by now some of you may be too!)
and I thought it called for some kind of a story
Hopefully, a story about fire & spirit
that could maybe pull some of these loose ends together.<\/p>\n
So after saying that prayer, I opened a book sitting next to me
and the very first thing I saw and I promise you this is true
is a short piece by Robert Johnson called:
The Spirit Man on Mount St. Helens.<\/p>\n
(See Inner Work by Robert Johnson, p.219)<\/p>\n
It was a vision Johnson had when he was a young man.
And Johnson is both a follower of Jesus and follower of Carl Jung
so let me read you a few passages:<\/p>\n
Johnson writes:<\/p>\n
One evening I made a campfire on the side of Mt. St. Helens,
where I had spent many happy summers in childhood before the volcano erupted.
I squatted on my heels looking into my campfire at dusk.<\/p>\n
Even today I can remember the vivid colors of that evening and how they thrilled me.
The orange of the campfire, the dark blue color of the evening sky,
the purple-gray shadows on the mountain.
I felt a great sense of joy, beauty, peacefulness but also expectancy.<\/p>\n
A young man, about my own age, came walking up
and stood just on the other side of the fire.
I was on my heels by the fire; he was standing quietly;
and we just looked at each other for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then to my astonishment, the fire moved and transported itself down into Spirit Lake, way at the bottom,
and burned there as a tiny orange speck in the midst of that indigo blue water.<\/p>\n
Then the fire came back and burned before me.
The young man took one step – into the middle of the fire.
He absorbed the fire into his bloodstream so that he had fire
circulating in his veins rather than blood.
We stood there for some time, I looking in awe at these events,
and then he said:
Come, Im going to show you how the world was made.<\/p>\n
(And here, Johnsons vision deepens
and the spirit-man shows him a colossal diamond formed out of fire
and that diamond has streams of energy erupting all around it
theres energy exploding from the top and coming into it at the
bottom Its as an endless flow of power and light.)<\/p>\n
And then Johnson says he was embarrassed to tell what he said next
but he tugged at the sleeve of the spirit-man,
and being a very practical American, he said rather irreverently,
This is fine, – but whats it good for?<\/p>\n
Johnson said: The spirit-man looked at me in disgust:
It isnt good for anything. Just watch!<\/p>\n
That silenced me, Johnson said.<\/p>\n
We watched, and I felt that the colors – the light
the infinite energy and brightness were etched forever on my memory
and had almost entered into the physical cells of my body.<\/p>\n
He took me back then, and I sat again on my heels before the campfire.
He stood again in the fire.
Then he stepped back and, and let the fire flow out of his arteries
back into the little campfire on the ground.
The fire went back down to the bottom of Spirit Lake and went on burning.
Then the fire returned.<\/p>\n
The young man turned around without a word and walked back out
into the twilight from where he had come.
The vision ended, and I found myself back in my normal, mundane, physical world.<\/p>\n
Johnson says, Its difficult to know what to do with a vision like this.
And the church also has had a hard time figuring out what to do
with the vision of Jesus there at the Jordan
God coming to rest on him in the form of a dove!<\/p>\n
Every so often, some idiot will claim hes actually discovered a feather
from that holy, little bird!
And when people believe that,
they wind up worshiping a wing and totally missing the metaphor.
Human conscious probably gets set back another hundred years
and Jung turns over in his grave!<\/p>\n
But here and there, once in a while, a conversion experience happens.
Here and there, once in a while,
people come to see into that 4th dimension of Gods existence
and once they do theyre never the same.
Rowland got sober and so have a million more just like him.<\/p>\n
We read the story of John the Baptist every year to get us ready for Christmas.
Gods coming into the world and coming into our lives in a whole new way.
We need to get ready
A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.<\/p>\n
And when we do that Really do it !
When we make the kind of deep changes that Jung urged Rowland to make
then watch the visions start happening to us too:
Watch every valley and every low spot in our lives all of sudden, be lifted up.
Watch every obstacle and every mountain we need to climb – watch it be made low.<\/p>\n
Watch all the mood swings that used to drag us down
watch them start to level out
And watch as all the rough places in our lives become a plain.<\/p>\n
Dive into the water Dont stand on the shore! – Just do it!
Take the steps!<\/p>\n
Go deep and find the fire and spirit burning inside you
And then, in just a few more weeks, Christmas will come
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
And all flesh – including our own – will see it together.<\/p>\n
Amen.
Copyright 2008 Bill Wigmore. Used by permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sermon Matthew 3:1-12 John’s Fire & Spirit By Fr. Bill Wigmore (This sermon was delivered to a group recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.) Well once again welcome & good evening howre you all doin tonight? Tonights the second Sunday in Advent and as we said last week, Advent is roughly the 30-day season that … Continue reading “Matthew 3:1-12 John’s Fire & Spirit (Wigmore) – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}