Sermon from February 6, 2000
I would like you to imagine something. Imagine turning to the person next to you. Look that person in the eye. Imagine it to be an unhurried situation. You have the person's full attention. Prepare to speak to that person in the gentlest, sincerest way you know. Now, say to that person, "I am not worthy to stoop down and untie your shoes."

If I actually asked you to do that, you would be justifiably upset with me and would (justifiably) refuse to do so, especially in this public setting. It is not especially pleasant to imagine doing it. For one thing, we probably don't believe it is true. Even if we did, just thinking it (never mind saying it) is so intimate as to make many a person uncomfortable.

Maybe this brief exercise has prepared you to hear with new ears part of a sermon that John the Baptist preached. Mark 1:7 records it for us. And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie."

It is true that John did not say this directly to Jesus; he said it about Jesus to the gathering crowds by the River Jordan. However, John had a habit of saying things like that at other times and at least once to Jesus' face. Matthew 3:14 tells us that at Jesus' baptism John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" On another occasion John said in a most public way to people who thought Jesus was horning in on John's territory, "He must become greater; I must become less," (John 3:30). John deferred to Jesus in a profoundly self-effacing way.

John was using the language of devotion. Our reticence to talk like that has merit. To talk like that to anyone else too much sounds false. Overdoing it sounds either like someone is trying to persuade himself or the other person of his devotion, or else it sounds like a symptom of something emotionally unhealthy.

On the other hand, we all feel the tug of justice when someone does something for us, especially something valuable, which we could not do for ourselves. Every act of worship is in reality an act of justice. Justice requires that we render something back to Christ for His kindness to us.

You may be the first in line to point out to me, "How can anyone repay Christ for what He does for us?" When I was a boy, my uncle used to visit us intermittently. He seemed always to come unannounced. He almost always came on a Sunday. We would come home from church, and there was Uncle U.L. At dinner time my mother always asked him to pray, and the accepted way of asking was to say, "U.L., would you return thanks?"

I never thought much about that at the time. It was many years later that I remembered that family ritual, and the little word return jumped out at me. My mother was saying that for our dinner table, laden with more good things to eat than the five of us could eat, we would repay God by giving Him our thanks. Saying "Thank you, thank you, thank you" is all well and good; but it does seem like a poor repayment for God's generosity. What can I say? It is a poor payback. The response is not adequate to the gift, but it is acceptable to the Giver. By all accounts thanksgiving pleases God greatly.

Think about it this way. "We are composed of a twofold nature, (spiritual) and (physical)." So, "we (can) offer God a twofold adoration; namely, a spiritual adoration, consisting in the internal devotion of the mind; and a bodily adoration, which consists in an exterior humbling of the body," (Summa Th. II-II, Q. 84 Art. 2).

Internal devotion (heart worship, as we like to call it) is simply not accessible to anyone but you and God. Thanksgiving and expressions of devotion belong to our bodily adoration of Christ. And when you remember how awkward it felt to say, "I am not worthy to stoop down and untie your shoe," you can see how humbling it would be to say it, even in your prayers to Christ. Have you said anything like it in your prayers recently?

That is why public prayer and worship matter enormously. Did you pay attention to what we sang earlier? "I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you. Oh, my soul, rejoice!" "Jesus, you are my life." "Lord, you are more precious than silver. Lord, you are more costly than gold. Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds; and nothing I desire compares to you."

Where else would we be even halfway comfortable saying that? Music, especially used in communal worship of Jesus, gives us an appropriate and safe way in which to express things we do not easily express anywhere else to anyone else. Is everyone sincere in what he sings? I don't know. We might be surprised at the interior adoration of people in this sanctuary who otherwise seem tongue-tied when it comes to expressing their feelings. The Holy Spirit uses music and worship to loosen their tongues the way some people use liquor to loosen theirs.

And what shall we say about the baptisms we have witnessed today and the personal testimonies uttered in the presence of the triune God? Submitting to this particular form of baptism by immersion can be very humbling. Speaking in front of people ranks among the half dozen most uncomfortable things people do. I wish we could print all they said on the front page of the News Journal. Not yet. No here in the old creation. Where else but the congregations of Christ can people find their voice and express themselves as these people have done today? Theirs were voices of devotion as well as witness.

What moved John the Baptist to say, "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie,"? All we have to go on so far in Mark is what we have read in verses 1-11. John has called Him twice God's Son. John saw in Him the long-expected, now near-at-hand King of Israel. He read Isaiah and Malachi and saw them pointing to Jesus. He said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit as easily as he (John) was baptizing people with water. Jesus was the one on whom the Spirit descended like a dove. He was the one who justified John's ministry. He was the one whose story God would use to cast a spell over all humanity. It would be God's spell. We call it the gospel.

Faced with these realities, smitten by these realities, John knew and wished all who heard to know that among them had arisen someone unlike anyone they ever dared to dream about. Nothing could be more natural, more healthy, than to feel unworthy at being part of what was about to unfold. It was a short step to finding the right words to express that sense of unworthiness. Even untying shoes seemed presumptuous.

So, what is it about Jesus Christ that moves you to sing as you did today without embarrassment? Aren't you glad someone else set it to music for you? But even those songs do not capture adequately what we know and what we feel about Him. Truly, our words are like bears beating on metal drums, when all the while we are trying to move the stars to pity. But we must try. We know He will always be worthy of more than we can do, but He is not worthy of less than we can attempt. And where words deteriorate under the weight of His reality, He gives us baptismal waters and sacramental bread and wine with which to set forth His praise. So, let us praise Him with unspeakable joy.