Being a Sign

Most Sundays when I drive to church I use a route that passes a big billboard advertising a megachurch, which for purposes of this blog I'll call the Triumphant Doo-Dah Tabernacle of Abundant Life, located on the outskirts of the nearest big city to Outer Podunk. At least half the sign is devoted to the beaming face of the Tabernacle's minister. There is absolutely no indication anywhere on the billboard whom or what this establishment serves; an alien beamed down from another planet might well conclude from the sign that earthlings worship a giant hominid named "Pastor Bob" who has very large teeth.

It's easy to make fun of Pastor Bob and the Doo-Dah Tabernacle. But their billboard is a reminder of what happens when we confuse a sign for what the sign is directing us to; when we, as our Buddhist friends might put it, mistake a pointing finger for the moon.

In Sunday's Gospel lesson, where John the Baptist is confronted by members of the religious establishment who demand that he explain himself and his ministry -- "Just who do you think you are?" -- he tells them who he is; but he also tells them who he isn't.
As unique and compelling as John's vision of what he is called to do in the world, as popular and persuasive as he appears to be to others, he maintains a profound sense of humility about himself. He is, he says in so many words, merely a sign pointing the way to the One Who Is To Come.

Throughout history we Christians have had to struggle mightily with the problem of self-idolatry -- of making ourselves and our institutions the be-all and end-all of Christianity, instead of keeping our focus on, and our allegience to, Jesus Christ. Not only does this constitute treason against the One we call our Lord, but it also leads others to similarly equate our religious establishments with Christ. How many people are led to reject Christ, not because of who Christ is, but because of what the Church (which means all of us) has been to them?

We may not (all) be weird holy people crying out in the real or metaphorical wilderness. But we are all, like John the Baptist, called to be a sign -- a sign pointing to Christ. I know if I took that charge seriously -- if I woke up every day with that mission statement in my mind -- it would make a difference in what I said and did; how I treated other people; how I understood myself. Likewise, I suspect if every clergyperson or church bureaucrat sincerely took to heart John's assessment of his own ministry and really, truly claimed that as his or her own, the Christian community would change, in a good way.

In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about all the ways in which those of us in healthy Christian community act as signs of Christ's love and grace to one another -- praying for one another; helping one another in practical ways; singing and worshipping together; providing safe space for confessing our sins to one another and hearing the words of God's forgiveness; sharing Holy Communion with one another.

How visible a sign am I of Christ's saving and transforming love? How readable is the sign of my faith community that we're pointing, not to ourselves, but to the Christ who has called, gathered, empowered and commissioned us to live God's reign into the world?