Second Sunday After The Epiphany / Second Sunday In Ordinary Time
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
Jesus' message to us -- and our message to others, on his behalf -- is "Come and see!"
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 49:1-7
The Second Servant Song
Jeremiah's sense of God's call, dating from before his birth, is well-known (1:5); what is perhaps not so well-known is that Second Isaiah reports a similar experience for the person who is the subject of his second Servant Song: "while I was in my mother's womb he named me" (49:1). The first Servant Song occurred as last week's first lesson selection. The third (Isaiah 50:4-9a) occurs on the Sixth Sunday in Lent, and the fourth (52:13--53:12) occurs on Good Friday. This Servant is like an expertly crafted weapon, hidden away for the chosen day, when the Lord will put him to good use (v. 2). Verse 3 identifies the Servant with Israel, but then, in verse 5, it appears that he is an individual, a prophetic figure, who will revive Israel's hopes. Verse 6 is one of the places where Second Isaiah's revolutionary theology becomes clear because the Servant will not only save Israel, but will be "a light to the nations," insuring that God's salvation "may reach to the end of the earth" (v. 6).
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Paul Gives Thanks For God's Grace
Those who think ahead to what follows in 1 Corinthians may be surprised by the warmth of the apostle's greeting. There is no hint, in these opening verses, of the divisions that have led some Corinthian Christians to assert, contentiously, that they belong to Paul, and others to Apollos (v. 12). Even though Paul knows perfectly well that this is a church fractured by conflict, he addresses his readers as "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (v. 2). Clearly, holiness is not something believers earn; it is a gift of grace bestowed on them by God through Jesus Christ. Paul's opening words of thanksgiving for the Corinthian believers are artfully chosen (verses 4-9). He offers thanks to God for things God has done for them, rather than for things they have done themselves. He gives thanks for God's grace (v. 4), for the ways God has "enriched" them "in speech and knowledge" (v. 5), and for the rich array of spiritual gifts God has bestowed on them (v. 7). In the final analysis, it is God who is faithful (v. 9). So, while it may at first seem that Paul is speaking to the Corinthians with great affection, in fact he is celebrating God's grace -- a gift that, like a parent's oversized pair of shoes on a child's feet, is something they must grow into.
The Gospel
John 1:29-42
"Come And See"
One of John's primary practical concerns in writing his gospel is to clarify the subordinate relationship of John the Baptist to Jesus. Evidently this is a matter of such urgency that he makes it his first order of business after completing his famous prologue (verses 1-18). In the pericope that immediately precedes today's lection, John the Baptist declares 1) that he is neither the Messiah nor Elijah, 2) that he is "a voice crying in the wilderness" in the tradition of Isaiah, and 3) that he is not worthy to untie the thong of Jesus' sandals (verses 19-28). This sets the stage for the two pericopes that make up today's lection. In the first of these, John the Baptist looks up to see Jesus coming toward him and immediately exclaims, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (v. 29). In rather convoluted Johannine language -- that is clearly not simple conversation, but rather the author using the Baptist's remarks as a way of making his Christological point -- John goes on to subordinate himself to Jesus once again (v. 30).
He then recounts his experience in baptizing Jesus -- reporting the vision of the descending dove, and God's identification of Jesus as "the one who baptizes with Holy Spirit" (verses 32-33). Clearly, this is a private revelation, rather than a public event. An interesting feature, here, is that John admits to not recognizing Jesus at first -- although this is not particularly surprising since John's gospel -- unlike Luke's -- makes no mention of any familial relationship between the two. In the second pericope, John is with a couple of his own disciples when Jesus again shows up, unexpectedly. John repeats his identification of him as "the Lamb of God," as well as declaring once again that he is inferior to Jesus (verses 29-30). Perhaps not surprisingly -- in light of what he has just said -- John's two disciples immediately desert him for Jesus (v. 31)! There follows an exchange between Jesus and these two disciples, in which they ask him where he is staying. He responds, "Come and see" (verses 38-39). It turns out that one of these two is none other than Andrew -- who immediately goes off and recruits his brother, Simon (verses 40-42). In speaking to Simon, Andrew explicitly identifies Jesus as the Messiah (v. 41). Andrew then leads his brother to Jesus, who gives him the new name of Cephas, or Peter (v. 42). A possible preaching point is Jesus' earlier, straightforward response to Andrew and the other, unnamed disciple: "Come and see." Such is the invitation that forms the "bottom line" of any evangelistic message: We can preach to our heart's content about Jesus, but the only way others will become his disciples is by meeting him, personally.
Preaching Possibilities
Perhaps only people who live in small towns can fully appreciate this story. In our highly mobile society, folks often forget what it's like to live in the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else's business. Yet, that is precisely the sort of setting in which Jesus, and his cousin John the Baptist, grew up.
Jesus has come down from Nazareth to visit John, who's hard at work blasting sinners with his sermons and baptizing anyone he can convince to follow him into the Jordan. Jesus and John haven't seen each other for a while, but John's clearly glad to welcome his out-of-town guest. He's so happy at having seen his cousin, in fact, that a couple of his followers leave him behind, and he hardly notices. They dash off to overtake Jesus on the road, and when they do, Jesus turns and asks them what they're looking for.
Well, they don't exactly say, but they do ask Jesus where he's staying. That's the kind of thing folks are apt to ask in a small town. If you know where a guest is staying, you can tell an awful lot about him or her. Jesus doesn't answer their question -- not directly, anyway. "C'mon," he says. "Come and see!"
And, come they do. They follow Jesus back to the house where he's lodging. That afternoon the little group, rabbi and prospective students, sits and talks for many hours, all about the scriptures and the love of God. When it comes time for the meal, they all sit down together and break bread. In time, Andrew -- one of that little group -- goes off and finds his brother, Simon. "We have found the Messiah!" he declares -- and he drags Simon back with him. The rest is history: Simon will eventually become Simon Peter. He and Andrew will both become one of the twelve, Jesus' inner circle of disciples.
Where would they all have been if Jesus hadn't come walking down the road, prompting John the Baptist to say, "Behold the Lamb of God"? This piqued Andrew's interest, leading him to find out where Jesus was staying and to go there. It was Andrew, of course, who brought his brother Simon -- and, where would the church be today without Simon, the man whom Jesus would later name "Cephas," or Peter?
That's the way the faith spreads -- by personal contact, usually one-on-one. Faith grows not so much through huge evangelistic rallies, huge media events transmitted by satellite, as through one person inviting a neighbor to come to worship.
Jesus' invitation is "Come and see." It's extended to everyone, all the time. Always we are invited into closer relationship with him. There's no compulsion there, no pressure -- just that smiling invitation to spend some time in the presence of another. When that other person is Jesus, the encounter is a life-changing experience.
If a person receives the invitation, "Come and see," from one of us, and decides to visit our church one day, what are they likely to find? A warm and welcoming gathering of people who are always eager to greet a stranger? Or is the visitor likely to find what's essentially a closed group -- a gathering of people who know each other perfectly well and don't have much time for anyone else?
We all have a responsibility to extend the invitation and to welcome the visitor. It's the one-to-one invitation, the "Come and see," that makes all the difference. Here are four simple rules for inviting a friend or neighbor to church:
First, pray about your inviting. Ask the Lord to help you identify those who will be most receptive to your invitation. There are plenty of them out there: plenty who are waiting for a chance, even an excuse, to get back to church. One of them just may happen to be a friend or neighbor.
Second, don't be content with offering a general invitation: "You know, you should come to church sometime." That's the Christian equivalent of saying, "One of these days, let's do lunch." The response will be a courteous, "Sure, one of these days," but then it will never be thought of again. Instead, make your invitation specific to a particular service or special event -- why not next Sunday?
Third, consider offering your invitation in times of special need. If you know of stress in your friend's or neighbor's life, if you've heard about a season of change, or an experience of loss, then it's even more likely the person is longing to hear some good news amidst the bad.
Fourth, invite the person to come to worship with you. This is so very important. A person who hasn't been to church in a while will find it much easier to come if he or she doesn't have to walk into a church that's filled with strangers. People will be much more inclined to come if they know in advance that they won't be lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces.
Fifth, and finally, be persistent. You don't need to be a nag about it, but sometimes people do need to hear an invitation more than once, just to know you're serious. You may fear you're being a nuisance, but if it's a friend or neighbor you're asking, your overture is much more likely to be received as a gesture of caring.
If you go through that simple process, you will have been an evangelist -- and all you'll really have done is spoken the simple little invitation, "Come and see," leaving it up to the person and the Lord to decide what happens next.
Those three little words have brought many a person to faith or to a renewal of faith grown cold. Those words worked for Andrew and his brother Simon. They worked for every one of us who first came to church at the invitation of another. They'll work also for the person you're inviting -- as long as you give the gift of yourself along with them.
Prayer For The Day
God of aliens and strangers:
make the doors of this church wide enough so that all
find a welcome, a home, a haven, a heart.
Christ of the near and those who are far-off:
make our hearts wide enough so that all
might find a place in this household of faith.
Welcoming Spirit of saints and sinners:
open our arms wide enough so that all --
the guest, the neighbor,
the child, the widow,
the politician, the homeless,
the brother, the sister --
may be embraced by your love and grace. Amen.
-- Thom Shuman
To Illustrate
Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican Archbishop, told a story once about a Russian Orthodox priest. This priest was a simple man, not very sophisticated at all. It so happened that he found himself in conversation with a brash, young physicist -- a man who believed, along with much of the Russian government at that time -- that a modern, scientific worldview leaves no room for God.
This scientist toted up, in short order, all the typical arguments in favor of atheism, and then he concluded, "And therefore, I don't believe in God!"
"It doesn't matter," the little old priest replied, gently. "God believes in you."
***
Frank McCourt is famous for writing a best-selling autobiography, Angela's Ashes, about the experience of growing up dirt-poor in Limerick, Ireland. He also wrote a sequel to that book, the story of his young manhood as an immigrant newly arrived in New York City, just after World War II. That book is called, 'Tis.
It's Christmas day. The young Frank McCourt is living alone in a rented room. It so happens that he's suffering from a chronic eye infection that makes his eye red and swollen he brought with him from Ireland and leads strangers to avoid looking at him. Because of the eye infection, he has trouble keeping a steady job, and so he's barely able to buy enough food to eat.
On Christmas Day, McCourt decides to go someplace he hasn't been in years. He's going to church. This, despite the fact that he's feeling hung over from too much drinking the night before -- a victim of potent bathtub whiskey, known as "glug" -- and is feeling generally beaten-up by life. Yet, his openness to worship is genuine. This is the moment. The prodigal has returned.
The church he chooses is a fancy one on Park Avenue. Listen to his own account of the experience, in his own irrepressible style:
"I'd like to go up the street for Communion at St. Vincent Ferrer's but it's years since I went to confession and my soul is as black as Mrs. Austin's glug. The happy Catholic people with children by the hand are surely going to St. Vincent's and if I follow them I'm bound to have a Christmas feeling. It's lovely to go into a church like St. Vincent's where you know the Mass will be just like the Mass in Limerick or anywhere in the world. You could go to Samoa or Kabul and they'd have the same Mass and even if they wouldn't let me be an altar boy in Limerick I still have my Latin my father taught me and no matter where I go I can respond to the priest.... The people who go to St. Vincent's are like the ones who go to the Sixty-eighth Street Playhouse for Hamlet and they know the Latin responses the way they know the play. They share prayer books and sing hymns together and smile at each other because they know Brigid the maid is back there in the Park Avenue kitchen keeping an eye on the turkey. Their sons and daughters have the look of coming home from school and college and they smile at other people in the pews also home from school and college. They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in snow they'd be lost forever. The church is so crowded there are people standing in the back, but I'm so weak with the hunger and the long Christmas Eve of whiskey, glug, and throwing up I want to find a seat. There's an empty spot at the end of a pew far up the center aisle but as soon as I slip into it a man comes running at me. He's all dressed up in striped trousers, a coat with tails, and a frown over his face and he whispers to me, You must leave this pew at once. This is for regular pew holders, come on, come on. I feel my face turning red and that means my eyes are worse and when I go down the aisle I know the whole world is looking at me, the one who sneaked into the pew of a happy family with children home from school and college. There's no use even standing at the back of the church. They all know and they'll be giving me looks, so I might as well leave and add another sin to the hundreds already on my soul, the mortal sin of not going to Mass on Christmas Day. At least God will know I tried and it's not my fault if I wandered into a happy family from Park Avenue pew."
McCourt has a humorous way of telling a story, which nearly covers up how sad, sweetly sad, his story is -- the story of a lonely young man who decided to "come and see" -- who walked into a church on Christmas Day, and discovered not love and peace and the grace of God, but a scowling usher telling him he was seated in the wrong pew.
***
Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be wise. You don't have to be wonderful. You don't have to be anything... you just have to be dead. That's it.
-- Robert Farrar Capon, Mike Yaconelli, ed., The Door Interviews (Zondervan, 1989), p. 230
***
Sometimes I use the figure of a person getting on a train. We make a decision to go to New York. We decide on the 10:05 from the local station and get on. We are not in New York in five minutes, but we are out of our local station in less than a minute after the train starts. Conversion is definite, like getting on the train and being quickly moved beyond the place where we used to be. We haven't arrived yet at our ultimate destination -- of course not! That takes time and travel. But we have begun the journey. The people that trouble me are the people who are sitting about in the station thinking they are on the train. The churches are full of them. Nobody ever told them where the platform was and helped them up the steps of the car. Preachers for years have been telling them of the glories of the place they want to get to and have even told them how superior a certain train is to any others. But what they need is specific help in boarding the train.
-- Samuel Shoemaker, The Experiment of Faith (Harper, 1957)
***
Everyone knows that the best form of advertising ever invented and the one that is still most successful is word-of-mouth -- people telling other people. About forty years ago there used to be an automobile named the Packard. Packard was the last car manufacturer to get into advertising. It didn't happen until old man Packard died, because whenever he was approached to buy some advertising for his cars he always said, "Don't need any; just ask the man who owns one." After his death, "Ask the man who owns one" became the Packard slogan.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is also known through word-of-mouth advertising. That's how the word about him gets out.
-- Daniel G. Mueller, "The Best Advertising of All," Just Follow The Signs (CSS Publishing, 1984), p. 50
Jesus' message to us -- and our message to others, on his behalf -- is "Come and see!"
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 49:1-7
The Second Servant Song
Jeremiah's sense of God's call, dating from before his birth, is well-known (1:5); what is perhaps not so well-known is that Second Isaiah reports a similar experience for the person who is the subject of his second Servant Song: "while I was in my mother's womb he named me" (49:1). The first Servant Song occurred as last week's first lesson selection. The third (Isaiah 50:4-9a) occurs on the Sixth Sunday in Lent, and the fourth (52:13--53:12) occurs on Good Friday. This Servant is like an expertly crafted weapon, hidden away for the chosen day, when the Lord will put him to good use (v. 2). Verse 3 identifies the Servant with Israel, but then, in verse 5, it appears that he is an individual, a prophetic figure, who will revive Israel's hopes. Verse 6 is one of the places where Second Isaiah's revolutionary theology becomes clear because the Servant will not only save Israel, but will be "a light to the nations," insuring that God's salvation "may reach to the end of the earth" (v. 6).
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Paul Gives Thanks For God's Grace
Those who think ahead to what follows in 1 Corinthians may be surprised by the warmth of the apostle's greeting. There is no hint, in these opening verses, of the divisions that have led some Corinthian Christians to assert, contentiously, that they belong to Paul, and others to Apollos (v. 12). Even though Paul knows perfectly well that this is a church fractured by conflict, he addresses his readers as "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (v. 2). Clearly, holiness is not something believers earn; it is a gift of grace bestowed on them by God through Jesus Christ. Paul's opening words of thanksgiving for the Corinthian believers are artfully chosen (verses 4-9). He offers thanks to God for things God has done for them, rather than for things they have done themselves. He gives thanks for God's grace (v. 4), for the ways God has "enriched" them "in speech and knowledge" (v. 5), and for the rich array of spiritual gifts God has bestowed on them (v. 7). In the final analysis, it is God who is faithful (v. 9). So, while it may at first seem that Paul is speaking to the Corinthians with great affection, in fact he is celebrating God's grace -- a gift that, like a parent's oversized pair of shoes on a child's feet, is something they must grow into.
The Gospel
John 1:29-42
"Come And See"
One of John's primary practical concerns in writing his gospel is to clarify the subordinate relationship of John the Baptist to Jesus. Evidently this is a matter of such urgency that he makes it his first order of business after completing his famous prologue (verses 1-18). In the pericope that immediately precedes today's lection, John the Baptist declares 1) that he is neither the Messiah nor Elijah, 2) that he is "a voice crying in the wilderness" in the tradition of Isaiah, and 3) that he is not worthy to untie the thong of Jesus' sandals (verses 19-28). This sets the stage for the two pericopes that make up today's lection. In the first of these, John the Baptist looks up to see Jesus coming toward him and immediately exclaims, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (v. 29). In rather convoluted Johannine language -- that is clearly not simple conversation, but rather the author using the Baptist's remarks as a way of making his Christological point -- John goes on to subordinate himself to Jesus once again (v. 30).
He then recounts his experience in baptizing Jesus -- reporting the vision of the descending dove, and God's identification of Jesus as "the one who baptizes with Holy Spirit" (verses 32-33). Clearly, this is a private revelation, rather than a public event. An interesting feature, here, is that John admits to not recognizing Jesus at first -- although this is not particularly surprising since John's gospel -- unlike Luke's -- makes no mention of any familial relationship between the two. In the second pericope, John is with a couple of his own disciples when Jesus again shows up, unexpectedly. John repeats his identification of him as "the Lamb of God," as well as declaring once again that he is inferior to Jesus (verses 29-30). Perhaps not surprisingly -- in light of what he has just said -- John's two disciples immediately desert him for Jesus (v. 31)! There follows an exchange between Jesus and these two disciples, in which they ask him where he is staying. He responds, "Come and see" (verses 38-39). It turns out that one of these two is none other than Andrew -- who immediately goes off and recruits his brother, Simon (verses 40-42). In speaking to Simon, Andrew explicitly identifies Jesus as the Messiah (v. 41). Andrew then leads his brother to Jesus, who gives him the new name of Cephas, or Peter (v. 42). A possible preaching point is Jesus' earlier, straightforward response to Andrew and the other, unnamed disciple: "Come and see." Such is the invitation that forms the "bottom line" of any evangelistic message: We can preach to our heart's content about Jesus, but the only way others will become his disciples is by meeting him, personally.
Preaching Possibilities
Perhaps only people who live in small towns can fully appreciate this story. In our highly mobile society, folks often forget what it's like to live in the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else's business. Yet, that is precisely the sort of setting in which Jesus, and his cousin John the Baptist, grew up.
Jesus has come down from Nazareth to visit John, who's hard at work blasting sinners with his sermons and baptizing anyone he can convince to follow him into the Jordan. Jesus and John haven't seen each other for a while, but John's clearly glad to welcome his out-of-town guest. He's so happy at having seen his cousin, in fact, that a couple of his followers leave him behind, and he hardly notices. They dash off to overtake Jesus on the road, and when they do, Jesus turns and asks them what they're looking for.
Well, they don't exactly say, but they do ask Jesus where he's staying. That's the kind of thing folks are apt to ask in a small town. If you know where a guest is staying, you can tell an awful lot about him or her. Jesus doesn't answer their question -- not directly, anyway. "C'mon," he says. "Come and see!"
And, come they do. They follow Jesus back to the house where he's lodging. That afternoon the little group, rabbi and prospective students, sits and talks for many hours, all about the scriptures and the love of God. When it comes time for the meal, they all sit down together and break bread. In time, Andrew -- one of that little group -- goes off and finds his brother, Simon. "We have found the Messiah!" he declares -- and he drags Simon back with him. The rest is history: Simon will eventually become Simon Peter. He and Andrew will both become one of the twelve, Jesus' inner circle of disciples.
Where would they all have been if Jesus hadn't come walking down the road, prompting John the Baptist to say, "Behold the Lamb of God"? This piqued Andrew's interest, leading him to find out where Jesus was staying and to go there. It was Andrew, of course, who brought his brother Simon -- and, where would the church be today without Simon, the man whom Jesus would later name "Cephas," or Peter?
That's the way the faith spreads -- by personal contact, usually one-on-one. Faith grows not so much through huge evangelistic rallies, huge media events transmitted by satellite, as through one person inviting a neighbor to come to worship.
Jesus' invitation is "Come and see." It's extended to everyone, all the time. Always we are invited into closer relationship with him. There's no compulsion there, no pressure -- just that smiling invitation to spend some time in the presence of another. When that other person is Jesus, the encounter is a life-changing experience.
If a person receives the invitation, "Come and see," from one of us, and decides to visit our church one day, what are they likely to find? A warm and welcoming gathering of people who are always eager to greet a stranger? Or is the visitor likely to find what's essentially a closed group -- a gathering of people who know each other perfectly well and don't have much time for anyone else?
We all have a responsibility to extend the invitation and to welcome the visitor. It's the one-to-one invitation, the "Come and see," that makes all the difference. Here are four simple rules for inviting a friend or neighbor to church:
First, pray about your inviting. Ask the Lord to help you identify those who will be most receptive to your invitation. There are plenty of them out there: plenty who are waiting for a chance, even an excuse, to get back to church. One of them just may happen to be a friend or neighbor.
Second, don't be content with offering a general invitation: "You know, you should come to church sometime." That's the Christian equivalent of saying, "One of these days, let's do lunch." The response will be a courteous, "Sure, one of these days," but then it will never be thought of again. Instead, make your invitation specific to a particular service or special event -- why not next Sunday?
Third, consider offering your invitation in times of special need. If you know of stress in your friend's or neighbor's life, if you've heard about a season of change, or an experience of loss, then it's even more likely the person is longing to hear some good news amidst the bad.
Fourth, invite the person to come to worship with you. This is so very important. A person who hasn't been to church in a while will find it much easier to come if he or she doesn't have to walk into a church that's filled with strangers. People will be much more inclined to come if they know in advance that they won't be lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces.
Fifth, and finally, be persistent. You don't need to be a nag about it, but sometimes people do need to hear an invitation more than once, just to know you're serious. You may fear you're being a nuisance, but if it's a friend or neighbor you're asking, your overture is much more likely to be received as a gesture of caring.
If you go through that simple process, you will have been an evangelist -- and all you'll really have done is spoken the simple little invitation, "Come and see," leaving it up to the person and the Lord to decide what happens next.
Those three little words have brought many a person to faith or to a renewal of faith grown cold. Those words worked for Andrew and his brother Simon. They worked for every one of us who first came to church at the invitation of another. They'll work also for the person you're inviting -- as long as you give the gift of yourself along with them.
Prayer For The Day
God of aliens and strangers:
make the doors of this church wide enough so that all
find a welcome, a home, a haven, a heart.
Christ of the near and those who are far-off:
make our hearts wide enough so that all
might find a place in this household of faith.
Welcoming Spirit of saints and sinners:
open our arms wide enough so that all --
the guest, the neighbor,
the child, the widow,
the politician, the homeless,
the brother, the sister --
may be embraced by your love and grace. Amen.
-- Thom Shuman
To Illustrate
Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican Archbishop, told a story once about a Russian Orthodox priest. This priest was a simple man, not very sophisticated at all. It so happened that he found himself in conversation with a brash, young physicist -- a man who believed, along with much of the Russian government at that time -- that a modern, scientific worldview leaves no room for God.
This scientist toted up, in short order, all the typical arguments in favor of atheism, and then he concluded, "And therefore, I don't believe in God!"
"It doesn't matter," the little old priest replied, gently. "God believes in you."
***
Frank McCourt is famous for writing a best-selling autobiography, Angela's Ashes, about the experience of growing up dirt-poor in Limerick, Ireland. He also wrote a sequel to that book, the story of his young manhood as an immigrant newly arrived in New York City, just after World War II. That book is called, 'Tis.
It's Christmas day. The young Frank McCourt is living alone in a rented room. It so happens that he's suffering from a chronic eye infection that makes his eye red and swollen he brought with him from Ireland and leads strangers to avoid looking at him. Because of the eye infection, he has trouble keeping a steady job, and so he's barely able to buy enough food to eat.
On Christmas Day, McCourt decides to go someplace he hasn't been in years. He's going to church. This, despite the fact that he's feeling hung over from too much drinking the night before -- a victim of potent bathtub whiskey, known as "glug" -- and is feeling generally beaten-up by life. Yet, his openness to worship is genuine. This is the moment. The prodigal has returned.
The church he chooses is a fancy one on Park Avenue. Listen to his own account of the experience, in his own irrepressible style:
"I'd like to go up the street for Communion at St. Vincent Ferrer's but it's years since I went to confession and my soul is as black as Mrs. Austin's glug. The happy Catholic people with children by the hand are surely going to St. Vincent's and if I follow them I'm bound to have a Christmas feeling. It's lovely to go into a church like St. Vincent's where you know the Mass will be just like the Mass in Limerick or anywhere in the world. You could go to Samoa or Kabul and they'd have the same Mass and even if they wouldn't let me be an altar boy in Limerick I still have my Latin my father taught me and no matter where I go I can respond to the priest.... The people who go to St. Vincent's are like the ones who go to the Sixty-eighth Street Playhouse for Hamlet and they know the Latin responses the way they know the play. They share prayer books and sing hymns together and smile at each other because they know Brigid the maid is back there in the Park Avenue kitchen keeping an eye on the turkey. Their sons and daughters have the look of coming home from school and college and they smile at other people in the pews also home from school and college. They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in snow they'd be lost forever. The church is so crowded there are people standing in the back, but I'm so weak with the hunger and the long Christmas Eve of whiskey, glug, and throwing up I want to find a seat. There's an empty spot at the end of a pew far up the center aisle but as soon as I slip into it a man comes running at me. He's all dressed up in striped trousers, a coat with tails, and a frown over his face and he whispers to me, You must leave this pew at once. This is for regular pew holders, come on, come on. I feel my face turning red and that means my eyes are worse and when I go down the aisle I know the whole world is looking at me, the one who sneaked into the pew of a happy family with children home from school and college. There's no use even standing at the back of the church. They all know and they'll be giving me looks, so I might as well leave and add another sin to the hundreds already on my soul, the mortal sin of not going to Mass on Christmas Day. At least God will know I tried and it's not my fault if I wandered into a happy family from Park Avenue pew."
McCourt has a humorous way of telling a story, which nearly covers up how sad, sweetly sad, his story is -- the story of a lonely young man who decided to "come and see" -- who walked into a church on Christmas Day, and discovered not love and peace and the grace of God, but a scowling usher telling him he was seated in the wrong pew.
***
Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be wise. You don't have to be wonderful. You don't have to be anything... you just have to be dead. That's it.
-- Robert Farrar Capon, Mike Yaconelli, ed., The Door Interviews (Zondervan, 1989), p. 230
***
Sometimes I use the figure of a person getting on a train. We make a decision to go to New York. We decide on the 10:05 from the local station and get on. We are not in New York in five minutes, but we are out of our local station in less than a minute after the train starts. Conversion is definite, like getting on the train and being quickly moved beyond the place where we used to be. We haven't arrived yet at our ultimate destination -- of course not! That takes time and travel. But we have begun the journey. The people that trouble me are the people who are sitting about in the station thinking they are on the train. The churches are full of them. Nobody ever told them where the platform was and helped them up the steps of the car. Preachers for years have been telling them of the glories of the place they want to get to and have even told them how superior a certain train is to any others. But what they need is specific help in boarding the train.
-- Samuel Shoemaker, The Experiment of Faith (Harper, 1957)
***
Everyone knows that the best form of advertising ever invented and the one that is still most successful is word-of-mouth -- people telling other people. About forty years ago there used to be an automobile named the Packard. Packard was the last car manufacturer to get into advertising. It didn't happen until old man Packard died, because whenever he was approached to buy some advertising for his cars he always said, "Don't need any; just ask the man who owns one." After his death, "Ask the man who owns one" became the Packard slogan.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is also known through word-of-mouth advertising. That's how the word about him gets out.
-- Daniel G. Mueller, "The Best Advertising of All," Just Follow The Signs (CSS Publishing, 1984), p. 50
