John the Baptist, Patton Oswalt, and You: At the Crossroads [Advent 3B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
John 1:6-8, 19-28
John the Baptist, Patton Oswalt and You: At the
Crossroads
This is John the Baptist at the
crossroads. All he has to say is,
yes. And everything changes. No more itchy camel skin. No more eating bugs. No more fighting the bees and bears for wild
honey. No more long shifts down at the
river. From second string to shining
star. All he had to do was say,
yes.
And it would have been easy. It would have been easy to say yes. They wanted him to say yes. When they ask, “Are you the Messiah?” All he had to do was say yes. The crowds would be happy. His life would change: respect, authority,
followers, and the most amazing title ever.
For centuries his people – his people, they could really be his people,
one could get used to that – they had longed for the Messiah. A king.
A leader. A Savior.
It's not like he asked for this
attention. He was just doing his
thing. He was being who God called him
to be: a baptizer. A prophet – not THE
prophet – but a prophetic voice crying out in the wilderness. It wasn't meant to a building block or a
stepping stone; this was it for him. He
was John, the guy who lived in the desert and baptized with water.
But they thought he was more than
that. They brought up the Messiah talk,
not him. They were asking the questions.
And now all he had to do was say, yes.
It was so easy.
Some of you might know the comedian
Patton Oswalt. He has been on the sitcom
King of Queens; he was the voice of
Remy, the Rat star of the animated film Ratatouille.
And also he is a pretty well-known stand-up comic. In his most recent stand-up special, he tells
the story of his first casino gig, which I have cleaned up for church on this
lightest of Advent Sundays. He says:
“Not only was it an offer to do a casino, it was the most money I've ever been
offered to do anything in my life or in my career. For one hour of my
time. They were not only offering me a
profane amount of money; and they weren't offering me an obscene amount of
money; they were offering me a sacrilegious amount of money.... And I hate to
say this, but when I heard the amount, my lizard brain went: Ahh! Money! I want
it! Off I go to the casino!”
It is amazing how personalized
temptation really is. Every person has
their crossroads. John the Baptist is no
exception. He was human. It is easy to
forget that. He is a saint. He is the forerunner for Jesus. But like you and
me and Patton Oswalt, he was human. And
some pretty important, influential people saw something special in him. They asked him, “Are you the one?” I wonder if he ever, just for a second,
started to believe the hype. I wonder if
he ever asked himself the same question: Am I the Messiah?
Back at the casino Oswalt faces his
own temptation. He continues: “I enter a
hotel room...that was bigger than any house or apartment I have ever lived in
in my life.... And I'm marveling at it, and I'm not paying much attention to
[the club manager], and I only halfway hear her say, 'Would you be willing to
do a meet and greet for our high-roller VIP customers.' And I'm thinking, 'They
are paying me so much money.'
Absolutely, Yes.”
A couple of hours later, and a
couple of hours before his performance, Oswalt arrives at the meet and greet.
He continues: “And they bring in the forty VIP, high-roller customers, who
happen to be the forty drunkest human beings I've ever seen ever. And I was in a frat in college.... The whole
thing takes 10 minutes; they leave. And
I'm standing there thinking, 'It's seven o' clock; the show starts in two
hours. They're going to drink more;
that's why they are leaving. The room holds 400 people. So one out of every ten will be that drunk. And in my mind I'm like, “This is gonna be a
nightmare; this will be terrible.”
Oswalt returns to his room, comes
back down just before his show is set to begin.
And he finds out that the casino spent the previous 45 minutes selling
unlimited $2 shots to all four hundred people in the audience. So not just 40, but all 400 hundred audience
members are completely drunk. But he
says: “I'm still a professional, and they are paying me a lot of money. And I tell the woman running the room, 'How
much do you want me to do 50 minutes, an hour?'
And then she said, 'It's totally cool if you just do half an hour.' I go, 'Well, for the money you are paying me
I should do the full hour.' And she
said, 'Please do not do more than 30 minutes. I'm serious. We'll be perfectly happy – just do thirty
minutes.' So, they announce me – I'm
off-stage. The announcer gets on, 'Ladies and gentlemen, from the King of Queens, Patton Oswalt.' The minute I become visible, the crowd
starts, I wasn't heckled, the crowd starts screaming everything they've ever
seen me in. Just screaming. All 400 people are shrieking. For half an hour, I did not tell one
joke. I did not tell a joke. I had my career screamed at me; I agreed with
it; then I said good night; got a standing ovation; I walked off-stage; and I
said to myself, 'I just paid for one year of my daughter's college; I did not
tell a single joke and I've never made an audience happier.'
“I work hard writing...jokes. Trying to be original. Do new [stuff]. I didn't know that, if you get to a certain
point in your career, you can just go and get looked at and screamed at and get
paid. That's the...crossroads. Because when I got off-stage, the lady that
ran the club said, 'That was awesome! We have 15 other casinos. If you want to
go out, we'll bring you up every weekend.”
Oswalt concludes saying: “That
offer is always there. So whenever you
see me doing stand-up, from this point on, know that right behind me is the
pulsing door of compromise and
success. It is always there.”[1]
Every tough crowd at every little
comedy club in Youngstown, Ohio or Buffalo, New York. Every painstakingly crafted joke that
bombs. Every harsh critique and bad
review – a reminder. And all Patton
Oswalt has to do is say yes. Just turn
the knob and open the door.
Every time John picked up a locust
for dinner. Every time he laid his head
down on a rock in the cave he called home.
Every time one of his disciples left to find a “real” Messiah. Every time someone called him crazy and
disrespected him. Every time it was
right there: the pulsing door of compromise and success. All he had to do was say, “Yes. You are correct. I am the Messiah.”
But he never did.
Being a follower of Jesus means
always standing at the crossroads. It is
not a once-in-a-lifetime decision to follow or not follow. Every day is Jesus saying, “Follow me.” And every day we are faced with choices and
decisions and temptations that are much more appealing than the way of the
cross. The temptation does not always
look like the biggest payday ever or the chance to be the Messiah. It is amazing just how personalized
temptation really is. But it is always
something.
Tempting us with compromise and
success. But God is calling us to fade
away – into the light of Jesus. To trade
our shining star dreams for life in the shadow of the Messiah. To be like John: not the light, but witnesses
to the light. By our lives and our
decisions, we make Christ known, we make Christ real in our world. We reflect the light of the Christ. When we choose love over fear, when we
protect the image of God in another person – whether friend or enemy, when we
allow ourselves to be God's instruments of peace in a violent world, people see
Jesus – in us and through us.
We stand at the crossroads – the
cross before us; the pulsing door of compromise and success always behind
us. Every day, every decision, is an
opportunity to choose the way of Jesus.
Every day, every decision, another chance to be children of the Light.
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