“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Famous words supposedly spoken by journalist Henry Morton Stanley somewhere in Tanganyika at the end of his expedition to find the missing explorer. “I presume”. It means, “I think I know what I am doing. Would you please confirm it for me? You look like what I came to find; please tell me I am right.” When we presume something, we are already rather well convinced we are right, but we want somebody to confirm it for us. Presumption; what we think we already know.
There is a Sufi saying, “Those who do not know that they do not know are ignorant: Pray for them. Those who do not know that they know are asleep: Wake them. Those who know that they do not know are children: Teach them. Those who know that they know are realized beings: Follow them."
But I have a problem with the Sufi saying. (And by the way, please do not ask me to repeat it!) I agree that not knowing is a situation that calls out for remedy. Teaching, waking, praying. But I do not agree that those who know that they know are always those who should be followed. I find that those who know that they know are presumptuous. They are self-contained. They can even be arrogant. Those who know that they know are presumptuous, and expect others to confirm them and applaud them. There is a problem with that. There is an issue with presumption. And that issue becomes a very serious one when it is turned toward our relationship with God. If you and I become presumptuous about God, we are far off the mark, and need serious correction.
I want to introduce you this morning to a preacher who made very certain that his audience got serious correction. This preacher was unmistakably clear with his assessment of those who presumed to know that they knew. This preacher is likely not a candidate that your Pastor Search Committee will bring before you. For one thing, his wardrobe is well out of style; I know that you have no dress code, and am happy that here people can wear jeans or be as casual as they like. But really, camel’s hair? Wardrobe does not measure up. And then there is the issue of diet. I have been to several of the Sunday night suppers, and even if you have not attended those, you have heard Jim Kirk bellow out the menu; never have I heard him announce that locusts and wild honey will be served at 5:30 tonight! No, neither the wardrobe nor the diet will do, and maybe we would even quarrel with this preacher’s theology. Maybe we wouldn’t like to listen to what he has to say. Yes, he is a Baptist; but somehow what he is preaching is not what we expect to hear from Baptist pulpits. Is this the message you would come out for, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”? Is this the flavor you prefer, “You brood of vipers”? And all this stuff about fire? Too negative for our tastes, right? Too extreme.
But, brothers and sisters, therein lies the issue. Therein is our problem. It is easy to be guilty of presumption. It is easy to presume that we are on the right path. We readily presume that we are signed, sealed, and delivered before God. “Once saved always saved” is our favorite doctrinal statement. But here comes one John the Baptist, all unshaven and unwashed, wagging his bony finger at us, and fairly shrieking, “Do not presume.” “Do not presume to say to yourselves …”
Let’s understand that John’s audience was made up of good people, religious people. The Pharisees and the Sadducees – kind of the Baptists and the Methodists of that day. They knew their religion. They did church. They knew that they knew. They presumed that they had it right, and came out for the preacher to confirm it. But they got an earful, and it was not pleasant.
I
For one thing, they presumed that the religion that they had inherited and had practiced all these years was a guarantee of salvation. Their standing as Jews and their leadership in the religious community was unquestioned. And so, the presumption was that they were in good standing with the Lord.
What a shock, what an insult, then, to hear John cry out, “Do not presume”! “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
Friends, being conventionally religious guarantees us nothing. Doing church as church is normally done in our time gives us no advantage before God. In fact, it may even harm our standing before Him, because we persuade ourselves that we deserve salvation. We convince ourselves that God owes us redemption. We act as though we are doing God a great favor to show up at church and pitch in some offering. It’s just what decent folks do.
But John proclaims repentance. John insists that it is deep-down, looking-at-the-truth turning around that God wants. In a word, it’s about relationship. It’s not about religion, it’s about relationship. The great theologian Karl Barth used to say that all religions are idolatries, even Christianity, because they focus on creeds and churches and things and not on God Himself.
A friend of mine once explained it this way. He said, “My housecat was ready to deliver a litter of kittens. She went in search of a place to give birth, and found a warm spot on some old sheets in the corner of my garage. She gave birth, all right. But just because the kittens were born in the garage does not mean they are Cadillacs!”
Today there are thousands upon thousands of people with their names on church rolls, but who give little if any evidence of being born again as believers. Thousands upon thousands who demonstrate few of what John calls “fruits worthy of repentance.” There are so many people on church rolls who have no identifiable relationship with God that in one state, a statistician added up all the numbers from the reports of the Baptist churches, and found that in that state there lived more Baptists than people! As much as that says about the poor condition of church records, it says even more about the presumptuous condition of our souls. Name is on the record, and we think that’s it. Do not presume; we are called to repent and to bear fruits worthy of repentance.
And lest you think I have decided to hit on just us Baptists, one wit pointed out that the best thing about the liturgy of the Church of England is that it makes everybody, from the lowest commoner on up to the highest royals, pray, “Have mercy upon us, miserable offenders, for there is no health in us.” I don’t know that they believe it, but at least they say it! At least it is a nod in the direction of repentance.
Do not presume that having been in church since Day One gets to the heart of the matter. Do not presume that knowing a few theological maxims is all the knowledge that you need. Do not presume that knowing about God is the same thing as knowing God personally. Religion as the way to God is a presumption. The way to God is a relationship built on repentance. “Do not presume.”
II
So – the Pharisees and the Sadducees came out to witness John’s preaching, and decided to accept baptism. They must have caught the spirit of the moment, and so they applied for baptism. Surely that would get John’s approval; surely, you would think, John would get excited about that. Absolutely every other Baptist preacher I ever met gets excited about baptisms, and manages to tell his or her colleagues at the next meeting of the ministers’ conference that “I baptized X number this week.” Are we on the right track now, with baptism?
But John is still not satisfied. John is still not happy. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”
The issue is that we want it easy. We want a quick and easy formula for salvation. We want instant transformation and painless reconciliation. We want to do this thing and get it over with, so that, we hope, God will say, “You have your one-way ticket into heaven, climb on board.” But that is presumption. That is presumption of the highest order.
Why? Because you do not do relationships on the cheap. You do not do relationships in a quick, easy, simple, clean way. Relationships are inherently slow, conflicted, complicated, messy. We do not get a meaningful relationship to God by going through an initiation rite and then walking away. We get a significant and saving relationship to God by living with Him and working with Him and, may I suggest, arguing with Him, every day.
On the 20th of May, 1961, Margaret and I said our vows and were yoked together in the bonds of matrimony by law. But we weren’t married. Huh? Not married? No, we had only done the initiation ceremony. We were only starting at being married. Being married had to do with understanding one another, drying one another’s tears, taking care of one another’s needs, raising children and paying bills and maintaining a household, and all the rest. Relationships are not instantaneous; relationships are ongoing and developing. I neglected to get into that part about how relationships are messy – I will just let you presume, to use our key word of the day – I will let you presume that never a harsh word has passed between us, never a disagreeable sentence! And if you believe that, there is a bridge in Brooklyn we can talk about! No, relationships cannot be done on the cheap. Relationships are not instantaneous. Relationships are built, and they are always built on repentance.
Baptism is not some sort of magic. I wish I had a dollar for every time some parent would call me and say, “I think it’s time my children were baptized.” I would answer, “What do the children think?” And all too often the answer would come back, “Oh, they are too young to think much about it. I just want them under the umbrella of protection.” No, no, no; baptism is not a fire insurance policy. Baptism is a sign of a commitment that is just getting started. Baptism is not an act whereby God gives us a free ride; it portrays our death to an old way of life and our birth to a new one. If that is not happening when you are baptized, then the only thing going on is that you went into the water a dry sinner and you came out a wet sinner! It is presumptuous indeed to imagine that baptism or any other ritual earns our standing before God. It’s not about religion, nor is it about ritual. Hear John again, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” Repentance that is intertwined with relationship. “Do not presume.”
III
So, now, to review: it is presumption to think that being religious will substitute for a relationship with God. It is presumption to imagine that a ritual suffices for that relationship. But the good news is that there was one who came into the wilderness of Judea after John, and who brought with Him fire. This passage speaks often of fire. There is one who came after John, and brought with Him fire.
When Jesus Christ comes, He comes to do something in us that neither religion nor ritual can ever do. He comes to refine us. He comes to burn away whatever is in us that is unworthy, and to leave behind something finer and better. John speaks of fruitless trees cut down and thrown into the fire. He speaks of chaff winnowed out from the wheat and burned. He even speaks of being baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. These are images of purification and preparation. Something that is refined by fire becomes pure and precious and useful.
Have you ever been to a mine where they are going after a metal of some kind – iron or aluminum, gold or silver? What comes out of the mine is not the pure metal. It is an ore with many impurities in it, and something more must be done to extract the pure metal. Those extractions generally involve tremendously high heat, fire. If you do not use the fire, you do not get a useful metal.
And if Christ does not purify us, we are not going to be useful. If Christ does not purify us, we remain fatally flawed. If we do not receive the refiner’s fire, we do not allow ourselves to be brought into relationship with Him. We stand in presumption and deceive ourselves.
When He comes, our Christ baptizes not only with fire, but also with the Holy Spirit. He baptizes not only with the conflicts of daily living and the ups and downs of our trials. Most important, He baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He immerses us in Himself. And we learn something altogether new and yet totally self-evident – that what we want is not religion. It is not ritual. What we want is refining that comes from repentance and leads to relationship.
Repentance refines away our presumption. We confess that we have no achievements on which to stand, nor do we have any magic blankets to protect us. When we repent and discover the devices and desires of our own hearts and how tawdry they are, then the One who is coming, mightier than John, builds a relationship with us, and we with Him. He shapes us and changes us. Our presumption vanishes.
And so wonderfully, mysteriously, we may then affirm with Charles Wesley, “Thou, O Christ, art all I want; more than all in Thee I find … Just and holy is Thy name, I am all unrighteousness … Plenteous grace with Thee is found, grace to cover all my sin. Let the healing streams abound, make and keep me pure within. Thou of life the fountain art, freely let me take of thee. Spring thou up within my heart; rise to all eternity.”
Do not presume; it’s not religion, nor ritual that we want; do not presume, just receive. Repent, relate, and receive.
