The Collected Works of James Wm. McClendon, Jr.

Volume 3

James W. McClendon, Jr., Ryan Andrew Newson, Andrew C. Wright

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781481304313
• eBook ISBN:
  9781481305808
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

James Wm. McClendon, Jr. (1924-2000) was the most important "baptist" theologian of the twentieth century. McClendon crafted a systematic theology that grew out of the immediacy of preaching the text, refused to succumb to the pressures of individualism, and lamented the stunted public witness of a fractured Protestant ecclesiology. This third and final volume of his Collected Works provides a compendium of McClendon's sermons--examples of what he called "first-order" theology in action. While McClendon was predominantly known as a philosophical theologian, he persisted in the belief that the theology that mattered most occurred in ordinary congregations seeking to bear faithful witness in the world. The sermons in this collection--many rarely seen and never before published--provide an important window into McClendon's own theology and witness to his convictions about theology's purpose and end. This third volume serves as an invaluable resource for ministers, students, and theologians who seek a fuller understanding of McClendon's "baptist" theology.

Part I

Waiting

The Coming of the Lord

1

What’s Coming Next?

An Advent Sermon

Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37

Preached on November 28, 1993 (first Sunday of Advent), at Pasadena Church of the Brethren.

☫ ☫ ☫ ☫

One of the charms of childhood is that children say what we want to say but don’t. In a cartoon a friend sent me, a child looks out at us and says, “Let me get this Christmas thing straight. It’s Jesus’ birthday, but I get all the presents?” And then in the second frame he exclaims, “Is this a great religion, or what?”

Or what of the child who asks, “Why can’t we have Christmas now, Mother? Thanksgiving is over.” Indeed it is, so why must we wait? Why not open all those great gifts now? Well, that is a good question. Christmas will last twelve days—that’s good—but we have to wait until December 24 or 25 to start? Why wait? Who says it has to be on the twenty-fifth? How did we get that date, anyway?

That is a very good question. In learning the answer, we will find out something about Christmas, and about Christianity (is it a great religion, or what?), and not just incidentally, something about God and history. But let’s start with the twenty-fifth day of the month of December.

The earliest Christians did not observe Jesus’ birthday. There was a very good reason for this: no one seems to have known when it was. The year can be determined with some accuracy—Herod was king in Galilee, Augustus was Roman emperor. As to the month or the day, no one remembered, or if they did, they didn’t tell others. Christians were more interested in Jesus’ resurrection day than in his birthday. There was no Christmas.

December 25 was important because the ancients reckoned it was the shortest day of the year—the winter solstice. Pagan peoples viewed the winter sun sinking down earlier and earlier as a disturbing sign: What if it continued and there was only night? They built great bonfires as magic to encourage the sun to light up and come back. And it always worked—on the twenty-sixth the days started getting longer, and people were safe for another year!

Associated with that pagan activity were religious rites and public parties, some of them riotous. Chaos ruled, and loose morals prevailed. It worried the Christian leaders that their own people were being caught up in this mischief and they sought to replace it.

• “Why don’t we celebrate Jesus’ birthday?”
• “We don’t know when that is.”
• “All the better! Let’s do it on December 25.”

So the twenty-fifth and the night before were chosen. They called it Christmas, Christ mass, because “mass” was the Latin word for a church service. Instead of carnival behavior, they went to church on Jesus’ birthday.[1]

In time church leaders noticed that the new holiday had become a big celebration that incorporated many features of the old pagan Saturnalia. They said, “We had better spend some time in church—a month would be about right—getting ready to celebrate Jesus coming into the world.” So they did. Advent (which simply means “coming”) became a time to look forward to, a time to prepare for, the celebration of God’s coming into the world. For many it was a penitential season, in which sins were remembered and confessed and forgiven, so that Jesus’ people would be ready to celebrate his birthday with pure hearts. This rhythm of time—first the austere waiting, then the glad feast—seemed to mirror the longer story of Christian life on earth: first the hard times, the waiting, the hoping, then the festivities when Jesus came.

So Advent was not only a time of getting ready for the festal season at month’s end. It was also a time of reflection, in which believers recalled that God who had come once to bring the good news would come again, to judge the world and bring all history to its end. Once again, it was first the waiting, the looking, the hoping; then the holiday, the great climax of the world, the final coming of the Messiah, the last day.

Every part of Christian teaching leads us to another, and it to another, until we have come full circle.[2] We began by asking how it is that we have to wait for Christmas—why not have it right now? Of course that is a childish question, no matter what day the ancients had chosen. If Christmas were in July, we could still ask in June, “Why not now?” And still there would be a time of waiting, a time of preparation. What makes Advent special is not merely the waiting—life itself is like that—but the special things we do while we wait. These are the things that make all Christian waiting pregnant with possibility.

So it was with the disciples in Jesus’ day. “Tell us,” they urged the Master when he spoke of the end of all things. Mark 13:4: “Tell us, when will this happen? What will be the sign?”[3] Now the answer that Jesus gave was not understood alike by all who remembered. Some recalled one thing, some another. Mark, in chapter 13, has drawn those memories together in his own way, and it remains the ultimate puzzle, the Fermat’s last theorem of biblical scholarship, to read through it correctly. Let me give you the simplest possible reading. Jesus is saying:

Yes, there will be a last day. The world won’t last forever. But don’t be fooled; lots will happen first, and you will not know when it will be. Not even the earthly Jesus knows. Since you don’t know, be ready. If you don’t know when guests are coming, you tend to keep the house tidy. Be like that. You don’t know when I’ll be back—neither do I—so be watching, watching, watching. I will come. Oh, and by the way, just as I’ve had lots of trouble on earth, so will you. So if you’re looking for a sign of the good day coming, try this one: Suffer first; preach the good news; after that I shall return.

You see, it is the same pattern:[4] first the hurting, the waiting, the hoping; then the coming, the gladness, the joy forevermore. Instinctively, the old church leaders who fixed on December 25 through January 6 (twelve days of birthday party for Jesus) saw that there needed first to be a time of preparation, of waiting, of hoping. There seems to be something deeply Christian about that pattern, for it appears over and over in Christian history.

The old Anabaptists, those sixteenth-century folk who turned back to believers’ baptism, who would not let their church belong to the government, who found authentic Christianity meant sharing their way of life with all who would hear the good news—these Anabaptist folk found out for themselves about suffering. There is an old book that tells their long history: The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs’ Mirror, of the Defenceless Christians. It tells the story of their faith, their suffering, their enduring. Following in their steps came Quakers and Baptists and Brethren and many others willing to suffer for Jesus’ sake.

Those days are not over, though. To Thanksgiving dinner at our house last Thursday came some Nigerians who are in this country to study, a joy for Nancey and me to entertain. After dinner we sat by the fire and they spoke of their home country, now ruled by the sixth or seventh military dictator in only a few years. How hopeless Nigeria seems. All is corrupt, all is dangerous, all is opposed to the gospel of Christ. They live their lives in a perpetual Advent, as Jesus says, I am coming, but not yet, I am coming, coming, coming; only you must wait for me.

And what of us, here in this small Christian fellowship? Has there been no suffering for us? Certainly there has been suffering. What of the dreams of those who built this suburban building, expecting that in a few years it would flourish as the old church downtown had flourished? What has become of their dreams? What of the children born to some of you, brought up in this church, trained in Brethren ways, who turned away like Demas of old, “having loved this present world” (2 Tim 4:10)? Is that not disappointment? Is that not bitterness? Is that not failure? Where is the faithful God when a pastor fails? Where is the faithful Christ when a spouse deserts? Where is the faithful Holy Spirit when a neighborhood seems indifferent to the lovely church that has sprung up in its midst? We, too, know suffering, and we suffer exactly because of our own yearning to see Christ present in our midst. When is he coming to change all this? That is the question of this season. Be sure of this: he will come, but not without our taking the way of the cross. Mark 13:8: “These are the first birth pangs of the new age.”

☫ ☫ ☫ ☫

First the hurting, then the presence; first the waiting, then the glad coming. It is the gospel way.

Sometimes little children cannot stand the wait before Christmas. They cannot sleep at night for excitement, for the pain of waiting. Will Christmas never come? Meantime, for weary parents, Christmas comes all too soon. There is so much to do to be ready, so many presents to wrap, cards to send, church flowers to prepare, meals to stock up for—and on top of all that, anxious children who cannot wait! Does it not seem likely that God, who looks forward to the world’s end, is something like that anxious parent? There is not time to do all that must be done to make the world ready for its last end. God wants our help—the help of getting ready for Jesus to come again, finally, at the end of all.

On the other hand, God understands little children perfectly well—after all, God invented little children! So God understands the anxiety of waiting and arranged to have Jesus come in the midst of time, already here, incognito, already with us whenever we meet in prayer. How much more will God understand the restless impatience of grown-ups who are so anxious for Christmas that already during Advent they yearn to sing a Christmas hymn.

Fatherlike, he tends and spares us;

Well our feeble frame he knows;

In his hands he gently bears us,

Rescues us from all our foes.[5]

Thus God does not make us wait until heaven for heaven to begin. Into earth’s sorrows come daily, weekly joys. We give thanks for our daily bread; we delight in the touch of loved ones still near. And weekly we gather here, and eat the heavenly bread and drink the heavenly drink of the presence of his Child, Jesus. Thanks to God, all the way to heaven is heaven.

So it is with waiting for Christmas itself. I think God will not mind if we keep Advent faithfully and also insert into a service, between now and Christmas, a Christmas carol or two. To be sure, if we do so, we will be like those little children who cannot stand the suspense, and whose wise parent allows them to open one Christmas present in advance. It will only go to show how great is the joy that awaits us, how wonderful will be that coming, coming, coming that we still expect.45

2

The Coming Revolution

Isaiah 9:2-7

Preached on December 12, 1993 (third Sunday of Advent), at Pasadena Church of the Brethren.

☫ ☫ ☫ ☫

Why go to church? In the busy holiday rush, why lose time here? There is so much to do! Yes, but that is just the point. In a busy time, preoccupied with pressing duties—gifts and glitter, goings and guests—we need some relief from the strain of busyness and the whirl of the hour. Outside there is only the perspective of today; here there is a chance to gain the perspective of history.[6] Outside we are nearsighted; here we can put on corrective lenses and see the far horizons of life.

Take today’s Old Testament reading. People then were preoccupied with the unfairness of life. Israel’s big-footed neighbors—the United States and China and Russia of their day—had come crunching down, seizing territory, changing borders, spoiling hope, and the Hebrew kings seemed to think they must imitate those neighbors and turn their own country into an armed camp. And as before, big landlords crushed little people; big business ran others’ lives; a confused and forgetful people turned not to God but to astrology and spiritism, hoping fortune-tellers would give guidance (see Isa 8:19–9:1). Like some today, they had lost their sense of history.

At that point God’s prophet spoke. Isaiah of Jerusalem, one man of God against the tide of confusion, fear, injustice. His word? A good king is coming. Live faithfully, have hope.

Now the real facts are these: The good king did not come. Not then, anyway. And correspondingly, most people did not have hope. Instead, the destroying enemies overran the land and ruined the people. So much, you will say, for prophecy; so much for the long look. And yet that conclusion would not be quite right. For the words of the prophet were not forgotten: they were written down, they were kept, they were memorized. And long after, some were still hoping, and a child was born.

At today’s reading, though, we are not that far along in the story. This is still the season of confusion, the time of injustice, the time when oppression, unfairness to the poor, raw violence have the upper hand. That was the situation when, in spite of the facts, the prophet voice sounded (Isa 9):

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light;

on those who lived in a land as dark as death

a light has dawned.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The boots of earth-shaking armies on the march,

the soldiers’ cloaks rolled in blood,

all are destined to be burned, food for the fire.

For a child has been born to us, a son is given to us;

he will bear the symbol of dominion on his ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to Volume 3
• Part I Waiting: The Coming of the Lord
• Part II On the Way: The Path of Discipleship
• Part III A Whole New World
• Part IV The Time of the Spirit-Filled Community
• Part V Appendices
• Notes
• Permissions for Volume 3
• Scripture Index for Volume 3
• General Index for Volume 3