The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for January 8, 2006

Texts: Isaiah 49:1-7/John 1:29-42

Title: “Word of Mouth”

            Catalogs and advertising circulars are taking over, although many of us have had a big respite from them since the storm. The volume of catalogs and circulars we received at our house was astounding.  We were being inundated. I fear that one of these days the backlog of all that stuff we were supposed to have received these last months will at last turn up from Baton Rouge, Houston, or wherever else it is being stored.  Trust me; our 900 square feet condominium is not up to such volume. 

            Mind you, our household does not make major purchases by catalog.  I can count only one or two purchases all last year.   One or two purchases for the estimated five or six hundred catalogs we typically receive any given year.  (If that number seems high to you, I’m calculating an average of two catalogs received each of the 310 or so days that mail is delivered to our house.)  One or two purchases for all that volume of advertising.  How do you suppose I can get through to the advertisers that they are barking up the wrong tree with the Millers?

            Advertising is certainly an essential sales tool, but the best tool is that person who gives your product a good word. My car was a casualty of the storm.  It happens that the Baton Rouge family who put me up for a month had a Volvo.  Having admired her car, Carla McClellan went on to elaborate on the car’s features, referring specifically to the car’s safety features.  Early last year she was broad-sided by a person doing fifty miles an hour.  The car was totaled, but she walked away with only a minor cut.  I could have shopped many places, and did try one or two, but I ended up purchasing a Volvo.

            We evacuated to Wisconsin for the storm.  My brother-in-law has one of everything, but one particular thing caught my eye.  Have you heard of the “Abdoer?”  The “Abdoer” is a piece of equipment designed to tighten your abdominal muscles.  I had seen the “Abdoer” advertised in a television infomercial.  Never once did I consider buying one of those things.  [The equipment cost about $125.  Anyone wants to take it off my hands I will sell in to you for $50.  Add $10 and I’ll have it delivered to your door in New Jersey.]

            I saw the “Abdoer” demonstrated on television more than once, but it took my brother-in-law, whose buying recommendations I have repeatedly ignored in the past [it took my brother-in-laws word of mouth recommendations to motive me to make the purchase].  He sold me on the “Abdoer,” and this is a man whose appearance would suggest he had never been in the same room with an abdominal exercise devise [please don’t tell him I said that].

            Where will I eat?  What movie shall I see?  What book shall I read?  Where shall I buy insurance, that is, if I can buy insurance?  Where should I go for vacation?  I personally want to hear some word of mouth. 

            Word of mouth can make or break reputations.  At one time I was big fan of a certain professional golfer.  A friend of mine who happened to meet him at a golfing event brought back a very negative report.  Justified or not, there is no way I can get around that report when the man’s name comes up.

            Word of mouth is the most basic, but also the most influential form of communication known to man.  Our lesson from the Gospel of John this morning will help me illustrate my point.

            Word of mouth had it that John, who at that time was building a substantial reputation as a baptizer, was a pretty special guy, odd looking the scriptures tell us, but a pretty special guy nonetheless.  Cantankerous, even offensive, his in-your-face style made a lot of folks uncomfortable.  Preachers, of course, don’t do much in your face anymore, but that’s another story.  Taking exception to some of the things he was doing and saying, a group of influential types from the synagogue showed up.  They wanted to know who had authorized him to baptize.  “You’re not a priest, John, you’re not authorized to baptize.  Quit now or you’ll find yourself in big trouble.”

            His detractors had to account for the fact that word on the street was that John was a pretty special guy, perhaps even the long-awaited Messiah.  The Messiah, of course, was a figure popularized in the traditions of the Jews as one who would restore Israel’s lost glory, ushering in the reign of God on earth. 

            John was certainly aware of the extravagant investment the Jews placed in the Messiah’s coming.  While his ego must certainly have been boosted by the attention he was receiving, he had a message for those who believed he might be the long-awaited one.  His response to these promoters?  “Forget about it.”

            Yet there was an awful lot of word of mouth to suppress. Ever try to quash a rumor?  Rumors give the word of mouth winged feet.  John knew that, and he did what he could to get out ahead of the rumor. “No, I’m not the Messiah.  I’m not Elijah (he was one of the great prophets of old whom many expected to return one day).  No, I’m not a prophet.”  He delivered this message with great conviction to the authorities, the people who really needed to hear it.  But there was a second part of his message that was less favorably received: the Messiah had come.

            As much as the notion of the Messiah’s return had appeal, for many it looked much better on the theoretical plane than as a “he’s here, got to make room for him” reality.  John the Baptist, however, was not the sort of man who dealt in theories or hypotheses, not if you regard his core message, “Repent and be saved,” in that vein. 

            Why did John see what so many others failed to see?  We don’t know.  But John definitely was on to something.  He had Jesus pegged before anyone else.  John the Baptist really got the word of mouth thing going.  Jesus was the one the Jews had been waiting for. 

            Sometimes we overlook the fact that John had a ready-made audience, people who took him very seriously.  People tended to listen when John spoke.  Though it would take centuries before the title publicist worked its way into common usage, John indeed fit the bill.  John was Jesus’ publicist.  Get Jesus’ name before the public, that’s all that mattered.  Friends, the challenges John faced are the same challenges that face the publicist today.  You want to promote your candidate for mayor?  You raise the money, you buy your TV and radio spots, and you have your yard signs printed.  You take out newspaper ads.  You line up speaking engagements with whatever organization will give you room on their docket.  Got to rev up the word of mouth, get the “buzz” going.  Get people excited.  Get them involved.

            John, of course, had no access to newspapers or magazines for communication, there were no civic groups or associations he could meet with, radio and television would have been beyond his fathoming.  What John the Baptist and those eventual disciples of Jesus had in abundance, however, was word of mouth, and you better believe they knew how to use it.

            The religious authorities wanted John to talk straight.  “Are you the one, the one we have been expecting?”  “No way [he said] but I can point you in the right direction.  When his own followers came to him with their questions he made the same reply, “not me, but I can introduce you.”  Andrew, who would later become a disciple of Jesus, found his way to Jesus through that means.  He spent some time with Jesus, and then shared his impressions with Simon Peter, his brother, with important consequences following.

            Word of mouth, all word of mouth, but, friends, that word of mouth didn’t have to work as a solo act.  You see, it was partnered up with conviction. Conviction was there to give word of mouth a little a whole lot of encouragement as it made its rounds.  Conviction fed word of mouth new lines when he ran out of things to say.  When word of mouth got annoyed or impatient with its task, conviction was there to brace it, and keep it on track.  When word of mouth was ignored, conviction braced it with a dose of persistence.  Word of mouth and conviction became an inseparable team.

            It is no exaggeration to say that word of mouth built the church, word of mouth, that is, braced by conviction.  Never under-estimate word of mouth, it can change lives.  John told someone about Jesus, and they told someone about Jesus, and on and on, until a whole lot of people knew about Jesus.  Word of mouth, but conviction stood right there in all those conversations, feeding word of mouth with all those great lines to say about Jesus.

            Trust me, all those churches with which we have been affiliated throughout our lives came into being through word of mouth. Way back in 1911 some people met in the Porteous home up on West End Boulevard in Lakeview.  It was just a handful of people that enjoyed studying the Bible together, enjoyed socializing together.  Before long word of mouth spread and other joined that group.  Before long that group petitioned the old Presbytery of New Orleans to become a Presbyterian Church.  Word of mouth became so prolific that soon that little church outgrew its first official worship space over on Brooks Street.  Soon some of the elders spotted a promising piece of land over on Canal Boulevard.  They consulted the presbytery, and the presbytery said, “Go for it.”  First worshiping in a multi-use meeting place, then after ten years, a beautiful new sanctuary.

            Word of mouth placed our Lakeview predecessors in a predicament, one only additional space could solve. In latter years more space became less and less a priority as the church sought ways to fill the more than ample space it already had.  Hardly recognized over those passing years was the waning of word of mouth.  The church by this time was established, and being established it got all caught up in what churches get caught up in, drawing up and meeting budgets, recruiting officers, planning the next year’s calendar of events. The institution itself came to command more and more of the institution’s time and attention than the institution’s mission.

            In time people noticed they were doing all those things with lesser numbers, and they became frustrated and demoralized. Ministers became frustrated and demoralized, and the talent pool from which the church drew its ministers became smaller and smaller, because potential candidates for ministry experienced that frustration and demoralization.  Churches became frustrated with their minister as ministers became frustrated with their congregations. Pastorates became shorter and shorter, the church aggressively searching for the next dynamic leader who would put everything right.

            Frustration is carried by word of mouth just as effectively as any other message church would communicate.  Frustration, however, is not the message we have been given.  Life, hope, salvation in Jesus Christ is the message we have been given.      

            Somewhere along the line the church strayed off message.  Oh, it still remembered the words it had been given, but it ceased to use them with the kind of conviction that excites interest and enthusiasm.

            The church has a message for this city, some word of mouth to address the frustration and demoralization that so many of our fellow residents feel.  Included in that message we have been given to share is that friends across the church are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ, are people who care about us sufficiently, are invested sufficiently in the work we are doing, to send us thousands of dollars in aid, care about us sufficiently to get on a plane come down here at their own expense, sleep on air mattresses, wait on line for a hot shower, using time they might otherwise have committed to a vacation or projects at home, to do some of the dirtiest, foul work you will ever find. 

            Many of us feel neither emboldened nor equipped to make Christ the topic of everyday conversation, we are certainly not going out to ring doorbells for Christ. But here is something we can do to communicate the good news he brought, we can go out and talk about how these friends from Palisades Presbytery have come here to work their behinds off on behalf of our church and the people of New Orleans. And if someone should ask you how it came to be that they are here, tell them they are here because of word of mouth.  

            Make no mistake, word of mouth, backed by a whole lot of conviction, built the church, and it sustains the church to this day.  The well-placed word can change a life.  It can build a church.  You may not leave this sanctuary today afire to tell people about Jesus, but please don’t miss any opportunity you might have to tell them about Jesus’ helpers. People are smart, they WILL make the connection.

PRAYER

            The mind, O Lord, employs many adjectives to describe the wonders you are---magnificent, spectacular, unsurpassed---but it is not the refinement of our vocabulary that impresses you, it is the ardor of our convictions by which we are judged. Lord, we are here to learn and mature in your word, that through our witness those who have not heard your name or have forgotten the sound of it, may achieve new self-understanding.  O God, who has given us teachers and mentors to show us the way, may we rise to the stature they have attained, that through our words and example others may discover the truth you have placed in our keeping.

            Lord, your Spirit gives life to this ministry, but sometimes that simple reality is lost on us. We take responsibility for the gains made and the losses suffered as if the future of our church was ours to determine.  We have worked hard to identify the mission of the church, help us to complete that task by a disciplined and intentional striving to fulfill our mission priorities.   

            O God, who reigns sovereign over all you created, you have given us stewardship responsibility for the world but instead we have treated the earth as our own personal property, despoiling your good creation through our neglect and arrogance. Lord, grant us humility and wisdom in using your wonderful gifts. Help us to forsake selfish illusions and do what is necessary to conserve the earth’s resources rather than squander them. Be with ecologists, biologists, and all those working in the natural sciences that they may discover new means to conserve our resource base.  We pray today especially for those members of the scientific and engineering communities who are studying ways to cooperate with nature in sustaining human habitation on the Gulf Coast.

            Lord Jesus Christ, another bloody week has passed in Iraq.  We mourn the tragic consequences of violence, even as we long for the day when men, women and children of that land can walk the streets in peace without fear. Even as we pray that the living nightmare in which that nation is entrapped will soon come to an end, we pray that those who plot terrorism will be isolated in the cesspool of hatred that breeds them.

            O God, abide with our friends in West Virginia who mourn the death of those lost in a tragic accident.  Strengthen the disconsolate in this hour, and all who are struggling to cope. 

            We pray for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he fights for his life.  A man who in recent years has been an aggressive advocate for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, we pray that his agenda may be continued even more aggressively by his successor.

            As we give thanks for the church this day we acknowledge once again the tie that binds us together in Christ, a tie wherein no one is stranger, but all are brothers and sisters in covenant communion.  On this day when we welcome our friends from Palisades Presbytery we savor once again the fruits of communion, the common bond that is ours to share as one great household.  Prosper our friends during their time in our midst, may they receive blessing in proportion to the blessings they have brought us. We pray for the presbytery, congregations and ministries they represent that their work in your vineyard may continue to produce a bountiful harvest. 

            Breathe, breathe your Spirit into your people, O God, that we may grow in righteous conviction to the stature you created us to attain.  These things we pray in the strong and eternal name of Jesus who taught us when praying to say…