Sam Bush, “The One and Only”
If you have ever been to any kind of rock concert, you will have undoubtedly witnessed the customary exchange when the lead singer asks the crowd, “How’s everybody doing tonight?” to which the appropriate response is a collective “Woo!” Now, I realize that this gesture is simply a polite attempt to connect with the audience, but, between you and me, I find it irritating. What are you supposed to say if things aren’t actually going that well, “It’s actually been a tough few months?” I haven’t been to a concert in a long time and I think everyone is probably better off.
Don’t get me wrong, feeling like you’re a part of something greater than yourself is a wonderful feeling and the reason why many people come to church. But the most significant events in a person’s life are often extremely intimate, one on one encounters. The German writer, Jean Paul Richter, once said, "In life, only a few persons influence the formation of our character; the multitude pass us by like a distant army. One friend, one teacher, one beloved, one club, one dining table, one work table, are the means by which his nation and the spirit of his nation affect the individual." Last week, during Vacation Bible School, a girl was feeling anxious until she walked into Meade Hall and saw one friend. Suddenly, she felt right at home. A few days ago a parishioner said he once prayed, “God, just give me one good job. Please just give me one job that is right for me.” Lo and behold, this man has a good job and I can tell you he’s not going to leave it any time soon. Can you relate? That one coach that believed in you. That one song that always makes you cry. The one that got away. The multitude can come and go but our lives are often shaped by one thing or one person at a time.
This morning, the Apostle Paul recognizes this singular nature of life in our passage from Ephesians (which, fittingly, we recited together in our baptismal liturgy). “There is one body and one Spirit; there is one hope; one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” For Paul, there aren’t two of anything. One is enough.
This is completely countercultural to us who think the more the merrier. I was walking on a beach this summer and came across a beautiful sand dollar. It was completely intact, its pattern was incredibly intricate, I couldn’t believe my luck. And you know what my first response was? I wonder if there’s more. One was not enough for me. If we want to be successful in life, we are told we need to develop a massive following. The novelist Justin Bryan once bravely admitted, “If I only sold one copy of my next book, but that one reader had a deep, profound, and abiding experience with the book, fundamentally changing the way they see the world, that would be extremely disappointing.” In truth, we are repelled by oneness. It is the loneliest number.
Jesus, however, disagrees. He has a singular focus on the individual in front of him. Yes, the masses follow him, but he is most at home with an audience of one. He meets one-on-one with Nicodemus by night. He is one-on-one with the woman at the well. He does not demand the spotlight. Rather, his attention is on you. The spotlight is on you.
You may want to cover your bases and have a spiritually diverse portfolio, but Paul is saying you are wasting your time if you don’t put all your money down on Jesus Christ. There is one hope in God’s call to us and it’s Jesus. Put all your eggs in that one basket, Paul says. He says, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Spiritual fads will come and go. The latest best sellers and influencers and life hackers and parenting experts and business plans will come and go, but one thing will remain: the grace of God through Jesus Christ.
Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but Christianity is not a religion. It is not for the masses, it is for you. The Gospel is either for you or it’s for nobody. It meets your greatest place of need. For the sick person it’s a doctor. For the lonely it’s a friend. For the person on trial it’s an advocate. For the lost it’s a shepherd. Jesus forfeits the 99 to go save the one lost sheep. He does not care for the masses, he cares only for you. You see, Christianity is not a group of ideas or political views, or rules to abide by, or a group of saints to be a part of, it is one Lord, one God, Father of all. And on his shoulders there is one hope. And in one baptism we are marked as his own forever and you cannot take that away.
What does this mean for you? Well, when we’re able to acknowledge Jesus as our one foundation, it allows us to live all the more fully in the world. When Jesus reigns as your one true Lord, you can stop expecting everything else to fill that role. Your job can be a job and not your life’s calling; your spouse can be a person to love and not the person responsible for completing you; your life does not have to be a race but a gift. Because the one thing you think most defines you has been one-upped by the one true God. As Swiss theologian Karl Barth once wrote, “We can permit ourselves to be more romantic than the romanticists and more humanistic than the humanists. But we must be precise.” To be as precise as possible, well, “X” marks the spot, the “X,” of course,” being the Cross. That is the exact location of your redemption, your salvation, your identity and your life.
Patti Smith, who I have never seen in concert, but is one of the great songwriters of our time, once had a very intimate experience of grace that she would never forget. Back in 1956, when she was ten years old, living in rural New Jersey, Patti often accompanied her mother to the A&P to buy groceries. In the grocery story, she saw a promotional display for the World Book Encyclopedia - the volumes were beautiful, the covers, forest green, the spines stamped in gold, and Volume I was ninety-nine cents with a ten-dollar purchase. Her father wasn’t working and her mother was supporting them as a waitress so money was tight. When she asked if they could buy it, her mother said, “Not now, Patricia. Today is not a good day.”
A week later, her mother sent her to the store. She had been thinking about it nonstop. She went straight to the World Book display. There was only one volume left. She put it under her windbreaker and says, in hindsight, you could have easily seen it. On her way out, she gets caught by the store detective - “the biggest man I had ever seen,” she says - who tells her that he’ll let her go as long as she promises she’ll confess what she’s done to her mom. The minute Patti gets home she vomits on the floor, she’s so anxious. And then tells her mom the whole story. And this is what happens next according to her:
“My mother was a good mother, but she could be explosive, and I tensed, waiting for the barrage of verbal punishment, the sentencing that always seemed to outweigh the crime. But she said nothing. She told me that she would call the store and tell the detective I had confessed, and that I should sleep. When I awoke, sometime later, the house was silent. My mother had taken my siblings to the field to play. I sat up and noticed a brown-paper bag with my name on it. I opened it and inside was the World Book Encyclopedia, Volume I.”
This one little experience changed Patti Smith. It changed the way she saw herself and other people; it changed the way she understood justice and mercy. The great novelist Cormac McCarthy once wrote, “Mercy is in the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.” Shortly we will come to the altar rail. You will be given the bread and the wine and hear the words, “The body of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ, given for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you.” In case you’re wondering, you can respond however you’d like whether it’s “Woo!” or a quiet “Amen.” After all, it’s yours.
