It is an expression that I hear often at the college, “speak truth”. It is a phrase regularly used in the African American church. Not so much in the white church and I really don’t have to wonder why. In every church I have ever been a member of, there is a limit to how much the members are willing to hear before they internally rebel. No one really seems to want to hear “truth”.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the church leaders of the day (Pharisees and Sadducees) very quickly got a dose of not wanting to hear truth. Most don’t realize that they came to John to be baptized. I have read it for years and not noticed. They were not mocking John, they were hedging their bets, wanting to get baptized, “just in case”. They were not seeking truth, they were seeking, as we said back in my Baptist days, fire insurance.
Then, John spoke truth: “You brood of vipers” he said. He knew they wanted just another certification, another guarantee of being the good and spiritual people they believed themselves to be. And he spoke truth. And they were not happy at all. John confronted their ego, their self-centeredness, and their hollow view of spirituality. Speaking truth, both then and now, has cost more than minister their “head”. In churches that are independent, the minister has to be very leery of speaking truth. Making the wrong deacon or elder angry gets the minister fired.
This is why, in reformed churches, the minister is not a member of the church and is appointed by the governing body, synod, presbytery, district. The bishop or district superintendent makes the choices. Sure, a church can request a change with good reason, but the minister can speak truth with much less fear for their professional livelihoods.
How does that relate to us? Question that I asked myself was this: how many times have I sought “baptism” for the wrong reason? How many times have I gone to God, truly wanting to receive God’s presence (baptism of love) but wanting things my own way? Wanting that presences for how it might make my soul feel, not for how it would further the Kingdom.
There is nothing wrong with loving God and wanting to be loved back, but it is not truth. We do not get God all to ourselves and we do not just get what we want from God. We will always get what we need and on a few occaisions, it will line up with what we want. Let us all set out to seek and speak truth……let’s start with ourselves. Then, we can seek to be baptized in God’s love for the right reasons.
TMM