Commemoration of Phillips Brooks January 23, 2006
Ephesians 3:14-21
O.C. Edwards tells the story of a guest preacher who climbed into the pulpit and found himself confronted, on the back wall of the church, with an excerpt from John's Gospel: "Sir, we would see Jesus." The enormity of the preaching task suddenly became clear. "We wish to see Jesus."
By all accounts, Phillips Brooks, whom we commemorate today, rose to that challenge as few others have. When he died on this day in 1893, a mother explained to her five-year-old daughter that her preacher friend had gone to heaven. The child responded, "Oh, Mama, how happy the angels will be." The biographer who relates this tale comments, "Yes, but happier yet would the man be, for he would now see Christ."
For Phillips Brooks, it was not enough for a preacher to know about Christ. A preacher must know Christ, must comprehend "the breadth and length and height and depth," must "know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge," as we hear in today's passage from Ephesians.
Brooks was not noted for his oratorical skill per se. One historian reports that many found the quality of his voice to be unremarkable. His epitaph described him as a preacher who was "impetuous in utterance," perhaps an oblique reference to the rapid monotone that characterized most of his preaching. Clearly, Brooks never studied preaching with John Dally and Clare Nolan.
Despite his apparently mediocre delivery style, the content of Brooks' sermons drew many a listener into new depths of knowledge of Christ. A Scottish Presbyterian preacher who heard him reported, "I was electrified. So much thought and so much life combined; such a reach of mind, and such a depth and insight of soul."
"Sir, we wish to see Jesus."
Phillips Brooks had seen Jesus. Though perhaps only in a mirror, dimly, it was enough. For decades he captivated congregations with his vision and insight.
Those of us who preach are charged with the daunting task of enabling our congregations to see Jesus. But it is not just in preaching that Christians invite others to see Jesus. The entire Christian life could be described as bearing witness to Christ, making Christ known by our word and example. We Christians who know the love of Christ are called and empowered by our baptism to enable people to see Jesus in this broken world, beset by war and natural disaster; poverty and hunger and homelessness; AIDS and other diseases; environmental degradation; and a host of other ills.
In recent days, I've spent a good bit of time pondering the current state of the Anglican Communion. Yesterday I led a parish forum on this topic, and my preparation required me to review all that has happened in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion since the election and consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. The topic has consumed a lot of time at official Anglican meetings, a lot of ink in church and secular press, and even more megabytes on the Internet and electronic list-serves. As I organized my thoughts so that I could give a clear account of events in these past months and years, I wondered how our behavior with one another shows the world that we have seen Jesus, that we know the love of Christ that surpasses human knowledge.
See how these Christians love one another! Or do we?
The issues before us in the Anglican Communion are important. The Anglican Communion may look very different in six months, after the next General Convention. But the issues before us are not just our own future as the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The issues before us include the needs of the whole world, a world that yearns for the hope, justice and love embodied in Jesus. The world around us cries out for the good news we have seen in Jesus. How will we enable the world to see Jesus?