Sermon for October 27th, 2019

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Matthew 10:26-31 (NT, page 10)

26 “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.[a] 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

John Knox, the Thundering Scot

One of my favorite fictional Scotsmen is Groundskeeper Willie from the animated TV Show, The Simpsons. His character embodies a lot of the stereotypes we have about people from Scotland:

Groundskeeper Willie on Scots

One of my favorite actual, real, historical Scotsmen was this guy:

Gordonbowie.jpeg

The Rev. Gordon Scott Bowie was the pastor of University Presbyterian Church here in El Paso for 25 years. He was my mentor and friend, and seven years ago in this very room, as I knelt on these steps, he placed his hands upon my head said the prayer of ordination when I became a Presbyterian minister.

Rev. Bowie fit the Scottish stereotype in many ways -- he is legendary among Presbyterian pastors in this part of the country for standing up in the middle of a Presbytery meeting (all the pastors and church leaders in West Texas) and loudly telling the Presbytery Executive (the closest thing we have to a Bishop) that he could "go piss up a rope!" He was not a man to mince words.

In fact, when I think of John Knox, the 16th century Scottish reformer who almost single-handedly gave birth to the Presbyterian church, I imagine him to be a lot like Gordon Bowie.

When John Knox died, his eulogist famously said of him, "Here lies one who neither feared nor flattered any flesh." Anyone who has studied his life to any extent knows this to be true.

John Knox is one of two Reformers who is often pictured with a sword in hand (the other is Ulrich Zwingli--I will likely preach on his life next year).

Knox4.jpeg Knox3.jpeg Knox2.jpeg Knox1.jpeg

The reason for the sword is that Knox actually began his career not as a preacher, but as a bodyguard for a preacher, George Wishart (the man in the picture who isn't holding a sword). Wishart was an early voice in Scotland preaching against the wealth and power of the Catholic church, and demanding that it reform. Knox, who was at the time an ordained Catholic priest, went to hear Wishart preach in his hometown. He was moved by Wishart's words, renounced Catholicism, and offered to be Wishart's bodyguard. By all accounts, he was someone you didn't want to mess with.

Ultimately, however, he failed as a bodyguard. Wishart was arrested and tried for heresy, then burned at the stake, becoming an early martyr for the Protestant cause. This had a profound impact on John Knox, who put down his sword and picked up his Bible, preaching wherever he could, and wielding words as a far more effective weapon for the rest of his life.

It wasn't too long before he, too, was arrested, and forced into slavery on a galley ship, where he was chained to a bench and forced to row for hours on end each day. Two stories from this time in his life are worth repeating:

As a galley slave Knox contracted an illness and was near to the point of death, when a fellow slave lifted him up from the bench just high enough to see the coastline of his native Scotland. When Knox saw the spires of the cathedral at St. Andrews, he said to his friend, "I am fully persuaded, how weak that ever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify his godly name in that same place."