(#2) John 16 Sermon: Pearls Before Breakfast

(This is my SECOND sermon on the Work of the Spirit in John. Read John 16:5-15 before reading.)

Allow me to quote [With some edits] from last month’s Washington Post.

“He emerged from the METRO at the L'Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: A youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap.

"From a small case, he removed a violin.

"Placing the open case at his feet, He shrewdly threw in a few dollars as seed money and began to play. It was 7:51a.m. on Friday, January 12 - the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Each passerby had a quick choice to make, One familiar to commuters in any urban area:

"Do I stop and listen?

"No one knew it", said the article. "But the fiddler standing there was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written, on one of the most valuable violins ever made.

"All an experiment exploring this: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

The Article was named: “Pearls before Breakfast”

Who was he, and how did people respond?

His name is Joshua Bell , a non-descript person if you met him (A Jew interestingly), one of the finest violinists, playing a Stradivarius violin worth $3.5 million. And yet Only 7 people stopped to listen, 27 gave money, most nickels and dimes, and on the hop… For a total of $32 and change!

The obvious question is: How is that someone who in a future context (like at Carnegie Hall) will be adored, and yet at this point is ignored?

More to come...