One Person at a Time: Dec 14

 Year A, Advent 3                                        Matthew 11: 2-11                                                                    

           As I mentioned last Sunday, when I was bemoaning the lack of John the Baptist decorations, John the Baptist pops up in two of the four Advent readings.  Last week he was baptizing people in the River Jordan calling out the religious elite.   This week he is imprisoned. John wasn’t in jail for criticizing the religious leaders, he was in jail because he had told Herod that he should not have married his brother’s wife as it was contrary to Jewish law.  Herod was the ruler of Galilee and one other region.  While he is sometimes referred to as King Herod, he wasn’t a king, but he did have a great deal of power.  He had enough power to jail an innocent man and then execute him. 

          Jails and correctional facilities are not pleasant places to be in any time or place, but they were particularly horrific during the time that Jesus lived.  People were not typically in jail awaiting trial.  They were usually awaiting execution.  John the Baptist was a great prophet and a holy man, but it would appear from the question that he asked in the Gospel today that he was having some doubts.  This Jesus was not the man he expected.  Because if he was the Messiah, why would he allow his cousin (and a prophet) to rot in jail?

          Now, a lot has been said about what the Jews expected in a Messiah.  Many will tell you that they were waiting for a military leader, which is true to some extent.  But the reality is that the Jewish people didn’t have one defined view of what the Messiah would look like.  However in our lectionary today, and last week we have two pretty good examples of what some people were expecting.  Last week John depicted a Messiah who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire and would judge the people.  This week it says that John the Baptist sent people to confront  Jesus after hearing about what Jesus had been doing.  What had he been doing? If you read the previous 8 chapters, you will read about Jesus preaching, teaching, healing and feeding. He hadn’t confronted any religious or political leaders.  He had not built an army. There was no sweeping change as a result of what he had done.  In fact, to John (who was in prison) it probably looked like he hadn’t done much of anything.  John had done all this work preparing people for what Jesus was going to do and now he was wondering…is this really who they were waiting for?  I think John was expecting a significant sea change and there was no evidence of that…not yet.

          We see another example of what people were expecting in the Song of Mary.  These are Mary’s words, that she expresses to her cousin Elizabeth (who was pregnant with John the Baptist at the time) after learning that she would give birth to the Son of God.  She said, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel…” Mary was anticipating this baby she would birth would be someone who would turn the world upside own.  The hungry would be full and the rich would have nothing.  The mighty would be cast down from their thrones. 

          Clearly, that was not what was happening.  The Romans were still in power and corrupt leaders like Herod were in charge and imprisoning the prophets who dared to speak truth to power.  Can we really blame John for being a little disappointed…for wondering if this guy who seemed like a good and holy person was actually the Son of God?

          I can’t tell you how often I have heard in the last year: “What it happening? What is the world coming to? Why isn’t God doing anything about this?”  I feel that too.  I felt that profoundly when I saw video footage of police officers kneeling on the neck of George Floyd. I felt that after seeing children in cages in the United States, separated from their families. I feel that when I see the utter desolation in Gaza.  I feel that whenever I see any hungry child, or any hungry person.  I even feel that on a smaller scale when I am going through a personal ordeal that I can’t see my way out of.  I wonder, why didn’t Jesus fix this when he came 2000 years ago?  Why did he die and then come back from the dead…just so this kind of stuff could continue to happen? I wonder that more than I would care to admit.

          But then I look at Jesus’ response to John the Baptist.  He didn’t get defensive.  Have you ever noticed that? Jesus never got defensive.  He was so confident that he was doing God’s will.  He said to the people who were asking the question for John, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”  He didn’t tell them to be patient.  He didn’t say, “Look, I am laying some ground work here, but in a 2000 years billions of people all around the world will be worshipping me and even talking about you during Advent---but you aren’t ever going to get decorations.” 

No, instead, he told him about the individual lives he was changing.  He was helping people see, touching people no one was willing to get close to, bringing people back from the dead, and giving good news to the poor.  He never claimed to be bringing about systematic change or solving the world’s problems.  But he was meeting people where they were and showing love and compassion to people who had not known love and compassion.  He was transforming the world….one person at a time. 

It’s ok to be frustrated with the way our world is right now.  In fact, I think you should be.  It’s even ok to wonder where God is in all this and to be a little impatient. What we can’t be is hopeless. Let’s follow Jesus’ lead once again. Do one thing. Help one person.  If you feel overwhelmed, don’t let that paralyze you.  Not one of us has the power of Jesus. But we each have gifts.  We might not be able to change the world, but we can make change and gradually….ever so gradually, we will change the world.  

A time for action: July 14, 2024

 Year B, Pentecost 8                                                                       Mark 6:14-29                                                 During Advent, we hear the story of John’s the Baptist’s miraculous conception and birth…usually a few weeks before the story of Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth.  The miracle of John’s conception is that his parents were older and had long since given up on the idea of having a child. The circumstances were different for Jesus’ conception, but the parallels are hard to miss.  The Gospel of Mark doesn’t include the story of either John or Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth. Mark just left those out.  For Mark, the way to know Jesus, and maybe John as well, was through his death and sacrifice.  While Mark is the shortest Gospel, the story of John’s death is fairly extensive. It’s also unusual because it’s one of only three scenes in the entire Gospel of Mark, where Jesus isn’t present.  So why---why would Mark feel the need to include this rather gory story? Does it teach a lesson? Does it help us understand Jesus better? I don’t think so.

          One of the mistakes we can easily make when reading the Bible is assuming that the stories are morality tales---that every story can help us differentiate between right and wrong, just and unjust.  Yet in this story, the good guy gets killed and there are no consequences for the gruesome killing.  There is a reason that it doesn’t appear in many children’s bibles—at least not the ones I have seen.  There is also a reason we hear a lot of sermons about John’s birth and very few about his death.  It’s an odd and disturbing story. However, for Mark, the death and the sacrifice of Jesus and John are incredibly important to our faith and it’s helpful to look at the parallels between the two.

John was killed by Herod Antipas. There were a number of Herods in that time and it would be easy to confuse Herod Antipas with the Herod who ruled when Jesus was born.  That was Herod the Great. The Herod in our reading today is his son.  He had less power than his father because he was only in charge of a quarter of his father’s kingdom.  Despite the fact that Mark called him King Herod, that was not his title. He was not a king.  He wanted to be a king and even petitioned the Roman Emperor for that title, but he never got it. 

We can see from our reading that he wasn’t a strong leader.  He clearly had some respect for John and even liked listening to him, despite the fact that John openly condemned him for his marriage to his current wife who he stole from his step brother.  The basis of John’s critique was that marrying your brother’s wife would have been against Jewish law.  Even to non-Jews, this marriage was considered immoral because Herod divorced his wife so he could marry his brother’s wife. 

Yet despite the fact that Herod liked John and considered him a holy man, he was easily trapped by not only his wife’s manipulations, but his own need to please and his fear of looking bad in front of his guests.  The text says, “The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for his guests, he did not want to refuse her.” That means that he didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of his friends and the important people of the community.  He lacked fortitude. An historian named Josephus who wrote in the first century, wrote about John the Baptist’s death.  According to Josephus, Herod was worried that John was too powerful and was a threat to his own power.  Herod was an insecure man and a weak leader.

Jesus’ death was a little more complicated…perhaps just because we have a lot more information.  There were numerous groups of people conspiring to kill him.  Yet in the end, the person who made the decision was another Roman appointee---Pilate.  Pilate is depicted as man who was also swayed by the crowds. The Gospels portray him as not wanting to crucify Jesus, but being convinced by the Jewish authorities and the crowd.  Some Gospels seem to indicate that he was trapped and controlled by the Jewish leadership. The reality is that Pilate could have done whatever he wanted. He didn’t have to listen to the Jewish leadership. He simply didn’t have the backbone to stand up to the mob. He too was insecure and anxious about the threat to his authority.

          The bad news is that there is no shortage of examples of weak, insecure and immoral leaders today.  It would be tempting to read this story of the death of John and say, “Well political leadership has always been corrupt, what can we mere mortals do about it?” It’s true John was killed. Nobody could have stopped that from happening.  But let’s not forget the last line in our reading for today.  “When (John’s) disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.” 

Imagine the kind of courage that must have required.  John was killed because he challenged the authority of a powerful and volatile leader.  His disciples must have known that in claiming his body, they were claiming their devotion to him. It was a risky move.  While we hear little of John’s followers in the rest of the Gospel, we know from other sources that they didn’t go away.  Their commitment didn’t wane and that must have been extremely dangerous.  This was an act of defiance and faith.  Where Herod showed weakness and fear.  John’s disciples showed courage and love.  In the face of corruption they refused to be corrupted.

          Mark doesn’t tell us Jesus’ reaction to the news of John’s death.  Right after this story Jesus takes his disciples to a deserted place.  Some think they went to this deserted place to rest, but my guess is they were also grieving.  And they might have been seeking a safe place.  Jesus knew his death was inevitable, but he also knew he had more to do and this was not the time for him to die. He understood that the death of the prophet who described himself as Jesus’ forerunner meant that his situation just got more perilous.  Yet it was hard for Jesus to get away from the crowds. They found him and instead of dismissing them as the disciples suggested, he fed 5000.  That was Jesus response to the violence and instability around him.  He served his people. 

          We don’t always have control over what is happening around us.  Even the most powerful in our world don’t---we saw that in the shooting yesterday. Yet we do have control over how we respond to injustice and violence.  There are times when we are meant to speak out like John the Baptist, even when the truth is dangerous.  There are times when we need to show solidarity with those who have been brutalized, murdered and unfairly treated like John’s disciples did when they claimed his butchered body. There are times when we need to show people boundless compassion like Jesus showed to the crowds that followed him. 

This story of John’s beheading is gruesome and horrible. There is no neat and tidy message in this story.  Much like there in no neat and tidy message in our political climate today. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something here.  No matter what horrible things are happening, we are never powerless.  There are always ways to react and they are not the same ways for the same people.   What we cannot do it NOT act.  We must respond with hard truth, with love, and with compassion.

We Need More Dreamers: December 4, 2022

Year A, Advent 2                                       Isaiah 11:1-10                                                                                                  

          I am horrible with plants. I love them and I am always trying to grow them, but it just never seems to work out for me.  Therefore, bringing a dead plant back to life seems almost unfathomable.  However, after reading this text from Isaiah about 10 times, I started to wonder if a dead stump could actually sprout. The text says, “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  According to my extensive research on two different gardening websites, it’s possible. Apparently, you can grow a brand new tree out of an old stump. 

            Who is this Jesse and why does he have a stump? Jesse was the father of King David.  This stump represented the dynastic line of David.  Clearly things weren’t going particularly well for the House of David when Isaiah prophesized.  A stump doesn’t exactly project strength and vitality.  Israel had been ransacked by multiple enemies by the time the Book of Isaiah was written. The people were exiled, the kingdoms fell. They had a few good and righteous kings after King David, but the line was almost unidentifiable 500 years after King David reigned.  Since our country is less than 300 years old and created without a king, it’s hard to imagine a 500 year dynasty.  Seem like a pretty good run to me.           

            But this dynasty was about more than just leadership.  To some extent, it was about salvation.  It was about God’s commitment to Israel.  The people of Israel were supposed to be God’s chosen people and David was the chosen king.  When all they had was a stump, there was despair.   Yet what today’s text tells us is that this stump still held life within it.  Perhaps that is not the best description.  The stump wasn’t alive as much as it was receptive to the spirit that washed over it. The spirit gave that stump life. It changed everything.

            The first part of our reading is about the transition from despair to hope.  It speaks of a new leader who will be righteous and just.  This leader will receive God’s wisdom, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. “Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.”  Of course one of the reasons that we read this in Advent is that Christians believe this is all pointing to Jesus.  And one cannot deny that Jesus was righteous and faithful.  I am not sure that he was the leader people were really hoping for as he ended up betrayed by many of his followers and crucified.  He was not the leader people imagined, but he was the leader people needed.

            The 2^nd half of the reading paints a picture of utopia.  It’s actually a kind of ridiculous image.   I can imagine a cow and a bear hanging out, but a child playing with a poisonous snake seems a little crazy.  Of all the creatures to play with, why a snake?  As you can tell, I am not a fan of snakes.  Of course if you think too much about the image, it loses its appeal.  The point is that this new world has no natural enemies.  Forget about the enemies we create.  There are no enemies at all. The whole natural order is thrown out in this new world. 

            Now part of me wants to say, this image is too unrealistic.  Look at the state of our world right now.  We’ve had 4 mass killings in the last month—and that’s just our country.  This idea of a world with no conflict is beyond our hopes and dreams.  Yet perhaps we have been trained to dream too little.  In our need for realism and attainable goals, we have lost sight of a God who wants us to see something we can barely imagine.  Unfortunately we lose that ability to dream as we age.  We forget what it is to imagine.  This place where there are no conflicts and only harmony is God’s dream for our world.  It’s God’s dream for us.  God wants our dreams to go beyond what we can see.  Isaiah’s vision isn’t a goal to be achieved.  It’s a dream by which we set our course.[1]  One of my favorite prayers is sometimes also used as a blessing. It reads, “Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little…”  I wonder in our desire for attainable goals and benchmarks, we have lost the ability to see what God so desperately wants us to see.

            Our Gospel reading was brought alive by that powerful depiction of John the Baptist.  John the Baptist is a typical prophet in many ways.  He was delivering hard truths to people who did not want to hear it.  John appears in all the gospels, but it’s only in this gospel when he specifically calls out the Pharisees and Sadducees, the people who were far too comfortable in their lives and confident because of their religious pedigree. 

            I think what was really frustrating John the Baptist wasn’t that the Pharisees were wrong or even immoral.  It was that they had become too complacent.  They were ok with the system as it was because it was benefiting them.  I think it’s fair to say that most of have become a little too comfortable in our lives. There are times, like in the pandemic when changes come that we can’t control and we are forced to change how we live.  That definitely shook a lot of us out of our complacency. But most of the time, we just move through our days quite contentedly.  This isn’t to say that things are smooth sailing or we never have bad things happen to us.  But all in all, we don’t want someone coming in here and telling us that everything has to change, that we have to change. 

            Like Isaiah, John was also trying to paint a picture of a new kind of leader.  He wasn’t presenting some utopian future.  In fact, the way he describes Jesus sounds a little scary. But he knew this leader would be led by the Spirit and would change people--- change the world.  John clearly still had the ability to dream and imagine.  He knew that whatever was going at that time wasn’t right. Too many people were suffering.  So he dreamed of another world.  I think it’s why he dragged people into the wilderness.  He wanted them to get away from their everyday lives, force them to see things from a different perspective. 

            As we age, it’s hard to keep dreaming, but there are moments when the blinders slide a little and we dream again.  Often it’s when we are with babies and children.  Children allow us to hope like we once did. They make us see new possibilities.  They also challenge us to make changes.  I never cared as much about the environment as I did after I became a mother.  Because the more I imagined his future, the more I realized that he was going to be on this earth a lot longer than me and the things I do now can have a major effect on him in 50 years. Children can remind us that there is a future worth fighting for, a future that can and should be better than what we have now.

So it is fitting that we have a baptism today.  Because baptism reminds us not only of the wonder and innocence of babies and children, but also about the renewal that is available to us all. That is why we do the baptismal covenant.  We want to remember who we can be as children of God.

            I want to give you all some homework. I want you to take some time to daydream, to remember what you hoped for as a child and also try to consider what you truly hope for now.  What is God’s dream for you?  Don’t be realistic. Don’t be reasonable.  Don’t try to create a smart goal.  Be like Isaiah.  Be like John.  Just open yourself to God’s dream and then take one step, any step, in the direction of that dream.  If an old stump can grow a new tree…if Jesus Christ can rise from the dead, then surely we can remember how to dream again. 

 

---

[1]  https://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/advent-2-a-reclaiming-repentance/

Walking in Shadow: December 9, 2018

Year C, Advent 2                                                                 

Luke 1:68-79                                                                           

            My husband and I did not have any advance notice when we learned that a baby would be placed with us.  We received the call the day of our son’s birth and were told we had to pick him up the next day.  It was a 12 hour drive.  Fortunately we had a lot to discuss in that 12 hour drive.  One of the topics was what we would name him. We had not talked about names.  It was just too hard to discuss tangible things like names and registries when we had no idea when we would have a child.  During those 12 hours we narrowed it down to a few names.  However, as soon as we saw him, we knew none of those names would work. He didn’t look like an Isaac or a Jacob.  We had Joshua for 3 days before we settled on a name.  By then we were already sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed with the suddenness of it all. Once we settled on the name Joshua and announced it to our family, I looked at my husband, who is also an Episcopal priest, and asked, “What’s the biblical meaning for Joshua.” He said, “God saves.  It’s the anglicized version of Jesus.”  I replied, “We just named our child Jesus?  Because having two priests as parents isn’t bad enough, now we put the entire salvation of the world on him?” While this concerned me a little, I was too tired to come up with another name and we had already told the whole family.  Jesus it was.

            Naming a baby is a big deal. It always has been. Our psalm today isn’t actually from the Book of Psalms. But it is still considered in the psalm genre. It is Zechariah’s response to the birth and naming of his son.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had wanted children for a very long time. However, Elizabeth was considered barren as she was past the age when woman normally had children. In today’s digital age, we have all kinds of creative birth announcements--but I challenge any of you to find a more unique birth announcement than the one Zechariah received. 

He was in the temple offering incense to God.  Most Jewish priests only had this opportunity once in their lifetime.  It was an extraordinary honor. According to Jewish belief at the time, he was about as physically close to God as any human could be.  He was there at the altar in a cloud of incense when an angel appeared to him and said, “Do not be frightened, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.  Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son whom you shall name John.”

            Now since we are in church and this is the Bible, we don’t think too much of this kind of birth announcement. But consider it for a moment.  Imagine if you experienced that today, or heard about it today. Would you believe it?  Probably not, even if it was on the internet, we would assume it was some kind of hoax.  Angels don’t deliver messages to regular people.  Therefore, we really can’t blame Zechariah for reacting with disbelief.  He asked the angel how could this be as both he and his wife were old.  Well apparently this did not please the angel and Zechariah was struck mute. (My husband has a theory that striking Zechariah mute was actually an act of mercy because who knows what would have happened to him if he went and told his dear wife that she was too old to have a baby.)

Whether his muteness was a punishment or a gift, I cannot help but think about how hard that must have been….to be mute for 9 months, after such an extraordinary thing happened.  He probably didn’t try to communicate the event since he didn’t believe the angel’s words initially. However once Elizabeth told him the astounding news that she was indeed pregnant…imagine how he must have felt. Did he try to write the story all down, or did he still doubt and wonder? 

            I like to think that he held it inside himself and turned it over in his mind and heart while he marveled as his supposedly barren wife’s belly grew.  He must have communicated with her eventually as she knew that her son’s name was to be John.  In our reading for today, a group of family and friends was gathered 8 days after the birth for the circumcision. This was also where they traditionally named the male child. Elizabeth shared that his name would be John, but the friends and family wanted confirmation from the father.  Since he could not speak, he wrote the name out.  “His name is John.” It was then and only then when Zechariah was able to speak again.  You would think the first words out of his mouth would have been something like, “The craziest thing happened to me…”  But no, the text tells us that the first thing he did was praise God and share the prophesy that we heard today as our psalm. 

The prophesy started with praise of God and ended with words about who his son would be.  “You my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” That seems like a lot of pressure on a kid.  I might have named my child after Jesus, but at least I didn’t declare him a prophet.  However, then Zechariah switched gears a little. He said “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, To shine in those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and guide our feet in the way of peace.”

Zechariah’s son did not end up having a very easy life.  His job was to prepare people for Jesus. He did that by talking about sin and judgment, but also offering opportunity for forgiveness.  In the end, he was killed because he insisted on speaking truth to people in power.  He did all of that because he truly believed that Jesus was that dawn that would break through the darkness.  Sometimes when we read these stories in church, we find ourselves relegating them to the past.  John was the prophet who paved the way for Jesus.  But then he died.  Even Jesus, who died and was resurrected, seems to stay relegated to the past.  We cannot leave these stories in the pages of our Bible.  We still need a dawn to break upon us.  While we have experienced the light of Christ, we still find ourselves dwelling in darkness and the shadow of death.  We have accepted darkness and death as our cultural norm.  In Advent we are reminded that while we may feel as though we are surrounded by darkness, we are merely walking in shadow.  If there is shadow, then that means there has to be light somewhere. The light is always there if we look long enough and never give up hope. 

The angel told Zechariah to name his son John.  John means, “gift of God.”  We might not all be named John, but we are all gifts of God and children of God. We are all here on this earth to remind people that Jesus isn’t dead.  We are here to remind people that even the longest night will come to an end.  Morning always comes.  My husband and I waited for a baby for 7 years and there were times when I felt suffocated by the hopelessness of it all.  Morning doesn’t always come as dramatically as a newborn, but it always comes.  Sometimes it comes with rain and clouds, but behind it all, we know the sun is there.

December 15, 2013: Matthew 11:1-11

Year A, Advent 3

I like to think of this Sunday in Advent as portraying the kinder/gentler side of John.  Last week we had a rather intimidating John who was shouting at the Pharisees and Sadducees who had come to see him. He called them a brood of vipers.  Sometimes insults get lost in translation and things that might seem insulting to us, were not so much in the time of Jesus.  That is not the case in this situation.  Calling the leaders of a religious movement a brood of vipers is always a pretty significant insult.  Then he went on to talk about baptism and the way that Jesus would baptize people.  “I baptize you with water for repentance…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear the threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

            If I was one of the people being baptized by John, I would have thought, “Thank goodness I am being baptized by John and not this other guy he is referring to.”   Fire, while a lovely image, sounds like a rather painful way to be baptized.  The winnowing fork does not sound very comforting either.  I have seen picture of those things.  Picture a really huge fork.  A winnowing fork is what was used to separate the wheat from the chaff. The farmer would lift the harvested grain with his winnowing fork. Then the wind would blow the chaff away and the wheat would fall to the ground. People who were listening to John the Baptist were no doubt familiar with this image. It seems to me that even if you manage to escape the unquenchable fire, you are still being thrown around by a long and pointy fork.  Neither option is very appealing to me. 

            Soon after John’s pronouncement, Jesus appeared on the scene and chose to be baptized by John.  It is clear that John immediately recognized Jesus for who he was, the Messiah.  We know this because he said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  And if that was not enough, the heavens splitting open and the voice of God should have convinced him that the man that he was baptizing was no mere man, he was the Messiah, the savior.  

What happened between that moment and the story we have from the Gospel today?  All of a sudden, the once convicted and doubtless John is now having second thoughts.  Some hypothesize that it was the emotional and physical torment of being in jail that made him question.  Yet being in jail should not have come as a shock to John.  He had criticized Herod, the ruler at that time.  He knew there would be ramifications.  He was prepared to suffer.  The man ate locusts and lived in the wilderness.  It’s not like he was accustomed to the Ritz.

The text indicates that there might be something deeper at play here.   Matthew wrote, “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’” When John heard what the Messiah was doing…It would appear that John was not satisfied with the way Jesus was spending his time.  It’s not that he was carousing, turning water into wine every night.  He wasn’t doing anything immoral.   He was healing, preaching, teaching, and ministering to the poor and the needy.  Yet for some reason, this was not enough for John.

 You might note that Jesus did not even answer John’s question.  He did not tell John what his title was or whether he was the Messiah who they had been waiting for.  He told John’s disciples what he had been doing: giving sight to the blind, enabling the lame to walk, cleansing the lepers, restoring hearing to those who were deaf, raising the dead and bringing good news to the poor.  These probably sound like pretty Messiah-like actions to most of us.  But this is not what John wanted to hear.  We can be pretty confident in that because John already knew about Jesus’ public ministry.  That was the reason he sent out his disciples in the first place. 

Voltaire once wrote that, “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”  We have a tendency to want to visualize Jesus and God as the kind of God we want, perhaps even a God a little like us.  For instance, when God talks to me, he usually has a slightly sarcastic sense of humor. He is also an Episcopalian, obviously. While it is important that we try to connect with God (and sometimes we do so by identifying with him), it is also extremely important that we do not limit God by our expectations of God. 

Do you remember how John first described Jesus?  He was supposed to baptize people with fire, separate the wheat from the chaff….essentially making judgments on those who were lacking.   By the time John landed in prison, he had probably spent some time observing the ministry of Jesus and Jesus had not behaved as John wanted and expected.  Jesus had not rained fire on anyone.  He had not condemned the corrupt leaders or tried to overthrow the Romans.  He was not spending his time with the powerful people.  He was healing the people who could not help themselves, and probably could not do much to help Jesus. He had spent his time with those who everyone else had forgotten.  He had brought them good news.   Some people think that John was having doubts about Jesus.   Perhaps.   More likely, he was having doubts about his own conviction of who this Messiah was supposed to look like, act like, be like.  I wonder if John was reassured when he got Jesus’ answer.  I wonder if he remembered the Jesus who knelt before him and insisted that John baptize him.

I suspect that Matthew did not write about John’s reaction because that was not the important part of the story.  The important part was Jesus response to John and Jesus response to all of us who try to pigeon hole him or define him by our own standards and expectations.  It is we who should be defined by Jesus, not vice versa.   Yet in this day and age, we are so accustomed to having things our way.  You have the iphone, the ipad, me-tv, my-space.    Everything is custom tailore to what we want.  Why listen to the whole album when you can create a playlist on itunes of just the music you like? 

People often refer to their God…who their God loves or does not love.   There is the liberal God…the conservative God, the people’s God.   But here’s the thing, there is only one God and that God has his own plan and his own identity and unlike every other aspect of our world, God will not be defined by what our culture needs or wants at the time.  While that might feel a little rigid to some of us, it’s also incredibly liberating to know that there is something steady out there, someone who is timeless and does not depend on us. There is a line in the communion hymn today, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met with thee tonight…” Jesus is our great hope, but also a fear because we cannot define him and sometimes we cannot understand him.   That’s ok.  God is big enough to handle our insecurities, our fears and our disappointments. Jesus was not the God who John expected, maybe not even the God John wanted, but he was the God who John needed, the God who we all need.