James 5:7-10
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the
coming of the Holy One. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth,
being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also
must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of God is near.
Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.
See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience,
beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Holy One.
Matthew 11:2-11
When John heard in prison what the
Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the
one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “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. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at
me.”
As they went away, Jesus began to speak
to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?
A reed shaken by the wind? What then did
you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft
robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I
tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before
you.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater
than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than
he.
Will you pray with and for me? Holy One, you who bring
us joy, give us the wisdom and grace to recognise your presence in our lives,
and the courage to live as your people, not only at Christmas, but all year. In
all your names, amen.
John the Baptiser. Sometimes he reminds me of the
family’s eccentric cousin or grandparent or family friend. My extended family
had a relative like that—a distant cousin who came every year for Christmas
dinner, and brought a gift without fail, but sometimes they were—odd. A pillow
in a shade of orange never seen in Nature is the one that stands out in my
mind. And yet her heart was in the right place—she wanted to give the host a
gift. And of course her gift was accepted with a smile and thanks and
enthusiasm—that branch of the family was from Tidewater Virginia, where the art
of gracious responses to awkward situations were invented.
I have a sense that John the Baptist’s question had
somewhat the same effect on Jesus and his followers. Jesus has been performing
miracles all over the place, and here’s John with a pointed question. He seems
to be trying to get Jesus back on what he considers the “right track.” John’s
heart is in the right place—he is longing for the coming of Messiah, the
anointed one—because John thinks Messiah will set everything right, will bring
down destruction on the heads of Romans and free Israel, bring in a new realm
of justice and righteousness, everyone will repent, and the realm of God will
be at hand.
But John doesn’t see Jesus doing any of this—he’s not
planning a rebellion, or preaching against the Romans, or even calling for the
people to repent. Jesus is just healing and feeding people—that’s not what John
had in mind at all.
So he asks this question, which is almost
threatening—are you Messiah, or should I proclaim someone else Messiah? In
other words, you’re not what I expected, that’s not what Messiah should be
doing.
But Jesus’ response is interesting. He doesn’t say
“Yes, I am.” He invites John to look at the role of Messiah in another way—not
as the avenger, come down to judge the people, to call them to repentance. On
the contrary, Jesus acts to show God’s love for people—healing them, feeding
them, and caring for them. It’s not what John expected, and so John isn’t sure
he likes it.
Do we behave like John? Do we set expectations on God
and God’s promises? We want God to do something for us, but we want it in a
certain way and time, and when we get it, we complain because it wasn’t done
the way we wanted it to be done.
When I was preparing for my internship, I knew just
what I wanted and where I wanted to be—and I was. It was a wonderful placement,
with a church that had trained many future clergy, and the congregation was
very open to experimentation and new ideas, and best of all, my mentor was the
pastor. And then suddenly she was appointed elsewhere, to a church in crisis
where her skills were desperately needed. I complained to God that I had wanted
a good internship, and how would I have that now, with Kay pastoring elsewhere,
and a complete stranger coming in as pastor? And yet, Hattie, the newcomer, proved to be a gift—we were never close, as I
was to Kay, and often her example was a negative one, what not to do—but most
probably I would not have seen what “the
wrong way” looked like, or understood just why it was wrong if I had worked
with Kay as I wanted. Most importantly, I might not have learned how to speak
up for a better way. In my discomfort with some of Hattie’s actions, I was
forced to look at why I was uncomfortable and how and why I would do things
differently. I also have learned from speaking with others since that she
actually was supportive in ways I didn’t realise at the time—many interns did
not have the opportunities that I had to lead committees and work areas and to
implement projects stemming from my classes, such as the memorial garden I
created. I did not want to intern with Hattie, but it proved to be rewarding
and probably of more use in teaching me what I needed to learn.
What we expect from God and what God sends us are
often very different. We think we know what we need and want, and that’s what
we demand. When something else shows up, we’re disappointed and insist on a
recount, on a return, on refusing it because it’s not what we had imagined.
And yet…. Often what we thought we didn’t want turns
out to be wonderful. We think we are looking for certain things in a partner,
and then meet someone who doesn’t have any of those things but takes our breath
away. We have an ideal job in mind, and take something else, just to get us
through for a while—and discover we actually love that “temporary” job. We have
an ideal home in mind and insist to our real estate agent that we won’t look at
anything else—but he shows us something else and we instantly feel at home.
My friend Lynn was married to a US Army officer, and
he was sent to Germany. Lynn was
distraught, terribly upset at the idea of uprooting her then pre-teen and
teen-age daughters, leaving her family, going to a place where she didn’t speak
the language, and had no idea of what the schools would be like, much less how
to keep one of her daughters involved in the gymnastics she loved. I tried to
encourage her, telling her about all the travel opportunities, and reminding
her that Germany also had medalists in the Olympics, so they must have good
trainers and coaches. I shared with her the wonderful experiences I had had
there and how every much I enjoyed living in Germany. She was having none of
it, sure it would a miserable three years of exile and determined to return to
the States for visits as often as possible. They left, reluctantly, one
June. That Christmas, when we spoke
again, she had turned completely around. She loved their apartment, the
neighbours were great, she was picking up enough German to shop at the local
bakery and farmer’s market and butcher, the gymnastics centre in town was
better than the one they had left, and they were already planning a trip to
Paris for the summer and to Greece for the next winter. Lynn had found that their years there would
be a blessing. When the time came for them to return to Virginia, she was as
reluctant to leave Germany as she had been to go!
I think this experience speaks to two things. One is a
willingness to have an open mind, to try new things even though we don’t think
they are what we want or are looking for. John had an image, a picture, of how Messiah
should be, and when Jesus didn’t fit that image, he was disappointed and felt
that maybe he had been wrong. The other is that even when we don’t receive what
we asked for, it is what we need. I would never have learned some of the
lessons I needed to know if Kay had been my supervisor. Lynn’s family would not
have grown as close as they did in Germany, travelling together and sharing new
experiences. And if Jesus had come as the Messiah John wanted him to be, he
would have shared John’s fate rather quickly. Instead of an overthrow of an
earthly political system, Jesus brought news of a radically different way of
living, a new way of interacting with other people and with ourselves, living
to help and serve and heal and comfort and feed people around us, to make the
world a better place not through violence or imposing our will on others, but
through our example and our actions to others.
Jesus made a difference because he showed us how to
care for others—not how to dominate them. He reached out to people, all people,
not only the educated or the wealthy or even just the people who had a stable
place to stand in society. Jesus spent time, a lot of time, with people who
were the undesirables of his day—the tax-collectors, the sex workers, the
ill—because sickness was seen as a curse from God—the people on margins of
society, not the ones in the centre with the power. He spoke to women, to
children, to people with physical challenges, and even to people who might be
expected to hate him, like the Romans—and he healed and comforted and cared.
Quite a difference from the avenging Messiah that John
envisioned—remember the winnowing fork and the fire from last week’s reading?
Jesus is having none of it—“That’s not who I am,” he is telling John.
Jesus is not what John expected—and yet Jesus is the
one to teach us how to bring about God’s rule—because God’s rule is about a
realm where no one is hungry or cast out or scorned or considered “less-than.”
And that is the joy of this Advent Sunday—Jesus, our
Teacher, has come to remind us of who we are and whose we are, and what it
means to bring about God’s realm—not violent overthrow, not shaming and
scolding and threats of eternal punishment—but love, healing, comfort and care.
Jesus was not what John expected—but Jesus was what we
needed.
In all God’s names, amen.
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