Scripture: Isaiah 11:1-10 and Matthew 11:2-11
Are you the one who is to come? Or should we look for another?
Though these words were placed on the lips of a disillusioned and fatalistic John the Baptist some two thousand years ago, I think it is still a very good question. Are you the one we have been waiting for? Or should we keep looking? There is, in fact, more than a little evidence to suggest that the Jesus we were sent once upon a time has proven to be somewhat unsatisfactory to the church who bears his name…even, if we were honest, something of an awkward encumbrance. Those of us like John, who wanted, who expected, Jesus to come and set things right in and among the kingdoms of this world have been sorely disappointed. There is no peace on earth. The churches of Jesus use his name to justify intolerance, oppression, wars of aggression, even genocide.
The ones who wanted Jesus to reign, his religion to conquer triumphant have watched while other faiths, younger and more aggressive, have grown faster, more brilliantly, while the market share of Christianity seems to shrink year by year. Others, who trot out the baby in the manger year after year as an icon of hope, sentimentality, and commercial possibility find themselves confounded when, now and again, the real Jesus shakes off the straw and strides out of the stable to preach his message of wild, extravagant welcome and pointed, inescapable challenge.
The United Church of Christ found this out the hard way when they, like many other denominations and countless retailing outlets, tried to buy time from the major networks to communicate their image of Jesus of Nazareth and his church. The ad built on the United Church of Christ’s new identity campaign: God is Still Speaking, and said, fairly simply: Jesus welcomes all. The ad featured Christians, including minorities of color and culture, and a homosexual couple, at church together. CBS, UPN and NBC rejected the ad as “too controversial.” Said CBS’s explanation: because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by individuals and organizations, and the fact that the Executive Branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable to broadcast on the networks. To paraphrase the disciples of John, if you are the one who is to come, we pass. Let’s wait for another. Let Jesus out of that manger and nothing but trouble follows.
As Jesus said to those who stood by while John’s disciples stuttered through their sad question, what did you come out to see? Silk pajamas? Slick messages? Who did you come to see? And what in heaven are you waiting for?
John thought he was waiting for kingdom come. For the One to change the politics, change the power, get God back into the picture, make things right for the people, the poor, the ones outside. He gave his youth, his passion, and his time to making that dream a reality. And John was one of the fortunate few to realize his entire life’s work when Jesus walked into the picture. John was one of the wise, so he stood aside when the future came, and he said, in essence: Jesus, do it! Bring in the kingdom! Out with the old and on with the new! And then he waited for Jesus to do what he wanted him to do, what he knew God was supposed to do, and nothing happened. Jesus’ way, and the work of God in the world, turned out nothing like John expected or hoped for …and at the end of it all, there he was: waiting for death, and wondering, had he lived his life, and given his passion, for nothing? In despair, he sends to the Teacher and asks:
Are you the one who was to come, or should we keep on waiting?
Did God come among us in Jesus of Nazareth? Did it make any difference? Is God among us at all? The people who pray for peace on earth are binding up the wounds and burying the dead that others, less ambivalent about the politics of piety, have piled up in the name of God’s freedoms. The churches of the Prince of Peace are struggling to make ends meet, working quietly in the corners, lighting our small candles against a rising darkness and wondering if anything we do can ever be enough to make a difference. It’s hard to change even one life for the better. Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else?
We have come seeking peace in our hearts—what the author Nora Gallagher described as “comfort,” and find that allegiance to Jesus’ teaching leaves us less comforted than irritated, edgy, and confused. An old Irish hymn says: the peace of God, it is no peace.[1]
Some of us are teetering on the edge of terminal disappointment, every day. Our relationships have not turned out like we expected. We were educated for jobs that no longer exist in a world that is nothing like the world we grew up in. Our work is not as satisfying as we dreamed it would be, the things that we have do not make us happy. Would that, like John, we had someone to send to with the question that keeps us awake at night: Is that all there is? Is this what we have been waiting and working for, or should we look for something else?
It would be nice to be able to look at the conclusion of this story and know that John died a confident and satisfied man, that Jesus’ oblique answer was proof enough for him:. Look at what you see and hear. 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. But we don’t know. Because God, unfortunately for us, isn’t in the proof business.
Even worse: according to this “answer” of Jesus, God expects the proof to be our business—what we are looking for; what we see; what we hear; what we do.
You figure it out. Things are happening, but do YOU see them? It isn’t about what I think. It isn’t about what I know. It isn’t about me at all, in a way. It’s about you. What do you think? What do you want? What do you see? What do you believe?
And Jesus said: Blessed are those who take no offense at me. The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor paraphrases this statement of Jesus in this way: “Blessed is he who does not get tripped up on me. Don’t get tripped up on me….and do look for another.”
Oh, don’t look for another Messiah—because if the one you have isn’t doing the trick, chances are the next one down the line will be a disappointment, too. Do look for another, however, in whom to see the work of God passed on, the light of Christ reflected, the hope of a dawning kingdom born. As the United Church of Christ puts it: God is still speaking. Never put a period where God has placed a comma. So go: Look for another, and look at yourself, and don’t be asking Jesus who he is…ask yourself what you hear and see—and light your little candles and go out into the world, and change it, one person at a time, starting with yourself.
Little lights make a difference, courage and conviction and possibility flickering in the night. The networks’ refusal to show the UCC ad started a furor that raised far more awareness of their message of Jesus’ welcome and inclusion than the little ad ever could have done. Ariel Sharon, after years of hard-line entrenchment, has invited his old enemies, the peace committed Labor party, into the coalition government of Israel, to accomplish what he cannot do alone, withdraw settlers from the territories. Eugene Florence, 100 years old, was awarded a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, 53 years after he had earned it, together with this apology from the seminary’s president, who admitted that the race policy which prevented black students from receiving master’s degrees was unbiblical and unchristian and “ungodly in every way”: there’s no way the seminary could go back and atone for all of its mistakes, but we could do at least one thing to say… we’re sorry for where we got it wrong. The first woman from Africa to receive a Nobel Prize, Wangari Maathai, stood up before the old royalty and the people of power, affluence and influence and told them, told us all: we are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds, and in the process heal our own, indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.
Are you the one who is to come, or should we keep looking? Go, tell what you see and what you hear: and don’t get tripped up on what you thought you were waiting for.
I overheard some children talking the other day about their Christmas lists—what they wanted and expected to get for Christmas. One of the children was quiet, and a listening adult asked curiously, what do you want for Christmas? Here is the answer. When you get older, the child said, you don’t want things for Christmas anymore. You don’t want to make a list, because it’s better to be surprised. If I ask for what I want, then that’s all I’ll get. If I’m ready to receive anything, then I’ll be surprised and happy and that will be what I really need. So I don’t make lists for Christmas anymore.
Is that all there is to it? This year, may we be younger, and wiser, for Christmas.
[1] This image is borrowed from Nora Gallagher, A Year Lived in Faith, p. 11.