What Do You See?

Scriptures:         Isaiah 35:1-10    James 5:7-10,   Matthew 11:2-11

What Do You See?

 

I think we’ve all been there at some point.  Something new has started in our lives – a new job, a new friendship, a new hobby or volunteer activity.  At first, we’re pumped up, wanting to dig in and experience as much as possible.  But then, over times, the job tasks or work conditions or friendship or volunteer commitment move in a direction we hadn’t anticipated – perhaps demanding more than we’d anticipated, or not providing the satisfaction we’d experienced at first.  Eventually we hit a moment of crisis when we say, hey, this isn’t fun anymore.  This isn’t what I signed up for.

 

Our Gospel reading tells of a moment at which John the Baptist is experiencing disappointment and wavering faith.  Last Sunday, we saw him standing confidently by the Jordan River, baptizing, calling the crowds to repentance, even calling the religious leaders a brood of vipers.  Although John had ample opportunity to call attention to himself, he insisted that he was only paving the way for one who was greater than he.  This one greater than John is identified as Jesus.

 

But today’s reading takes place some time later, and at this point John is discouraged.  His discouragement is understandable – his boldness in preaching repentance to Herod landed him in prison, soon to be executed.  Meanwhile, Jesus didn’t look or act a whole lot like John’s mental image of the Messiah.  Remember that John expected the Messiah to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, to gather the grain into his granary and separate the wheat from the chaff – with the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire.  John envisioned something like our action movies, where the bad guys are arrested or killed, and the good guys live happily ever after. 

 

But this isn’t what John is seeing.  Surely, Jesus is empowered with the Spirit.  But instead of separating wheat from chaff – blessing the good guys and punishing the bad guys - Jesus is hanging out with sinners, with those considered the bad guys, to the point where the crowds are calling him a drunk and a glutton, a party animal – two words that nobody would ever use to describe John the Baptist.  Jesus is feeding and healing people without regard to whether they’re deserving or not – for Jesus, such questions just don’t come up.  Where John expected the kingdom of God to arrive with fire and force; Jesus offers a kingdom that comes about quietly, like seed growing in a garden.   And Jesus even preached that, in God’s garden, good and bad seed will grow along side one another until the end of all things.  And, of course, all this is happening while John’s in prison.  And so John is starting to have doubts, thinking, “this isn’t what I signed up for”, starting to wonder if his life’s work of paving the way for Jesus had been a mistake.  So he sends messengers to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one, or should we look for another?”  Underlying the question is a demand of sorts:  “Hey Jesus, if you are the Messiah, isn’t it about time you started acting like one!”  And underlying that demand is the assumption that Jesus should act like the kind of Messiah that John had been expecting.

 

Jesus replies to John’s messengers with words to intended to expand John’s range of vision.  “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”  And then Jesus lists the miracles he has done: “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.”  As it happens, Jesus’ words to John’s messengers sound a lot like words from this morning’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 35: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be open and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” Finally, Jesus adds, “And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

 

When John’s messengers return to their master, Jesus then goes on to expand the crowd’s vision of the role of John.  He keeps asking the question, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?....What then did you go out to see?.....What then did you go out to see?”  Were you looking for a reed shaken by the wind?  For one in soft robes?  No, you were looking for a prophet – and John was all that and more.  Jesus affirms John’s role as the messenger sent to prepare the way for the Messiah.  But then Jesus also gives us these words: “Among those born of woman there is no one greater than John , but even the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”  Like Moses who saw the promised land but could not enter, John saw what Jesus was doing but couldn’t enter into it, was mentally and spiritually unable to make the jump from what he knew to what Jesus was proclaiming.  While Jesus was baptized by John, John never became a disciple of Jesus.  John was a transitional figure, a bridge from the law and the prophets to the kingdom of heaven – but while he enabled others to cross into the kingdom as Jesus proclaimed it, he never quite got there himself.  All of which is not to say that John wasn’t saved – he was, on the same basis that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Elijah and all the great Old Testament saints were saved.  But John was never quite able to enter into the new thing that Jesus was doing – that new thing of God, of which we are all a part.

 

In times of discouragement, or in times when we have questions about the path we’re on, when something in our lives has us saying, “This isn’t what I signed up for” - Jesus’ response to John’s question, “Are you the one?” can give us hope.  In those times when God seems very far away, we can ask ourselves the same question Jesus asked John’s messengers:  What do we see and hear?  When we see those blinded by their own self-centeredness becoming open to God and neighbor, when we see those deaf to the cry of the poor miraculously responding with compassion; when we see enemies becoming friends, when the poor hear good news – we are seeing God’s work in our midst.  When we see God’s work in our midst, we know we’re where God wants us to be.  God has planted seeds in our midst that God has asked us to tend on God’s behalf.   And if what God is doing – if what’s growing from the seeds God planted - doesn’t look exactly like what we’d envisioned – well, perhaps God is trying to improve our vision. 

 

We all encounter those times in a relationship or at a job or some other life circumstance – maybe even at church - when we’re feeling overwhelmed, when we feel that “this isn’t fun anymore”, that “this isn’t what I signed up for”.  I’ve had these moments also, so I’m preaching to myself as well as to you.   And there are times, if we’re in an abusive personal or employment relationship, when these feelings may be a sign that it’s time for a change.  But, if the situation isn’t completely beyond hope, such feelings may be a sign that it’s time to pray and ask for guidance, whether the problem is with the situation itself or with our vision, our understanding of the situation.  Because sometimes what appears to be a breakdown in a relationship with a person, an employer, even a faith community, may be an opportunity for a breakthrough to a deeper relationship, a deeper level of commitment in which, while the relationship or situation isn’t quite what we’d envisioned, not quite what we signed up for, God may be sending us blessings in disguise, may be giving us a chance to expand our vision of what God is doing in our lives and in our midst.

 

John sent messengers to ask of Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  And Jesus responded by telling the messengers, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”  May God grant us ears to hear and eyes to see what God is doing in our midst, and voices to reassure one another of God’s love, and to share God’s love with our neighbors here in Bridesburg, and across the city, and around the globe.  Amen.