Not Meeting Expectations

Not Meeting Expectations 

Old Testament: Psalm 146:5-10  

Gospel: Matthew 11:2-11  

So, what are you waiting for? The choir sang last week that they are Waiting for a King. The Jews are waiting for a Messiah. But when Jesus of Nazareth came, he did not meet their expectations. If the truth be told, John the Baptist was skeptical, because Jesus did not meet his expectations either. 

John’s life was notable for his self-discipline and self-denial. He wore rough clothes, he ate an extreme diet, he lived out on the fringes of town. Jesus seems a bit too - shall we say social, - eating with anyone and everyone. He does not seem to be a hermit, gathering a close circle of buddies to travel with. He does not come down hard enough on the sinners. John wonders, is it possible Jesus is NOT the one? 

Matthew’s gospel is very clear, Jesus does not start his public ministry until John is arrested. Herod, the son of Herod the Great, has John arrested because he was making a public spectacle of the Herod’s great sin of stealing his brother’s wife - Herodius. The prophet makes the King nervous by broadcasting his most obvious of sins. Some leaders have very thin skins. 

It has been suggested that perhaps John was expecting Jesus to free the prisoners - maybe he could start with releasing the prophet. I think it is more likely that the baptizer expected the Messiah to be more in his own style of self-denial and overt personal piety. In Matthew’s gospel, John is the first of many Matthew will fault for not ‘converting’ to Jesus. 

So Jesus of Nazareth is not the warrior-King the Jews were waiting for. Jesus is not the ultimate aesthetic that John was expecting. Are you ready to let God be God, and learn from Jesus what that means? 

When I was much younger, I had very clear and strong feelings about what was good public policy and what was not. Having a clear and unclouded vision made my passions easy to express. 

Not too many years later, I was on the operating staff of a nuclear power plant, and there was an emotional push back from the public as early press releases tried to equate the catastrophe of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with the mishap at Three Mile Island. TMI does not make a blip on the scale of the Chernobyl event. I discovered the world of nuance, and complexity. I learned that knowledge does not change values, but it does change the way evaluations are made and properly expressed. 

We are called to a mature faith. When we let the God of heaven and earth ‘be God’, then we see the limited expectations of the world. We learn to hold mystery, complexity, and even ambivalence, holding apparently opposite values as true at the same time, within our awareness. We learn to live with the creative tension of multiple truths. 

John the Baptist was a great prophet who spoke the truth. We know how his story ended. On Herod’s Birthday there was a great party. Herod’s step-daughter entertained with a dance. The likely inebriated King offered her a great reward. Her mother prompted her to ask for the head of the prophet, John the Baptist. The voice of one crying out in the wilderness was silenced as a gift to a dancing teen. The sublime and the ridiculous, are held together in one reality. 

We are mature enough to know that such injustice is not new, and lives on, even in otherwise civilized places. The arrest and murder of the innocent baptizer, is a model of the confrontation that awaits the savior. 

In our humility, we recognize that salvation comes from the forgiveness of sins, large and small. Jesus promises that the repentant thief will be in paradise with him. So our reward will not likely be measured by the success of this world, even any success we might claim in self-denial and purity.  

I heard the story recently of the boy who desperately wanted a bright and shiny new bicycle. He prayed very earnestly to God to give him what he wanted. In time though, the boy realized that God was not like that; not a Santa Claus, not a genie in a bottle. So, he stole the bike, and then prayed for forgiveness. 

The real God does not turn away from the suffering. The real God, is not aloof and demanding extreme self-denial and overt purity. The real God expects us to ascribe to the values proclaimed by the prophets of old, and demonstrated by Jesus. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, standup for the orphan and the widow, provide healthcare for the aged and infirm. These are the kinds of things that the prophets have always promoted. 

John sends followers to Jesus to ask, “So, are you the one, or not?” And Jesus answers, "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.” 

We have an advantage over John the Baptist and his followers. We know how the story of Jesus plays out over the next years of his public ministry. We understand what the politicians and religious authorities of his day are unable to understand. We have seen how kind words and good works can be misrepresented and used to justify capital punishment and other lawful atrocities.

A mature faith holds all of that, and at the same time, welcomes the appearance of the invisible God in the real world. A baby is coming, the perennial symbol of God committing to creation not only in this life, but providing a gateway to the life without end. We actually welcome the promise of Christ’s return to open that new world, that new life, that new kingdom. 

Are we mature enough to hold both realities in our hearts at one time? We see the kingdom of this world, and its fascination with power over others and self-promotion. And at the same time, we commit to living out the values long ago voiced by the prophets: feeding the hungry, caring for the refugees, protecting the widow and the orphan. 

The kingdom of God breaks through when the door opens a crack, as hearts full of God’s love do their thing. As Christians, we best know our God through Jesus of Nazareth, even when we see his name and heritage misunderstood and misappropriated. Not everything some claim to do in the name of Christ, is rooted in the values declared by the prophets of old. 

We know that God loves all of creation. We have brothers and sisters who best know God through other cultures and religious formulas. When we find them honoring similar ancient values, we know that God is working through them to bring the kingdom of God into this world. 

  The God of Jesus is the key to the knowledge that feeds our growing awareness and wisdom. Through Jesus the Christ the checklist of expectations is reversed; from evaluating the Christ, to the self-examination of ourselves as would-be followers. Do we accompany the lonely? Do we live with peace in the face of creative tension? Can we perceive the logical fallacies that cloud the facts and the truth? Are we able to persist, when all of the world seems infatuated with latest fad? 

As we reflect on the values of a mature faith, and note that in so many ways we ourselves are a work in progress and have not yet arrived, we do not lose hope. Instead, we claim our deficiencies, and pray for forgiveness. And even as we pray, we know to expect love and forgiveness means - we have to return that bicycle. Amen.