“What Are We Waiting For?”
Luke 7:18-35
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
6/19/16
By his words
and actions, Jesus has been making a difference, and an impression.
John the Baptist’s disciples have
been keeping an eye on Jesus for John, because John is in prison.
John has had a
rough time in ministry. He has boldly spoken truth to power. Most recently, he
saw through Herod’s and Herodias’ transparent scheme to divorce their spouses
and marry each other. Herodias was married to Phillip, Herod’s brother, and
when they arranged for the ending of two marriages in order to pave the way for
a third, John called them out. Herod returned the favor by imprisoning the busybody
prophet.
John idles in
prison. Luke provides no details, but according to Matthew, Herod spares John
because he fears the crowds who love John. According to Mark, Herod is
“perplexed” by John. The king recognizes him as a holy and righteous man, and
while he enjoys listening to John, Herod doesn’t know what to do with him.
For her part, Herodias does not
appreciate John meddling in her private life. Holding a grudge, she manipulates
a situation that allows her to teach the prophet a lesson he will never
remember. Beheadings tend to do that.
While their
teacher wastes away in prison, John’s followers bring him reports of all that
Jesus is doing and saying. So John sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus,
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
The more I think
about this, the odder it seems. John’s disciples have seen and heard things
about Jesus, apparently much of it firsthand. And they go and tell John what
they have seen and heard. When they deliver John’s message, Jesus tells them,
“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard…”
Is it just me,
or does this sound like the beginning of some loop of absurd humor. Imagining
myself as one of John’s disciples to whom Jesus has just said, “Go and tell
John what you have seen and heard,” I think I would say to Jesus, “Look, that’s
why we’re here. We told John what
we’ve seen and heard. He just wants you to confirm or deny what appears to be
possible, or even probable. Are you the one, or do we keep waiting?”
Jesus shakes
his head and says, What are you waiting for?
It can become
numbingly comfortable to languish between all that is available for us to see
and hear of Christ’s active presence in the world, and taking the leap of faith
which empowers us to say, with Mary Magdalene, “I have seen the Lord,” and then
to live differently.
Even John the
Baptist struggles with this leap. We cannot know how exactly how long John has
been “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” But hasn’t it been long
enough for him to recognize the arrival of the one whom he prophesied?
One way to
read this story is to read it as Jesus very gently nudging John toward fullness
of faith. What do you see, John? What do
you hear? What do you make of it all?
Still, who can blame John for
grasping after certainty? He has remained true to his calling, and for his
troubles, he gets thrown in jail. And what was it Jesus said just a little
while ago when teaching in Nazareth? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because
he has [among other things]…sent me to proclaim release to the captives.” If
Jesus is all he claims to be, shouldn’t he release John, of all people, and
make of him a shimmering example of messianic authority?
Jesus speaks
well of John, in a sort of thoughts and
prayers are with you kind of way, but he does nothing to liberate his cousin
and partner in ministry.
Or does he?
“Go and tell
John what you have seen and heard…” Jesus follows this command with a litany of
wonders. I hear him inviting John, and all of us, to anticipate great things,
and to do so with eyes wide open to the painful realities of life in this world.
No one, not even Jesus, has immunity from those realities. The invitation,
then, becomes an unnerving challenge, a challenge to embrace a freedom that cannot be measured in security
and power but in a freely-chosen will to live gratefully and justly with and
for all of creation.
Jesus challenges
us to recognize a healing that cannot
be measured by lack of sick days, but by an abundance of forgiveness and
compassion for all whom God loves.
Jesus
challenges us to stand on a confidence
that cannot be measured in arguments won and decisions enforced, but in deliberate
openness to wonder and hope.
Jesus
challenges us to live fully human lives, lives not only mindful of joy and pain
but engaged with the whole spectrum of human experience. The longer we wait to
accept that challenge the less human we become, and the more we distort the
image of God within us. I think this is the point of Jesus’ memorable parable
of a disengaged and anesthetized humanity sitting in the marketplace,
imprisoned by their distractions and fears. “We played the flute for you, and
you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.”
Life is happening, says Jesus, in all its splendor, tragedy, and monotony.
And you’re missing it! What are you waiting for?
Last Sunday
morning, Jesus wailed as a hundred of his beloved were either killed or wounded
in Orlando, FL. Millions more wept. The tragedy of that day broke many hearts,
some beyond repair in this life. Like most other tragedies, this one fills many
of us with a grief so deep that we will have to figure out how to incorporate
it into our daily lives forever. It will not simply go away.
The tragedy
also hardened many hearts. Many of us scream the dry heaves of rage at one or
another “them,” some group we do not understand and cannot abide. Whether that
“them” is the LGBT community, or Muslims, or gun-control advocates, or gun-control
opponents, or anything else matters less than the fact that all we feel is violated
and endangered. And so we smolder and calculate.
I think that
for us as Jesus Followers, the way forward demands that we accept Jesus’
challenge to watch and listen for him moment by moment, day by day. He is
challenging us to see him and hear him at work in the world, even in those who
frighten, disgust, and bore us.
Suffering and
celebration always go hand-in-hand. Both can be life-giving. They cultivate
humility, gratitude, community, and wisdom.
Happy denial
and ill-willed vengeance, now these things render us dangerous at first, and then,
ultimately, irrelevant. The ancient book of Chinese wisdom called I Ching states that “Evil is not
destructive to the good alone but inevitably destroys itself as well. For evil,
which lives solely by negation, cannot continue to exist on its own strength
alone.”1
Brothers and
sisters, hear the Good News: The
Christ lives. And as we follow him in trust and wonder, his life animates us to
live our own lives according to his Love. And Love leads us toward a future of
God’s own creation.
Yes, it is a
choice. What are we waiting for?
1http://deoxy.org/iching/23
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