Third Sunday of Advent: What are you Waiting For?

Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:46:4-9
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11

Today’s gospel moves us along a good way from last week’s and John the Baptist’s original proclamation. We find the baptizer, some eight chapters further into the narrative, a prisoner of King Herod. Last week, at the height of his exposure and ministry, we heard about him within the context of the words of the prophet Isaiah. Indeed, the writer of Matthew casts him as the fulfillment the great prophet’s words: “This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” ’ ” (Matthew 3:3) And John speaks with a distinctive certainty about the coming and nature of the Messiah: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me….He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11). 

Today, as we listen, we find him less certain, still waiting, and wondering perhaps what to expect now, what to look for; and so, from prison, he sends his own disciples to Jesus asking “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” He seems still to be thinking within the framework of a coming Messiah; and, perhaps influenced by some writings in Isaiah, he awaits still that one individual who will come from above and in one instant right all wrongs and injustices. In responding, Jesus also references the prophet Isaiah: “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.” (Matthew 11:4-5) What he offers as an answer is different from what John expected, no doubt, and challenges John’s expectations, because the Messiah – if Jesus is the Messiah – appears to be doing things piece-meal, while the powers-that-be have not shifted; John’s continued imprisonment is proof enough of that. 

We have been looking at “waiting” this Advent, and in thinking about waiting we have also been considering, and hopefully challenging, some of our received expectations as to the coming and realization of God’s will and ways, God’s reign. If last week we reflected on our received expectations of what Messiah means for us Christians, asking “Who are you waiting for?”, this week we are looking at our ideas of the Messiah’s work itself, of our expectations for God’s renewal of all things; this week we are asking “What are you waiting for.” Certainly, we can sympathize with John the Baptist. Even from where we stand, the work of the Messiah seems incomplete; and maybe what we come to realize is that what we witness in Jesus is the inauguration of God’s coming kingdom, but hardly its fulfillment. What Jesus makes are signs that the longed-for kingdom is present and on the move, while inviting us to think of the completion of all things in God as an ongoing process, the steps of which we must attend closely to perceive, like the tiny seed growing, hidden in the earth (cf. Mark 4:26); but also, as I hinted last week, that, in union with Christ, we are each called to make those signs ourselves. 

In response to John the Baptist’s disciples, Jesus offers as his credentials no classical apocalyptic vision or revolutionary plan, instead he cites the signs being made “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.” (Matthew 11:4-5) Commonly, we think of these as miracles. However, Jesus’ healings in the gospels are never refered as miracles in the Greek. We take our word, miracle, from the Latin word mirare to wonder, describing the reaction of the onlookers. Rather, consistently in the synoptic gospels, the word used to name the “miracles”, as we call them, is semeion, sign. And the Gospel writers go to some pains to convey that these are not magic and that Jesus is not a magician; rather his acts are signs – signs of the kingdom, signs that God is abroad in the world and putting things to right according to his will for creation. But God was never one to impose his will on us or on creation, instead his Christ inaugurates and invites, he makes signs and teaches others to do the same. It is precisely for this reason that shortly before the encounter we heard this morning, Matthew relates the story of how Jesus “summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Matthew 10:1) and then sent them to proclaim the kingdom by making signs that it was already alive and present among us. 

For all who look towards the reign of God, for all wondering about the right time, trying to calculate and guesstimate its coming, Jesus has the same answer. The kingdom is already here, and in the gospels he says as much: “The kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:21b). The call is to become aware of it and celebrate it wherever, and in however small ways, it is being revelaed; wherever God’s justice, freedom and love are being made manifest; to make its presence a greater and greater reality by our own signs of love, compassion, justice and reconciliation. In this sense, as he sent those original followers, he sends every one of us to be miracle-workers, sign-makers. 

What are you waiting for? Well, there are two ways to see this question. In one sense, it a question that asks us to consider what we believe the kingdom of God to be – what is our vision of it, and how that vision is conditioned by pre-conceived notions and expectations. It asks whether we are looking at God’s coming kingdom only through our own eyes or those of God himself. Still, even when we accept that God’s kingdom and its coming may not be exactly what we expected, even when we accept that it may come not in one fell swope, but rather slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, even when we own the truth that we are called by our baptism to be its agents; the question, in its other sense, still stands and demands a response: “What are you waiting for?” What are waiting for to move into the kingdom reality right here, right now? What are you waiting for to take on seriously the call of Jesus, to be making all the time and everywhere signs that God is already among us and putting things to right? What are you waiting for to see, discover, encourage, and if absent create, all sorts of little miracles, little signs that the God of compassion, justice, love is in the world? 

Jesus’ response to John’s disciples seems not an answer at all, but a challenge to them and to all who are listening, the same challenge he makes to all who seek to join themselves to him and who look for the fulfillment of God’s kingdom. It is the challenge to re-think, re-envisiosn what we are waiting for, and to enter completely and fully into the process of making God’s vision for the world a reality – a place where the sick are tended and healed, where the poor are cared for with dignity, outcasts are included, and abundant life is the narrative we all tell and in which we all live. What are you waiting for? The kingdom of God has come near (Matthew 3:1), it is among us (Luke 17:21b), and it waits for you, for each of us called by the name of Christ, to make signs, work the miracles of its reality. What are you waiting for?

Second Sunday of Advent: Who Are You Waiting For?

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

At the turn of the first millennium, the Roman province of Judea was a hotbed of political instability.  The crisis of Roman occupation gave rise to any number of would-be prophets, liberators and messiahs.  References to these are made within the biblical texts themselves.  For example, in  the Acts of  the Apostles is related how a certain “Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared”; and how “after him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered.” (Acts 5:36-37)  It is most likely this latter insurrection that is referred to in the Gospel of Luke when mention is made of the “Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”  (Luke 13:1)  The earliest Christians were very aware of the context in which they lived, and all the synoptic gospels – Mark, Matthew and Luke – bear a similar warning spoken by Jesus himself: “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’  Do not go after them.” (Luke 21:8) 

Perhaps the reason that so many such pseudo-messiahs arose and why many followed them was that this dynamic of expecting some sort of redeemer figure was so prevalent a motif in Jewish religious and political tradition, particularly when the Jewish people found themselves in crisis, at the mercy of foreign rulers or governments.  Writing in the kingdom of Judah, Isaiah’s words this morning are prompted by that kingdom’s own enforced vassaldom to the Assyrians, and the prophet looks forward to the “shoot that will come out from the stock of Jesse”, (Isaiah 11:1) and who will usher justice and peace.  Equally in the Gospel, John the Baptist looks forward to one who “will baptize…with the Holy Spirit and fire.  [Whose] winnowing fork is in his hand, and [who] will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff…will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11-12)  And if we are honest, we all sort of want that – someone who will step in and right our wrongs, clean things up; indeed, any number of a political careers have been built on pseudo-messianic promises; while at the same time many have been led astray, disappointed and even destroyed by misplacing their trust in such promises.

During Advent, we Christians set time aside not just to prepare for Christmas, but perhaps also to re-think, reflect intentionally on what we want to say, what we mean to say, when we talk in the language of messiah, savior, redeemer.  In keeping with our theme of waiting this Advent, we want to ask the question, “Who are we waiting for?”  “Who exactly are we waiting for?”  It can be tempting to think of the Messiah as the one who, as I mentioned, arrives to fix all the messes and right all the injustices, who will make the “wicked” pay, and in an instant avenge the righteous (and by righteous, we usually mean ourselves), a messiah who will exonerate and justify our cause, our way of doing things.  Yet, what we see time and time again is that that sort of tactic never really works.  Indeed, it does not reconcile or bring lasting peace, but rather intensifies divisions and creates often long-standing resentments.  It always disappoints, because what we desire is to change our circumstances without having to change ourselves; and in Jesus – the one whom we call Messiah – in Jesus what we see is one who calls for our transformation first: “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:27, 31)  He reminds us that God our Father “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous”, (Matthew 5:45) and encourages us to “be merciful, just as [our] Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)  The Messiah we discover in Jesus in not one who comes from above to set all things right in one fell swoop, but one who demonstrates the over-reaching power of love and service; a Messiah who thinks it better to suffer injustice, than to create it. 

But, he is a Messiah also who is willing and able to place his own spirit in us, and includes us so that we can join in the holy work of bringing real justice and real peace, of effecting lasting reconciliation.  Before his death Jesus promised to send his own spirit upon his followers, and it is the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost which gave to the small, frightened band of disciples the power to go out into the world and begin the work of reconciling all things to God in justice and peace.  The Christian Messiah is one who does not coerce or subjugate, but instead woos us into relationship with him, with each other, and with the world; a messiah that treats not as children, pawns or servants, but as friends: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15)  The Christian Messiah does not impose his will, but includes us into his will, and invites us to invite others: “Welcome one another therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:4)

This sort of Messiah is the only Messiah that can really redeem, because it is the only sort of Messiah who creates no victims, makes no one a subject.  His work may move more slowly, appear even as counter-intuitive, but it is the only work which widens the circle that can really make possible the renewal of all things.  Any other sort of redeemer even if “successful” by conventional standards is “successful” only for a time;  and most – as the followers of Theudas and of Judas the Galilean discovered – are not successful at all, their vision and aims being too short-sighted.

As we find our ourselves in a time of expectation, let us consider what we are looking forward to, who we are waiting for.  If we are too attached to conventional models of redemption, we may miss the Savior as he passes, we may miss the softeness of his approach, We may not hear his invitation, for it is gentle; we may not perceive his ways, for they are subtle.  Still, should we respond, then we will be joined to him and his will shall become our will, and he will transform us more surely than any fire or revolution.      

Who are you waiting for?  If you are passively waiting for someone who will come in and change things all at once, vindicate your ways, and establish a new reign from above, chances are you will be disappointed, if not altogether duped.  Rather, if you wish to be transformed according to the ways of reconciliation, the ways of real peace and real justice, if you are willing to become part of God’s reign rather than just its beneficiary, then indeed the “kingdom of heaven has come.” (Matthew 3:2)  The Messiah in whom we believe, in whom we trust, has placed in you his own spirit, and his mission is your mission.  In this sense he has already come and now perhaps he waits for you to give yourself over and be formed fully into his likeness, into what St Paul calls “the measure of the full stature of Christ”. (Ephesians 4:13b)

First Sunday of Advent: Are You Waiting?

Isaiah 2:1-5

Psalm 122

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

The earliest Christians believed Jesus’ return would be soon; and so we find, just twenty years or so after his resurrection, Paul writing to the Romans: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.”  (Romans 13:11)  He communicates a sense of urgency, using the image of “waking up” to get across the idea that “business as usual” will no longer do.  The gospel writers convey a similar sense: “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42)  Living in the context of Jesus’ imminent return, early Christians writers and teachers exhorted their fellows to be prepared, while at the same time to continue to wait.  So, what we can discern among the earliest Christians is a life lived within the context of paradox: the tension between being always prepared, alert, but still always waiting.  Certainly as the years passed and Jesus’ return revealed itself to be less than immediate, that tension relaxed.  As a Church, we lost that edge sharpened in the space between preparation and expectation, and we got on with business as usual.  In many ways, we stopped waiting, and in so doing have skipped out on something rather central to the Christian way and vision, because when we stop waiting – in the Christian sense – we also stop hoping.  I mentioned in the most recent issue of the Householder how in Spanish the words for “waiting” and “hope” are etymologically related, and how the Latin word for “wait” translates literally into “look out for”, as in looking out into the distance for something or someone to arrive.  Christian waiting does not signify “business as usual”, but instead a commitment to both waiting and preparing, and doing both in sure confidence, sure hope, of a promise to be fulfilled. 

The prophet Isaiah living in the midst of a divided Judah and Israel encourages his listeners to look beyond the present crisis and wait in hope for a new kingdom to be revealed when “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; [and when] all the nations shall stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2)  Still, it was a political crisis, the disruption of “business as usual”, that enabled the discerning of such a vision, the discerning that there was a future for God’s people that went beyond even the glory of a united kingdom, a future that went even beyond the limits of the Jews, a future that included “all the nations” streaming into the city of the Lord.  It was the disruption of business as usual that allowed for the expectation – the conscious and hopeful waiting – of the full revelation of God’s will for creation. 

Jesus too presents a future vision when he as Son of Man will return, and he counsels his followers not only to wait faithfully, but also cautions them about the dangers of “business as usual” that keeps them – and us – from active and hopeful waiting, that keeps us from “looking out for”, expecting, God’s fuller purposes and designs: “For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37-39).  He uses imagery of people caught up in the normal events of daily life –working in the field, grinding meal – and warns his followers how that simply carrying on with things day in and day out with no larger vision, without expectation of a greater reality to be revealed is not enough;  even more, it is foolish and dangerous, because there is a future better than we can ask or imagine, and for those not waiting, not actively expecting it, it will come like a thief in the night, roughly shaking them our of their narrow pursuits and endeavors.  The time of “business as usual” is over, for, as we will hear next week “the kingdom of God has come near.” (Matthew 3:1)   

Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King: "Unpacking" God Language

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Psalm 46

Colossians 1:11-20

Luke 23:33-43

Christianity and our parent faith, Judaism, developed in times when monarchy was the dominant political model.  Kings and emperors held vast amounts of power and – depending on the size of their domains – their decisions, and even whims, would affect hundreds of thousands, of people, a vast number in a pre-industrial world.  So, in trying to make sense of the ineffable nature of God and of God’s power, it is hardly surprising that the language and images of kingship were associated with the divine.  Christianity’s growth alongside the principalities and kingdoms of the Middle Ages only served to cement the image of king with respect to God.  This is how God-language works, it work by analogy and metaphor.  Understanding God as all-powerful – the sort of power expressed in the psalm appointed for today – our ancestors in faith associated God with human examples of power, like kings.  But God-language always requires some un-packing, because it not so much what we say about God, but rather what we mean with what we say about God.  When we talk about God as king, we certainly do not mean a tyrant; we might qualify that title with “good”, we mean a “good” king.  When we talk about God as father or mother, we do not mean any kind of father or mother, but certainly one who cares for their children with tenderness and genuine parental love.  When we image Jesus as a shepherd, we do not do so as the shepherds described by the prophet Isaiah who “destroy and scatter the sheep”, but as a “good” shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep and even lays down his life for his flock. 

Yes, religious language always needs unpacking, and in every generation, people of faith must struggle

with un-packing religious language if it is to continue having any kind of resonance.  Religious language that is not resonant is useless, even dangerous.  Unpacked and un-nuanced religious language very quickly becomes sappy at best, and idolatrous at worst.  Good religious language, on the other hand, always packs a punch, pulls out the rug from beneath us and forces us to understand something new and surprising about the nature of God.  Take for example the image of God as shepherd.  To those who heard it for the first time it would have been shocking.  Shepherds were pretty low down on the social ladder, and the work was menial and tough – long, cold nights spent out in the open; and the life-style was itinerant, as they continually moved the flock in search of food and water.  The responsibility the shepherds bore for their woolly charges was immense, and the requirements of the job could entail a considerable degree of danger.  All of this would have certainly crossed the minds of those who first heard God referred to as a shepherd.  Yet, for us western, modern Christians the term shepherd has none of those resonances, and so our image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, is usually a saccharine, Victorian, stained glass image which make us feel warm and cuddly, but does not disturb or shock.  To get the full force of the image perhaps we could think of Jesus as rescue-worker in a war-torn region whose job it to get civilians safe from one town to another.  He is marginalised, dirty and alone, with any number of people depending on his courage and knowledge, depending on his sacrifice to see them into a place of safety.  When we really un-pack religious language then we catch a glimpse of what our tradition is trying to tell us about who God is, who Jesus is.

Equally, with the language of king.  Our images of kings come either from contemporary foreign monarchs, or more usually from fairy tales.  And so, Christians often glibly speak of Jesus as “the King” or “my Lord”, and in their minds is an image not learned from the inherited tradition, but from films and cartoons, or just plain sentimentality.  Without unpacking the God-language surrounding the images of king and kingship, we may overlook the extent to which Christianity seeks to subvert their conventional and popular representations.  While the Hebrew scriptures certainly use king imagery to convey God’s power, there is also the representation of a king as one who cares intimately for his people and is utterly faithful to God’s will.  In the gospels, Jesus expands on this understanding when he says to his disciples: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.  For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?  Is it not the one at the table?  But I am among you as one who serves.”  (Luke 22:25-27)  What the Judaeo-Christian scriptures are hoping to reveal is a new resonance surrounding the image of king, particularly when applied to God.  Perhaps, nothing makes the point more clearly than the depictions in the Gospels of Jesus’ crucifixion.  Here we see the conventional idea of the powerful king utterly undermined by a king who lays down his life for his people.  How ironically crafted is Luke’s narrative in which Jesus suffers and dies under a sign declaring him “King of the Jews”, while the bystanders, having no other context for kingship than that of power and show, mock him with that same title.  How marvellously crafted is the narrative in which the real meaning of Jesus’ kingship is grasped by one who is a thief and an outcast: “Jesus, remember me we when you come into your kingdom”.  There on Mt Calvary any conventional understanding of kingship as applied to God is shattered, and as we unpack the words and images of the tradition we discover the uncomfortable and perhaps somewhat unsatisfying truth that our king reigns from a cross   

Religious language always needs unpacking, and when we live outside the social and historical context in which it was originally created, we need to be particularly careful how we adopt and continue to use it.  All religious language is analogical and metaphorical, and to a large extent we human beings are its creators, but if all we do is use to it in order to feel safe and comfortable then we can be pretty sure we’ve missed something.  Religious language should disturb, it should challenge, it should work to open our hearts and minds to possibilites about God and God’s nature we would not readily contemplate: that God is a shepherd – yes – but really a shepherd, one who makes himself dis-enfranchised and homeless for love and care of his sheep; that God who is a king – yes – but whose kingship is revealed in service – even humiliation – in suffering and death.  Living in the United States in the 21^st century we may not be able to relate to shepherds and kings of the ancient world, but by seriously doing the work of the unpacking those images used as religious imagery, we can discern what they might mean for us today, we may discover resonance with our own lives, namely the importance and value of sacrifice and service, as well as graphic and surprsing depictions of God’s love and care for us.