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?
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