A few years ago in Reader's Digest a lady reported searching
for the perfect birthday card for her husband. She came across a
promising one. On the outside it read: "Sweetheart, you're the
answer to my prayers." Then she turned to the inside, which was
inscribed like this: "You're not what I prayed for exactly, but
apparently you are the answer."(1) OK.
In a strange way, I will bet that something like that was
running through John's mind as he sat there in that prison. He
and his people had hoped and prayed for years for a Messiah, one
anointed by God to lead the nation, a deliverer who would
vanquish occupying forces, conquer all enemies, establish a great
kingdom, and usher in an era of peace and prosperity. In time
past, and not that long ago, John had come to believe that the
prayers had been answered. The Messiah was none other than his
own cousin, Jesus of Nazareth.
As you know, John had had his own ministry until his recent
arrest. Even though he located himself out in the wilderness
near the Jordan, great crowds came to hear him. He had powerful
words for the rapt audiences of the need for repentance from sin
and right living. He certainly refused to mince words - he was
abrasive, insulting, almost mean at times. And that is not to
mention the wild hair and weird clothes. And what is with the
diet of locusts and wild honey? Still, all sorts of people had
come to hear his preaching - rich man, poor man, beggar man,
thief. His celebrity had become such that even the hoity-toity
religious types made their way out to the desert to see him. He
insulted them along with everybody else, all to prepare the
nation for the coming of Messiah. "Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is near...The ax is already at the root of the trees, and
every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and
thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance.
But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose
sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he
will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn
and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."(2) Dunh-da-dun-dunh! [Dragnet] Tough stuff.
Then there was that magnificent day when Jesus came to the
Jordan. John knew that this was the one.
After that, the two went their separate ways - John
continued with his powerful public proclamation; Jesus with his
somewhat different approach. No doubt John noticed. John was
out there in the wilderness with locusts for lunch while Jesus
was changing water into wine. John screamed at sinners; Jesus
ate dinner with them. John preached fire and brimstone; Jesus
preached "love one another." Hmm.
Now John is in prison, a hellhole of a place - filthy,
nasty, foul, dark. He had preached just one sermon too many, and
this one mixed religion with politics, dangerous anytime. It
seems that king Herod Antipas had taken up with his half-niece,
Herodias, problem enough according to Jewish Law,(3) but it seems
she was already married to his own brother, making it all the
worse. John was an old school kind of preacher and thundered
that such ought not to be. Truth be told, powerful people do not
like to be challenged by powerful preaching, then or now. They
ignore it if they can, but when the people start to listen in,
they do what they can to silence it. Apparently the people of
Judea were listening (and probably laughing at the palace soap
opera). So John is in jail.
He has time to think. He remembers the high hopes he had
about Jesus being the Messiah. He had been prepared for the
revolution, and would have been the first to volunteer to join
Jesus' forces. But time went on...and on...and on. No call to
arms. In fact, the reports that had been coming in gave no clue
that Jesus was thinking about overthrowing Caesar or Herod or
anybody else. There were some intriguing stories of miraculous
occurrences in places where Jesus was, but no revolution. The
Messiah? The answer to our nation's prayers? Well, Jesus, if
you are, understand that you are NOT what we prayed for.
No one knows how John got his question to his followers.
After all, there were no modern niceties like Visiting Hours in
ancient dungeons. But he did. They come to Jesus and relay
John's question: "Are you the one who was to come, or should we
expect someone else?"
Interesting response from Jesus, don't you think? Instead
of answering straight out, he says, "Go back and report to John
what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk,
those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." Words right
out of the prophet Isaiah that indicated to an oppressed people
that they were not alone; their God was with them. But no direct
response to John saying yea or nay. Nothing saying "I did it" or
even "I didn't do it." No indication that he is involved one way
or the other.
Then this intriguing line, "Blessed is the man who does not
fall away because of me." More about that in a minute.
Now John's disciples depart and, as they do, Jesus turns to
the crowd that had gathered (and presumably folks who had
previously gone out to hear John) and asks them, "What did you go
out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?" This
was a nature walk? Of course not. "If not, what did you go out
to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine
clothes are in kings' palaces," says Jesus. Yes, John's clothes
were unique, but he was certainly no fashion plate. "Then what
did you go out to see?" Jesus asks. "A prophet? Yes, I tell
you, and more than a prophet." And then he goes on to place John
in the forefront of the most revered voices of God.
With the help of some historical information, there is
another way of understanding of Jesus' questions. For example,
scholars tells us that the reference to a reed may be an allusion
to Herod Antipas, who placed a reed on his coins. Could the wind
be John's preaching? Was Jesus asking the crowd if that is what
they went out to the desert for? To watch the John vs. Herod
show? To see Mr. Soft Robes quaking in his boots, the regal Reed
shaken by the scorching words of the Wind? Or are you actually
hearing what John is saying, not just to the royal house, but to
you? Are you going out to hear him because he is good
entertainment? Or are you going out to hear God's Word to you?
Penetrating questions.
Now, back to that unusual beatitude: "Blessed is the man who
does not fall away because of me." Other versions say, "Blessed
is anyone who takes no offense at me" (NRSV), or "has no doubts
about me" (TEV), or "who does not find me an obstacle to faith"
(REB). The Greek word behind those various renderings is
skandalon, which makes the literal translation something more
like, "And blessed is anyone who is not SCANDALIZED by me." But
to the ancient Greeks the word meant a stumbling block, so that
the best translation is, "And blessed is anyone who does not get
tripped up on me." What is Jesus saying? That the Messiah has
not come to ride into town on a white stallion, ready to lead an
army or ascend a throne? That the Messiah who is the answer to
their prayers is not at all what they expected? It sounds that
way. It sounds as if he is saying, "Go tell John that things may
not be working out the way he imagined, but more and more, in
surprising places, marvelous things are happening."
"Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect
someone else?" Barbara Brown Taylor, a wonderful preacher from
Atlanta (whom you may have heard at Chautauqua) interprets the
passage this way. She writes,
"People who were blind to the love loose in the world
have received their sight; people who were paralyzed
with fear are limber with hope; people who were deaf
from want of good news are singing hymns. And best and
most miraculous of all, tell John that this is not the
work of one lonely Messiah but the work of God, carried
out by all who believe, and there is no end in sight.
Tell him I am the one, if you must, but tell him also
that yes, he should look for another, and another, and
another. Tell him to search every face for the face of
God and not get tripped up on me, because what is
happening here is bigger than any of us. What is
coming to pass is as big as the Kingdom of God."(4)
"Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect
someone else?" I wonder if Jesus' response is a way of saying
don't get tripped up on all this Messiah stuff. You might be
pinning your hopes on someone dropping on to the scene like some
deus ex machina in a Greek play here to magically fix things and
make everything all right. POOF. Well, if that is what you are
counting on, stop counting. It does not work that way. You are
in this too. You have a part to play in making these hopes real.
Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners and one of the true
prophets of hope in today's world, has a wonderful way of
illustrating this. Politicians, he says, are all of a kind. A
politician holds up his finger in the wind, checks which way the
wind is blowing, and then votes that way. It generally doesn't
help, Wallis says, to change the politicians because those who
replace them do exactly the same thing. They too make their
decisions according to the wind. And so, "We need to change the
wind!" The wind will change the politicians.
How does it work? Wallis uses the example of the
dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was not
brought down by guns or violence or even by changing the
politicians, but by changing the wind. How?
In the face of racial injustice, people of faith began to
pray together and, as a sign of their hope that one day the evil
of apartheid would be overcome, they lit candles and placed them
in their windows so that their neighbors, the government, and the
whole world would see their belief. And their government did
see. They passed a law making it illegal, a politically
subversive act, to light a candle and put it in your window. It
was seen as a crime, as serious as owning and flaunting a gun.
The irony of this was not missed by the children. At the height
of the struggle against apartheid, the children of Soweto had a
joke: "Our government," they said, "is afraid of lit candles!"
It had reason to be. Eventually those burning candles, and
the prayer and hope behind them, changed the wind in South
Africa. Morally shamed by its own people, the government
conceded that apartheid was wrong and dismantled it without a
war, brought down by lit candles backed by hope and prayer.(5)
But
those candles did not light themselves. "Are you the one who was
to come, or should we expect someone else?"
Among the Jews who celebrate Passover, there is a tradition
of saving a seat at their Seder feast for Elijah, the prophet who
is supposed to bring the news that the Messiah has finally come,
and the one to whom Jesus compared John. At a poignant moment in
the service, the door is flung open for Elijah and everyone falls
silent with anticipation. For thousands of years that door has
been opened, and for thousands of years all that has entered has
been the wind.
One Hasidic story tells of a pious Jew who asked his rabbi,
"For about forty years I have opened the door for Elijah every
Seder night, waiting for him to come, but he never does. What is
the reason?"
The rabbi answered, "In your neighborhood there lives a very
poor family with many children. Call on the man and propose to
him that you and your family celebrate the next Passover at his
house, and for this purpose provide him and his whole family with
everything necessary for the eight days of Passover. Then on the
Seder night Elijah will certainly come."
The man did as the rabbi told him, but after Passover he
came back and claimed that again he had waited in vain to see
Elijah. The rabbi answered, "I know very well that Elijah came
on the Seder night to the house of your poor neighbor. But of
course you could not see him." And the rabbi held a mirror
before the face of the man and said, "Look, this was Elijah's
face that night."(6)
Which leads me to one last question: Are you the one who was
to come, or should we expect someone else? Are you the one? Are
you the one?
Amen!
1. Barbara Bartocci, "The Unexpected Answer," Reader's Digest, 9/84, pp. 87-88
2. Matthew 3:2, 10-12
3. See Leviticus 18:6-16; 20:21
4. Barbara Brown Taylor, "Are You the One?" Mixed Blessings, (Cambridge MA ; Cowley
Publications, 1998), p. 92
5. Ron Rolheiser, "ADVENT HOPE," 11/28/04
http://www.ronrolheiser.com/currentcolumn.shtml
6. Taylor, pp. 92-93
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