First Presbyterian Church
Rev. Sam Pendergrast
December 16, 2007
Luke 11:2-11
“Who Are These Guys?”
The incident that I'm going to read from Matthew occurs close to the middle of his account of the Gospel story. Last week we read of the appearance of John the Baptist in the wilderness and the message of repentance that John preached in order to prepare for the coming of the one who John said would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. A lot happens between that time and the point at which we pick up the story today. John baptized Jesus. Jesus was tested in the wilderness and began his ministry. Matthew places a long collection of Jesus' teachings in chapters five, six and seven. We have traditionally called this the Sermon on the Mount because Matthew begins this section by telling us that “Jesus went up the mountain” and sat down to teach. Chapters eight and nine contain many stories of healing, the calming of the storm and the call of yet another disciple, Matthew the tax collector. In chapter ten the twelve apostles are named and sent out to expand Jesus' ministry. They are to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near and to do what Jesus himself has been doing – to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons. Jesus warns the twelve that they will face persecution and that the proclamation of the kingdom will cause conflict. Somehow, news of all this has gotten back to John the Baptist, whom we learn is now in prison. We pick up the story in chapter eleven.
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “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.”
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you to out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'
Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
“Who is this guy, anyway?” That's what John seems to be asking about Jesus. We don't know what John may have heard in prison, but whatever it was, it does not seem to have matched his expectations. The crowds may have asked the same question about both John and Jesus: “Who are these guys?” John and Jesus were like nothing they had ever seen. “Who are those guys?” That's what Butch Cassidy asked the Sundance Kid as they fled across Bolivia, trying to escape the posse that tracked them across rock, through the water, no matter what tricks they used to avoid pursuit. The pursuers seemed supernatural, like the Hound of Heaven on their trail, like nothing they had ever seen. “Who are these guys?” It's a good question for us to ask if we wish really to have the humility to listen to God speak in scripture and not to assume that we already know it all or that we understand the mysteries of God's action in history. The nature of faith itself cautions us not to assume too much, not to be too sure, to know there is always more, and that the answers are ultimately God's answers and are not in our control. Those who seriously wrestle with ultimate questions may be closer to the One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” than those who glibly say, “Of course it's true,” and take it all for granted.
This is a very human John the Baptist we see. Gone is the rough, fiery prophet, stalking around the wilderness beyond the Jordan gobbling up locusts and calling people to repent. Gone is the confidence that faced down the Scribes and Pharisees. John seems to have been stripped of all but the naked fear and existential doubt that all of us experience when we come face to face with our own mortality. I imagine he knew he would not make it out of prison alive. He is asking the ultimate questions. Did I get it right? Have I done what I was supposed to do? Who am I, after all? What has my life amounted to? Where is God now? Does God care about me? Does God have a plan for the world? Does God have a plan for me? Is Jesus the revelation of that plan, or should we look for someone else? Is the plan working? Just who is this guy, Jesus, anyway? So he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask.
In reply to John's questions there are several things Jesus did not say. He didn't say, “Aren't you the prophet who prepared the way for me, who told them I was coming? How can you ask such a question? What's wrong with you?” He didn't say, “Of course I'm the one and you'd better believe it or you'll go to Hell!” He didn't say, “Yes, I'm the one. Just say this prayer, and you'll be saved.” He told John's disciples to tell John what he would say to all of us: “Look what's happening! The world is changing! The Kingdom of Heaven is coming close. The blind see; the deaf hear; the dead live. God is at work. Join the party! Come out from all those places you've been hiding, where you thought you were safe – behind rules and laws and rituals. The Kingdom can't be contained in human structures. Follow me!” Jesus invited people to respond. He said they had a choice to make. But he didn't threaten or force. He used the power of grace and of self-giving love. He trusts you and me to trust him and to take the risk of following.
The only thing we know about John after this is that he was beheaded by Herod. No one asked to be a prophet. It was not a profession one entered in order to win friends. Being a prophet was dangerous and unpopular. Jeremiah smashed a clay pot to demonstrate what God would do to Israel, the chosen people. Elijah had a constant feud going with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Joel and Amos said over and over that God demanded justice and righteousness from the people and that God was not pleased with their behavior. They said that while Israel looked for the Day of the Lord as a time when God was going to come and settle the hash of their enemies, they'd better not be so eager. When the Day of the Lord came, God was going to settle their hash first and it would not be pleasant. Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern. Isaiah was sawed in two. No one know what happened to Amos. The prophets were drunk with God and railed against corruption and phoniness. The prophets had a lover's quarrel with the world; their quarrel was God's quarrel. Hosea presented God as a rejected husband whose wife had gone to other lovers but who would not give up no matter what until he got her back. No one asked to be a prophet. Most of the time nobody listened. They were not sure they had done anything but present the message God had given them and to trust that it would have some effect even if they never saw it come about. That's who John was. And Jesus said he was the greatest of prophets, yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, it's not about John. What matters is whether or not you become part of the Kingdom. Don't get caught up in celebrity worship. Don't stand there and stare at me or at John. Become part of the good news.
It may have been hard for John to understand who this guy, Jesus, was because of all the expectations Israel had of the Messiah. That's what he meant with his question, “Are you the one who is to come?” The one to come, of course, was the Messiah. You know that Jesus' last name is not Christ. He didn't have a last name. In those days no one did, except to say “Jesus, son of Joseph” or “James, son of Alpheus”. To say “Jesus Christ” is the same thing as saying “Jesus Messiah.” Messiah is Hebrew and Christ is Greek for “anointed” or “the anointed one.” And that's part of the trouble. What does that mean anyway, “the anointed one”? Saul, David, Solomon and others were “the Lord's anointed” because they were king. Even Cyrus, the Persian King, was called the Lord's anointed in his role of returning the exiles to Palestine. Some prophets and priests were anointed. Israel expected the Messiah to come one day to be the instrument of God's justice, to institute a reign of peace and security. They believed that God would intervene one day by means of the Messiah to deliver the people from suffering and injustice. Maybe it would be a king like David, a priest like Aaron or a prophet like Moses.
That was the trouble. Jesus didn't fit any of those models. He was a nobody; he was lower class; he had no authority, not like the Scribes and Pharisees; he was a threat to the establishment because he was inflaming the crowds. He said he was bringing a new kingdom, but who's fool enough to believe that? Where is it? We're still ruled by presidents, prime ministers and kings, many of them just as corrupt or more than the Herods and Pilates of first century Palestine. The only logical reason for believing this guy was who he said he was is the one the thief on the cross used, the reason all the guards taunted him: “If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us.” No wonder John was doubtful. But Jesus never said his kingdom was logical. Frederick Buechner said about the thief's comment: “If he is [the Messiah], he can [save us]. If he isn't, he can't. It may be that the only way in the world to find out is to give him the chance, whatever that involves. It may be just as simple and just as complicated as that.” How hard it is to give ourselves in faith to something we can't prove.
One reason we have such trouble understanding who these guys are is that the new world they proclaim is not like the world we live in. Jesus called it the Kingdom of Heaven. It's not a place you can find on a map. Nor is it a place you can get to from here. It's not a place at all, but a condition. Insofar as we do God's will imperfectly, half-heartedly – the Kingdom is still a long way off, a hell of a long way off, theologically speaking, since the Kingdom is the fullness of God's presence in us and Hell is God's absence. Jesus described the Kingdom as the feeling you get when you find something precious that you thought you had lost. And the best thing about it is that when the Kingdom comes, the thing you've lost and thought you'd never find is you.
That's what these guys are all about – inviting us on a journey to find ourselves in a place called the kingdom of heaven. It's a place where we find the selves God made us to be as we give ourselves to the proclaiming of the good news that is for all people. It's about faith. Not a faith that you can write down and tie up and slip into your pocket and forget about because you've got it all done. The faith that these guys invite us to is a trust that this thing called the kingdom is worth losing our lives for – getting beheaded or crucified, setting out on a journey we can't see the end of, knowing that when we fall – and we will fall – God will be there to catch us. On this journey of faith toward this thing we call the kingdom of heaven, sometimes the wind will be at our backs and sometimes straight in our faces. Sometimes our faces will shine with joy and sometimes be streaked with tears. Sometimes we will know exactly where we are going, and sometimes we'll think we're lost. We will walk by faith and not by sight. Faith is a verb, not a set of beliefs we can write down on a page and think we have mastered.
Barbara Brown Taylor, in her marvelous memoir of her personal faith called Leaving Church, said as she looked back on leaving the Episcopal priesthood for a life of teaching at a college,
By the time I resigned from Grace-Calvary, I had arrived at an understanding of faith that had far more to do with trust than with certainty. I trusted God to be God even if I could not say who God was for sure. I trusted God to sustain the world although I could not say for sure how that happened. I trusted God to hold me and those I loved in life and in death, without giving me one shred of conclusive evidence that it was so.
When we wake up in the night and wonder, like John did, “Did I get it right? Have I done what I was supposed to do? Who am I, after all? What has my life amounted to? Who is this guy, Jesus, anyway?” we can trust that those are the questions faith asks as it journeys toward the kingdom. John and Jesus both are figures who are larger than any definition or human understanding can capture. These guys are part of God's invitation to us to part of the good news the world needs so desperately – the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the poor have good news brought to them. Come, follow me. And... if you turn around and see someone following you and wonder, “Who are those guys?” it's probably not someone out to get you. It's God's goodness and mercy that follow you all your days. That, ultimately, is the promise that John and Jesus have come to bring us. Thanks be to God.