BuiltWithNOF

Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
   Isaiah 35:1-10, Psalm 146, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11
 

I.       Questions

    A.  Two candidates on the extremes

    B.  When someone asked Bush a question, he’d sometimes answer with one word:

      Yes.  No.  Because.

      1.    His backers called him clear and succinct.

      2.    His critics called him simplistic.

    C.  When someone asked Kerry a question, he’d sometimes go on for what seemed like days trying to answer it. 

      “Be that as it may.” “As I’ve said before.”  “To reiterate …”

      1.    His backers called him nuanced.

      2.    His critics called him a flip-flopper.

II.    Different questions call for different kinds of answers

    A.  Some should be succinct

      1.    “Do you take this woman to be your wife?”

        a)    “I do.”

        b)    Not, “Well, that depends on a great many factors …”

    B.  Some should be nuanced

      1.    How should we solve the problems of the world?

      2.    What is the meaning of life?

III.  In today’s gospel reading, the followers of John the Baptist ask Jesus what seems like a pretty darn simple question

    A.  “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

      1.    Either yes or no

      2.    You are, or you aren’t

      3.    Don’t waste our time with long-winded answers – just tell us what we want to know

    B.  But Jesus doesn’t give a yes or no answer (even though we all know the answer is “yes”)

      1.    In fact, He doesn’t answer their question at all

      2.    Instead, He says

        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.

      3.    Jesus’s answer is a lot longer and more complicated than the original question

        a)    But in His answer is a valuable lesson for us

        b)    First of all, Jesus doesn’t walk around telling people who He is

          (1)  Instead He shows them
          (2)  Only once or twice in all the Gospels does He come right out and say, “I am the Messiah,” and never in the book of Matthew
            (a)    Instead, He does what Messiahs do: He preaches, He heals, He listens, He forgives, He shows the way to salvation

        c)     So that’s all well and good, but you’d think that when someone came out and asked Him directly, then He’d fess to it

          (1)  “Go tell John, I am the one who is to come,” Jesus might have told John’s followers
          (2)  But He doesn’t
            (a)    Instead He just points back to His actions
            (b)   It’s as if Jesus is saying, “I’m never going to tell you anything, even if you ask me directly.  But I’m going to show you everything.  After all, words without actions mean nothing.  And the actions don’t need words, because they should speak for themselves.”

    C.  We can learn a lot from how Jesus handled that situation.

      1.    Not that any of us are the Messiah

        a)    Because if any of us think they are, then we’ve got a big problem on our hands.

      2.    But we are followers of Jesus Christ, or to use the more familiar phrase, “Christians”

      3.    Now we Episcopalians aren’t nearly bold enough about proclaiming our faith

        a)    Often we don’t claim to be “Christian”

        b)    Instead we say we’re “Episcopalian,” maybe hoping that the person we’re talking to won’t know what that means

          (1)  After all, the 1990’s were the decade of evangelism in the Episcopal Church, and it seems like a lot of us couldn’t wait for that decade to get over with
          (2)  For many of us, it seems like being Christians is our best-kept secret

        c)     We could go a lot further in proclaiming our faith to the world, but that can be hard to do.

      4.    Other Christians, though, don’t have a problem with telling others about their faith

        a)    “I’m a Christian,” they say loudly and often

          (1)  As if that’s something to be proud of
          (2)  As if it takes courage to say that to others

        b)    But I’ve always wondered: shouldn’t other people notice that we’re Christian, without our having to tell them that we are?

          (1)  Because if there’s nothing distinctive or noticeable about us, then how can we claim that we’re Christian?
          (2)  It’s as if we believe that saying we’re Christians is more important than actually being Christians

    D.  We could all take a lesson from how Jesus handles the question of John’s followers

      1.    First of all, they have to ask Him whether or not He’s the Messiah

        a)    Because He never came right out and told them

        b)    This doesn’t mean that He doesn’t want people to know

          (1)  He wants people to know He’s the Messiah, but He realizes that the only way people are going to know that is by seeing him act like the Messiah
          (2)  Just telling them He’s the Messiah won’t convince the skeptics, and it isn’t very Messiah-like

      2.    And when they ask Him, He doesn’t jump up and say, “Yes, that’s me.”

        a)    He doesn’t hide the light under a bushel by denying who He is

        b)    Instead, He just points to His actions

          (1)  When I’m around, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

        c)     Is that proof enough for you?

      3.    He doesn’t justify Himself.  He doesn’t come up with long-winded arguments to prove He is who they think He is.  He lays it right out there in front of them, and He lets them figure things out for themselves.

      4.    Jesus does God’s work in the world, and He lets everyone else take notice.

        a)    He trusts that people will see for themselves that He’s who they think He is

        b)    And He knows that without actions, all the words in the world don’t add up to a hill of beans.

      5.    As Saint Francis said,

        Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words, if necessary.

IV.And today’s gospel reading doesn’t just tell us that we should act like Christians; it also tells us how Christians are supposed to act

    A.  Now you might be saying to yourself, “Well, that’s pretty obvious.  I know that already.”

      1.    But if it were so clear and obvious, why does Jesus conclude his answer to John’s followers with these cryptic words: “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

      2.    You might be asking yourself, “Why would anyone take offense at what Jesus is doing? He’s healing the blind, the deaf, the lame.  Who would have a problem with that?”

    B.  There are actually two big problems with that

      1.    The first is that this isn’t who the people then expected the Messiah to be

        a)    They were looking for a regal king, somebody who wore plush robes and lived in fancy palaces

        b)    They thought that God’s power would look a lot like earthly power

          (1)  So they didn’t know what to do with a humble man who did grand miracles
          (2)  Who was more concerned about healing lepers than ruling the world

        c)     Which is probably why they had to ask Him, “Are you really the Messiah?”

      2.    The lesson for us there is that before we can act like Christians (assuming we decide to act like Christians), we need to know how Christians are supposed to act

        a)    And here the answer seems pretty simple, because Jesus just told us

        b)    Christians are followers of Christ, so we should act like Christ acted

          (1)  And when Jesus highlighted His Christian credentials, He didn’t mention a lot of things that people associate with “being Christian”
            (a)    He didn’t talk about going to Church, or reading the Bible
            (b)   He didn’t talk about being an upstanding citizen
            (c)    He didn’t mention family values
          (2)  Instead, He pointed to what He did
            (a)    Helping the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear
            (b)   Ministering to the leper and the poor

        c)     Granted, we can’t do the supernatural healings that Jesus did

          (1)  We’re not going to raise the dead like He did
          (2)  But we knowwho we’re supposed to minister to
            (a)    The needy
            (b)   The poorest of the poor

        d)    And it’s up to us to figure out how to do that, given our gifts and skills

      3.    The other problem that we might have with that is it’s a heck of a lot harder to do what Jesus did, than it is to tell people we’re “Christian”, or to act like we think Christians are “supposed to act”

        a)    Because telling people that we’re Christian takes a little boldness and self-confidence, but it doesn’t impact how we live our lives

        b)    And acting like Christians are supposed to act limits God’s role in our lives

          (1)  Going to Church takes an hour or two on Sundays
          (2)  Reading the Bible a few minutes here and there
          (3)  Being an upstanding citizen – we might have been that anyway, without all this Christian stuff, so that’s no sweat off our backs

        c)     Following Christ, though, requires everything of us

          (1)  Because Jesus wasn’t just talking about helping people when it was convenient
          (2)  He wasn’t just talking about helping a person here or there
          (3)  He wasn’t just talking about giving the lame person a wheelchair, or the blind person a cane, or the dead person a nice burial
          (4)  He was talking about getting rid of blindness and deafness and paralysis and even death
          (5)  He was talking about changing the world we live in, to make it like it was meant to be
            (a)    A world where everyone saw and heard and walked and had enough food & water and quality medical care
            (b)   A world where the people who tended the poor were heroes, not the people who wore silk robes and lived in mansions
            (c)    Where people not only practiced what they preached, but they also preached the true Gospel of Jesus Christ

        d)    This not only requires us to change, to repent, as individuals, but as a world

          (1)  And that’s where things get messy
          (2)  Brazilian bishop:

            When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor have no food, they called me a communist.

          (3)  That’s not to say that Jesus was a communist, but He did ask that question, and He wants us to ask it, too
          (4)  Because if we’re going to get rid of hunger and poverty and disease, we’re going to need to change the rules the world lives by, which is very threatening

      4.    That’s why Jesus says that “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

        a)    The word He used for taking offense is skandalizomai (skandalizomai), which is where we get our word “scandal”

        b)    That’s the same word that Paul uses when He says that Jesus came to be a stumbling block (a skandalon, skandalon) to the Jews

        c)     That’s ultimately what Jesus is telling us: that following Him, that being Christians, is scandalous

          (1)  Because it threatens people
          (2)  It asks the world of us
          (3)  It puts us at risk for ridicule and persecution
          (4)  And that’s the deal He’s offering us
          (5)  Follow me, and be scandalous
          (6)  And if it’s not that way – if being a Christian is easy or accepted or convenient or non-threatening – then we’re not being Christians at all

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