Grace and peace from the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. Jesus Is the Way.
Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Matthew 11:2-11
We are always looking for something. Something better, something more.
We are always looking for something. Something we can hold on to.
That something that will stop our searching, our seeking, our looking.
We are always looking for the answer. The answer that will validate our beliefs and justify why we are the way we are. The answer we can hold on to. The answer that nails it down. Finalizes it. Shuts the door. The answer that will finally stop our questions.
Jesus, are you the one?
John is looking. John is questioning. All from the cell of a prison.
Jesus, are you the one the world has been searching for?
Are you the one who can stop our looking?
Jesus, are you the answer?
Are you the one who will stop all our questions?
Are you the one we can hold on to?
It is a direct question!
One thing you can say about John the Baptist is that he wasn’t subtle. He lived in the wilderness around the Dead Sea. He subsisted on a starvation diet. When he preached it was fire and brimstone every time. The Kingdom was coming and if you didn’t shape up, God would cut you down like an elm tree with blight. God had a pitchfork, and “Let the winnowing begin!”
When John first met Jesus he recognized him immediately. John saw in Jesus something new. But apparently John had second thoughts later on. It’s understandable, you know.
John the Baptist wasn’t subtle
Where John preached God as an iron-fisted dispenser of justice – “Here comes the judge,” Jesus preached a forgiving and loving God, a host of a marvelous party, or a father who can’t bring himself to throw his children out even when they rip him off.
Where John said people had better save their skin before it is too late, Jesus said it was God who saved their skins and it wasn’t too late for even the dead.
And so John asks…
Jesus, are you the one the world has been searching for?
Are you the one who can stop our looking?
Jesus, are you the answer?
Are you the one who will stop all our questions?
Are you the one we can hold on to?
Jesus doesn’t really answer John’s questions. His answer is no answer at all. Which really brings up a whole new set of questions. But that is for another time.
No easy answers
Jesus’ answer has nothing to do with himself. He doesn’t even refer to himself. He doesn’t say “Yes” or “No.” He doesn’t even say “Look at me.” He simply refers John to look at other people. Not at him, but other people.
I am struck when I read Jesus’ response, which is really no answer. No mention of himself. No pointing to himself.
And I hear echoes of Richard Rohr‘s comment that we find it much easier “… to worship Jesus, than to follow him.” Or another theologian whose name escapes me, who said, “We practice too much Jesus idolatry in the church.”
“Are you the one … Jesus?”
Can we name you and claim you? Name you, claim you, and hold you so we no longer have to question, seek, or reach out beyond ourselves?
Can we nail you down, Jesus?
And while the answer to that question is “Yes,” it wasn’t quite how we imagined it.
“Are you the one … Jesus?”
And there is total silence in the face of that question. Jesus, it seems, has no desire to be the answer to a question. No desire to be a title, the final word. A noun.
Jesus is the way
Rather, Jesus is the WAY.
A WAY of seeing.
A WAY of hearing.
A WAY of walking and seeking.
And a WAY of living.
“Tell John what you hear and see. The blind see.”
John wants to stop looking, Jesus gives people a WAY to see, to look anew.
“Tell John what you hear and see. The lame walk.”
John wants to stop seeking. Jesus gives people a WAY to rise up and go seeking.”
“Tell John what you hear and see. The deaf hear.”
John wants to stop having to hear answers to anymore questions. Jesus gives people a WAY to hear anew.
“Tell John what you hear and see. The dead are raised.”
John wants to nail down his life. Jesus raises up and sets free those who have been entombed, to a new WAY of living.
What John the Baptist is looking for is an answer from Jesus that will allow him to slap an “I Found It” bumper sticker on his camel’s butt and be done with it.
And Jesus will have none of it.
Jesus’ answer reminds me of what my friend Henry Rojas constantly tells his recovery community: “Sobriety is not the end goal. Living life fully is, without the burden of addiction.”
Jesus isn’t the end goal
In the same manner, Jesus isn’t the end goal, the final answer. Living life in the WAY of Jesus is.
I can’t imagine the words that came back to John were easy to hear. John had always felt he knew who God was and how God acted. And that the world had better change. In the end, it was John who ended up being changed. And the answer he received only raised more questions.
And what is true for John I believe is true for us. I wish I could nail down this text for you. I mean, that is kind of what a preacher is supposed to do. Right? But I can’t.
You know, I’m not sure when ‘faith’ started getting equated to ‘certitude’ in Christian history, but it seems to me to do a disservice to the biblical story.
What God Is… and Is Not
Because I tend to find in the biblical story a God who is not one who stops our seeking, rather God is one who seeks us out and captures us up in His seeking.
God is not one who we can grab ahold of and hold on to. God is rather the one who grabs and holds on to us.
God is not one who stops our seeking, our questioning, our looking. God is rather the one who changes our seeking, our questioning, our looking… in new ways.
So we who are lame are given a new WAY of seeking, not to finally find, but to go and discover anew.
We who are deaf are given a new WAY of questioning, not to nail down an answer, but in order to hear afresh.
We who are blind are given a new WAY of looking, not so we can finally stop looking, but so that we can see in a new light.
And we who are dead are given a new WAY of living, not to nail things down, but to venture in freedom.
What we pray for
This is what we pray for this Advent season. The coming of Christ to clear away our blindness, our deafness, our deadness. So that we can see, hear, and live in a new WAY.
“Are you the one who is to come?”
And Jesus’ answer to that is WAY better than anything we could imagine.
Amen.
Wednesday Respite is a 30-min contemplative service of scripture, prayer, music and a Spirited Touchpoint by Spirit in the Desert faith mentor, Rev. “Bro. Jim” Hanson.
Touchpoint is a reflection on where God’s story touches our life story. It is a short homily based on a biblical story of people in the Old and New Testaments and their relationship with God. Our spiritual ancestors’ experience of God’s grace connects with our lives in the present and our relationship with the Divine. Previous Touchpoints are available as PDFs or on SoundCloud
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