The more we move into the Advent season, the more our scripture texts bring the Christ-child’s birth closer and closer to us. Yet here in Matthew 11:2-11 we are back to the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist. Yet even though this is not part of our text for this week, the mere mention of John’s name should remind us of their cousinly kinship, even of an in utero jump for joy that marked their first meeting--making cousin John the first person to celebrate Advent.
As out text opens Jesus has just sent his disciples off on their first unchaperoned mission journey. Chapter 10 records Jesus’ lengthy instructions to his chosen twelve as they go out to heal and teach with Jesus’ authority. The role of master over disciple, Jesus’ ability to instruct and direct, are the focal points of this commissioning act. As chapter 11 opens, Jesus himself is described as continuing his own mission “to teach and proclaim his message in their cities” (v.1). Matthew’s typical transitional verb “teleo” lets readers know a new scene is about to unfold.
Yet the connective tissue between these two textual units seems to be disciples—-disciples going out at the behest of their teacher/master. John is now incarcerated, held in Herod Antipas’s prison at Machaerus, east of the Jordan. Unable to journey himself, John “sent word by his disciples” (v.2) to inquire of Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (v.3).
This question is both surprisingly sharp and theologically unexpected. John’s personal history with Jesus, his kinship connection, their meeting in the wilderness, Jesus’ apprenticeship to John, John’s apologetic baptism of the one whom he feels should be baptizing him, stands in contradiction to this apparent back-pedaling, second-guessing challenge. It is significant that Matthew’s text records that “John heard what the Messiah [‘the Christ’] was doing” (v.2)---the first time Matthew uses “Christ” as a title for Jesus (Peter’s confession is not until chapter 16). At the same time the gospel author writes as though Jesus’ messianic identity was an undisputed fact for John, the question put to Jesus by John’s disciples begs the question, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (v.3).
The debate among commentators over what this inquiry means is fun to read. Is John having doubts about Jesus’ identity because he is in Herod’s prison and his own ministry stymied? Is John concerned about Jesus’ association with less-than-stellar citizens and his apparent disregard for such observant niceties as fasting (see 9:9-13)? Or are the doubts voiced by John’s disciples expressing a concern over the lack of a stern, judgmental chorus alongside Jesus’ eating, drinking ministry? Or, perhaps, John sent out his disciples when he heard “what the Christ was doing?” And his disciples, the same ones who had already questioned Jesus’ social behavior in 9:9-13, took it upon themselves to ask: “are we to wait for another?”
Let’s be clear about what John the Baptist’s concern exactly was. The impetus for sending out some of his disciples to Jesus was that he had heard what “the Christ,” “the Messiah,” was doing. It was Jesus’ actions, the doings of “the Christ,” that peaked the interest of the out-of-circulation, locked-up John. In his concluding remarks in 11:19 Jesus asserts that “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Here it is Jesus’ “deeds” that are the concern of John the Baptist.
Jesus’ reply to John’s disciples’ question refers them to his work, not an assertion of his identity. Jesus wants John’s disciples to report back what they “hear and see” (v.4). The list of activities that make up Jesus’ ministry echo the miraculous healings itemized in Isaiah 35:5-6 and 61:1. Although these Isaiah texts are not expressly linked to the Messiah, they are indicative of the day of the Lord. By initiating these deeds Jesus initiates a new era, the messianic age that brings in the day of the Lord. Along with his healing activities Jesus adds another dimension of his ministry: “the poor have good news brought to them” (v.5). In the Jesus school of messiahship, reaching out to the margins and to those outside the bounds of “acceptable society” —- the poor, the pariahs, the blind, the lepers, the outcasts -- was a telling indication of the Messiah’s arrival.
Jesus sends John’s disciples away with a rather cryptic dismissal: “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” (v.6). The Greek verb here is “skandalizo” and can also be rendered as “tripped up” or even “fall away.” Many will “take offense” at Jesus in the next chapter of Matthew, including both religious authorities and his own family. Jesus’ messianic message may not be the militaristic battle cry or the hard hand of judgment that John, his disciples and others may have expected. But he is still “the Christ.”
In the second portion of this unit John’s disciples depart and Jesus now turns to the crowds to celebrate John’s identity. Jesus’ final conclusion is reached outside our reading: “he is Elijah, who is come” (11:14). Taking an ironic, even satiric tone, Jesus asks his listeners for what reason did they risk life and limb to enter the wilderness to see this preacher? Each image Jesus uses has multiple inferences.
“Reeds” (“kalamos”) grew in abundance along the banks of the Jordan where John preached and baptized. “Reeds” are also notoriously flexible, bending and swaying in the least of breezes—-an opposite characteristic of John’s tough, uncompromising message of repentance preached. Verse 8 offers another opposite image of John the Baptist. He certainly was not “dressed in soft robes.” Soft robes are found in royal palaces—-a location quite the opposite of Herod Antipas’s dungeon.
Obviously, what people went out to see on the banks of the Jordan was “a prophet.” Jesus now asserts that John is “more than a prophet,” citing scripture (a combination of Malachi 3:1 and Exodus 23:20) to make perfectly clear John’s prophetic identity. Just as Jesus had used Isaiah’s text about the days of the Lord as a messianic text, he now uses Malachi’s text proclaiming Elijah as the prophet announcing the day of the Lord as a messianic prediction text.
John is this divinely sent messenger, this new Elijah proclaiming the Messiah (v.14). Yet Jesus issues a tremendous disclaimer. Yes, John is greater than anyone who has ever been born (above Abraham, Moses, David!). But in the kingdom of heaven he is nothing, absolutely nothing: “the least . . . is greater than he” (v.11). Jesus’ designation of John as Elijah firmly places John in the pre-messianic age, the era before the Messiah inaugurates the in-breaking of the divine on earth. Not only is Jesus the long anticipated Messiah. With his arrival on earth the whole of the world is changed. As great as John the Baptist’s prophetic ministry is, he is part of an age that has passed forever.
Is your advent “adventitious?”
In case you wonder what “adventitious” means, let me define it for you by telling a story:
We have a Christmas cactus. It is not like the Christmas cactus I remember growing up with – - a lovely, multi-branched, octopus-like-creature bursting with blooms so heavy they drooped over the sides.
No, we have a no-bloom Christmas cactus.
A few years ago one of our dogs decided to augment his kibble diet by noshing on the alluring flower perched like a crown on the top of this cactus. When the crime was discovered the decapitated plant was lying on its side, with potting soil spilled all over the table. A gaping wound marked the spot where the pinkish-orange bloom had once crowned the cactus. The ravaged cactus did survive, but decided that not only would it never bloom again, but that growing anything upright was a dangerous idea.
So instead of growing up, this cactus has grown sideways ever since it was attacked. To move on in life, it moves sideways. We propped up its side-saddle tentacles with another pot, one that had soil in it. After a few weeks some small, pale rootlets started sprouting out of the cactus branch, and were actively making their way towards the soil in the second pot. In other words, this Christmas cactus had become “adventitious.”
Roots that grow out of stems or branches, instead of under the soil, are called “adventitious roots.” These roots take a bad situation (being munched on and growing sideways), and transform it into a new possibility for growth and life.
“Adventitious” roots are part of the season of “Advent.”
Last week’s epistle text cited Isaiah 11:1, the outrageous assertion that “ a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” The term “rhiza” may mean either “root” or “shoot,” although “shoot” is the most common translation. From an expiring source, new life and new roots spring forth unexpectedly. From a plant left for dead, new roots actively seek to fix and plant themselves for new life and growth.
Perhaps we prefer the “shoots” over the “roots” translation because “shoots” depicts a more showy pattern of growth—-powerful, upward, highly visible signals of new life. “Roots” are less dramatic, less showy. But “roots” are far more necessary for sustained life and long term change. Roots burrow down into the dark and build a firm foundation, a new source of nourishment, for an old “stump.”
John’s disciples were on the look-out for “shoots,” not “roots.” They sought a messianic figure that would “shoot” upward into the light, not tunnel deeper into the dark. Though first-century Judaism was far from homogenized, one of the most common themes was the expectation of a military messiah, a political savior who would restore Israel back to power and significance as a nation. [Google some images of a military messiah the ancient Hebrews were expecting.]
Jesus’ focus on healing, his preference for teaching in the small towns and back roads of Galilee--his Sabbath infringements, his association with sinners and tax collectors, his gossiped gluttony and drinking with ne’er-do-wells---all may have made his messianic identity suspect in the eyes of John’s disciples.
Jesus listened to their question. Then Jesus patiently asked them to itemize “what [do] you hear and see”?
As they describe the miracles springing up from the soil of Jesus’ ministry, John’s disciples suddenly realize that this is messianically-enriched soil. Jesus’ activities, his “doings,” evidence the adventitious root of Jesse, of the sideways Messiah in their midst.
[Your Sermon Could Start here if you’re Pressed for Time or want to focus on the “Adventually Yours” theme]
Advent is not a “time” like any other time. Advent is not a “what time is it?” time. Advent more an “is it time yet?” time. Advent is a God-breaking-into, God-breaking-apart concept of time. Advent is where God goes beyond the chronos to the kairos, where God goes beyond the time that plods on to the time that manifests the mystery of God-among-us.
In other words, God is inviting us at this time of the year to live life “Adventually.”
What if we thought of “Advent” less as a noun than as a verb or an adverb? What if Advent described not so much a specific time of year than a way of living a life--a life style sought, a mind set followed. What is Advent was not so much something we celebrated as something we did, something we lived. As Michael Blewett, the witty and provocative associate rector at the Church of St. Michael and St George in St. Louis summarizes it, “Eventually, we die: Adventually, we live.”
Radio Shack has coined as its Christmas buying spree theme: “Don’t just buy stuff, DO stuff!”
What do you know: an ad that rings true (at least partly true).
Even among those for whom Christmas is “business,” not just “busy-ness,” there is a recognition that this season is about something more than whip out the magic wand (that’s the credit card for the uninitiated) and get it over with. “Advent” is something we DO daily, not a doing we observe on the calendar. We are called by Jesus to “see and hear” the messianic age that is upon us—-in other words, to note and follow the “adventual” actions that reveal that God has been among us.
This is why cries to “put Christ back into Christmas” are false notes, seeming to imply that the human factor can ever be taken out of Christmas. The truth is that every human activity, every interaction, is laden with adventitious possibilities.
Christ, who healed the physically and morally challenged, is not missing from our shopping malls, our traffic jams, or our busy supermarkets. Christ who preached good news to the poor and healed the most maligned people of his day (lepers), is certainly able to be with us in awful “holiday” office parties, or in our struggles between gift-giving and bill-paying. Every one of you here this morning can Advent your way forward, with a Christ-powered stroke, through the sludge and slime that threatens to clog our way to the side of the Christ child.
John the Baptist knew it was what “the Christ” was DOING, what actual, effectual changes were taking place in people’s lives—not military victories, but moral and social breakthroughs---that would reveal the new messianic age, the world-shaking transformations made possible only by God’s adventing presence.
So let’s start talking the language of advent. Instead of “How is your Advent going?” what about “How are you Adventing?” What if we signed our Christmas cards, “Adventually Yours.” Or what we if tried to live an adventitious life each day? Here might be the ultimate compliment to someone you love (or don’t love): “You really advented today.” What if we learn to practice Advent? What would it mean?
If Jesus can rise from the dead, we at least can rise from our pews . . . and DO something . . . . like live advented lives . . .
[Great opportunity for people to turn to their neighbor for 2 or 3 minutes and discuss what it might mean to live Adventually.]
Here are a couple of ideas.
First, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of paradox.
Second, to live Adventually is to lie with a sense of adventure.
Third, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of expectation.
Finally, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of moment-magic.
Just a few comments about each one.
First, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of paradox. We talked about this last week with the “oneness of twoness.” But to review: to live paradoxically means, for example, to live remembering that you are in the eyes of God both saint and sinner; you and I are messy, mixed up, morally ambiguous creatures, and yet God wants to have a relationship with you and me—as messy, mixed up and morally ambiguous as we are. Remember how G. K. Chesterton defined paradox: truth standing on its head with both legs dangling to gain attention.
Second, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of adventure. The most exciting, adventurous life anyone could live is as a follower of Jesus. If you’re a Christian and you’re not in the midst of adventures of a lifetime, then there’s a problem. Then maybe you’re following a Jesus poser, not Jesus himself. Because Jesus said: Come, follow me, and I’ll lead you into a safety-first, risk-free, comfort-zone life. Right? No, Jesus said, follow me and I’ll give you the greatest adventures anyone could imagine. In fact, in Romans 16 Paul has what my friend Robert Dale calls a “Risk Takers Hall of Fame.” These were people on whom bet his ministry, and for whom he gives thanks to God for the adventure. When you hear each one of these names, you are hearing the story of an earth-shaking adventure, one that you are a part of today:
* Phoebe, ‘a servant of the church’ (vs. 1)
* Priscilla and Aquila, who ‘risked their lives for me” (vs. 4)
* Epaenetus, ‘the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia (vs. 5)
* Mary, ‘who worked very hard for you” (vs. 6)
* Adronicus and Junius, ‘who have been in prison with me” (vs.7)
* Ampliantus, “whom I love in the Lord” (vs.8)
* Urbanus, ‘fellow worker in Christ’ (vs. 9)
We don’t have time this morning for the 18 other persons or households noted in this chapter.
Third, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of expectation, especially for the unexpected. Do you expect the unexpected? You mean the messiah is to be found where? In a feeding trough? You mean the Savior of the world was given the most common name in the Jewish language: Jesus? You mean the symbol of Judgment Day by which each one of our lives will be “weighed in the balance” is not a balancing scale, but a cross? You mean that I can discover the “gifts” of Christmas not just by opening presents under a tree, but by giving to the local food bank, or providing for a child in need from the local “giving tree,” or joining KIVA.org or Heifer International, or by adopting a child from one of the international child-care services, or by putting the family on a recycle regimen, or by planting seeds that will sprout “adventitious roots,” or by getting a pound puppy instead of a “designer dog,” or by sending water filters to countries suffering from both floods and droughts, or by embracing the generations that make you most uncomfortable (they once were you or will be you), or by baking cookies with all who show up, or by loving your enemies. Who was it who said that you could measure your love for God by measuring how much you love your worst enemy—that’s how much you love God.
Finally, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of what I call the magic-of-the-moment. When I was in college, one of my favorite authors was Kurt Vonnegut, who died earlier this year. In many ways, the Canadian fiction writer Douglas Coupland (born 1961) is today’s Vonnegut among college students, but I cut my novelistic teeth reading Slaughterhouse Five, which fictionalizes his experience as a POW in World War II. In fact, when I was right out of seminary I contacted Vonnegut cold and asked him to come to SUNY Geneseo where I was a part-time campus minister, and to engage in a conversation with me and Robert Short (of The Gospel According to Peanuts fame). I never expected to get an answer from this person who calls himself an “unbelieving believer”, but one day I picked up the phone and got this: “Kurt here. I’d love to come to Geneseo. Would March 13 work?” After I stammered out a response, I then said, “Mr. Vonnegut, I need to tell you something. I can’t pay your standard honorarium.” He said, “That’s okay. My standard honorarium for this gig is a pair of brass candlesticks. Do you think you can find me a pair that once were in a church?”
Right up until his death, Vonnegut still made the college lecture-circuit rounds. And a few years ago at the University of Wisconsin he told the story of his late Uncle Alex. “He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis.” Vonnegut touted his lifelong learning, but most importantly his dismissal of other human beings who couldn’t celebrate the moment. For Uncle Alex it wasn’t so much that we let greatness pass by without recognizing it, but that life is filled not just with encounters of great people but with encounters with great moments that we hardly notice. Or in Vonnegut’s words, “So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
Vonnegut concluded his remarks to the Wisconsin students with this; “Please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
And then Vonnegut asked his college audience if they ever had a teacher who helped them out, and made them believe in themselves. Almost every student raised their hand. Vonnegut then said: “Now please say the name of that teacher out loud to someone sitting near you.” When the sounds of names being spoken had subsided, Vonnegut then said: “All done? ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” [The University of Wisconsin story is from John M. Buchanan, who tells this in “This Is Our Hymn of Grateful Praise,” 18 November 2007, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois.]
[to conclude your sermon, ask them to stand, to think of someone who has been part of their Advent journey in the past, who has helped teach you to live Advented lives even though they didn’t know it, but who is missing at the Christmas tree and table this year, and to give thanks to God for the gift of that person by saying out loud their names as you say: “I thank you God for the Adventual presence in my life of . . . . . .. .”]
After the din of all the voices dies down, end the sermon with:
“If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
Animations, Illuminations, Illustrations, Ruminations, Applications:
There is a lot of boomer-bashing nowadays. In fact, I’m one of them . . . touting Michael Bywater’s critique of the boomer generation called Big Babies. But there is another side to this boomer generation. Here is something I found on the web that presents that other side:
To those born in the 50s and 60s and early 70s . . . in other words, to the “boomers,” this is for you:
*First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
*They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.
*Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
*We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
*As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
*We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
*We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
*We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
*We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
*No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
*We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
*We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
*We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
*We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.
*We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!*Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law . . .
*This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
*The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
*And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!