Mistaken Identity

Matthew 11:2-11

It happened to me when I heard my dad say that his 20-something kids seemed to be happy in their strange, career-less (ok, dead end) jobs, so he himself was happy.

Wait, what? What happened to the parent who always coached and urged and expected me to succeed, to build a career? What happened to the one who holds up the model and the standard I’ve been trying to reach?

Maybe it’s happened to you, too. A child or a spouse, a parent or a good friend says something you really weren’t prepared for. Does something that is wildly far from everything you’ve learned to expect from them. Takes on a responsibility you’d given up on them ever sharing; expresses love in public for the first time; wants to buy the house she said was out of reach; quits a job you knew he’d never leave…

And you think to yourself: 
Wait! What happened? Who are you?

It’s disorienting. The world becomes a little unstable, even – maybe especially – if it’s a change you longed for. As if a weight you’d been pulling against with all your might floats away, or the unmoveable boulder you’ve braced your foot on shifts.

Who are you? you wonder.

And then very quietly, maybe unconsciously, that shift makes you wonder, Who am I?

If I don’t have this unmeetable standard to live up to anymore am I no longer a rebel?

If I don’t have to do it all myself, am I not the strong one? If I’ve been forgiven am I no longer a failure – do I have to succeed now? If I don’t have to keep being persuasive, or defend myself, am I not the teacher, the protector, the one helps everyone be right?

If I was wrong about that person,

am I wrong about myself?

It’s disorienting.
And we heard today how it happened to John.

John the Baptist, in prison because his preaching and prophecy made the king nervous,

is having a bit of an identity crisis about the person he has built his professional identity, his life, around. About the Vindicator whose coming motivated him to preach all those risky things.

He asks Jesus: Are you the one who we’ve been expecting (whose coming I’ve been proclaiming!), or are we waiting for someone else?

You’re not doing what I expected, what I planned for and taught about and committed myself to. Who are you? Do I even know you?

Was I… wrong?

Jesus hasn’t been acting much like the action-hero conqueror John proclaimed he would be. He’s not smiting the sinners, not overthrowing the Roman oppressor, not burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. He’s not silencing the guns in shops and schools and streets or punishing the liars and cheaters manipulating our public trust, either,

Instead, he spends a lot of time teaching random crowds on Galilean hillsides, healing a kid here and a leper there, touching individual hearts, encouraging the poor and dispirited. It’s good stuff, yes, holy. Miraculous, even. Impressive and delightful and good for the soul.

But John was prepared for judgment. Had committed his life to preparing other people for judgement: God is coming, shape up! The wicked are about to be smited; get ready!

That’s what he was born for. He knew it.

And he knew he had met the Messiah; knew he had personally encountered the one he was waiting for, baptized him, even.

But. But this isn’t what he was expecting.
Not what he was prepared for.

Who are you, Jesus? Do I even know you?
Was I wrong about what that meant for me??

So he asks: Are you The One, like I hoped and thought and said? Or are we waiting?

And – as he so often does when given a multiple choice question – Jesus says “Yes.”

Go and tell John what you see and hear: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed… Go and tell John healing. Tell John hope and renewal and resurrection.

Give John this answer: Jesus says YES to our longings.

The hearing of the deaf, the walking of the lame, the rejoicing of the oppressed – these are, indeed, the ancient longing and expectation of God’s people. These are things that are supposed to happen in the age of God that the Messiah is supposed to bring.

But they were supposed to be universal, not individual. The whole dying world given life, every social blindness and deafness replaced by clarity and listening; the whole limping spiritual system set on a firm and balanced path. Not a cleansed leper here and a seeing blind man there.

And all that healing was supposed to happen because the Messiah conquered the evil and vanquished the forces of oppression. Not go around teaching us to be free in our hearts and bravely righteous in the face of evil systems.

John was prepared for, braced against, the overturning of the world order; the cleansing so complete it’s like a hurricane. John prepared others for the dramatic, permanent change not just of their lives, but the whole world.
And now Jesus comes trickling healing and grace into our hearts, and John doesn’t know how to respond.

John maybe even doesn’t know who to be, if this is what God’s doing.

It happens to us, too.

We get used to the idea of a gentle Jesus who loves everyone and wants us to be nice, then read one of the gospels cover to cover and are shocked at how abrupt and forceful Jesus seems to be; how fierce about the holiness of God.

Or you or I might instead be prepared for the church or for Jesus to judge us, to reject us – at least if anyone finds out what a mess I am inside, that I don’t fit in, or that I have nothing left to give, or that I’m not spiritual enough, or that I’m too much of a mystic. You might brace yourself against rejection or misunderstanding and be confronted with eager love and generous welcome that throws you off your balance.

Jesus says YES to our longings for healing and redemption, for hope and renewal, for a world that’s full of God’s fierce and comprehensive love.

Just not the way we thought. Not the way we were prepared for.

And that’s disorienting.

Because we shape ourselves to what we expect, instead of what we long for. We make ourselves rebels or conformists, adopt meekness or aggressive defences; we teach ourselves to ignore either our sins or our faith, based on what we expect or don’t expect from God. Based on who we think Jesus is.

So we need to know, just like John needs to know:
Who are you, Jesus?

In order to know for sure: Who am I ?

Jesus never gives a simple answer.

Instead, Jesus says, Yes.

Yes to our hearts’ deepest – often unacknowledged – longings for healing and renewal, strength and transformation, comfort for our bitter pain and challenge for our bored indifference.

Yes when we expect No.

And that’s disorienting.

Because God’s love is so profound; so beyond our expectation and imagination,

that the direct experience of God’s love made manifest in our own lives or the shape of the world is always going to catch us off balance.

Which may be good news, after all, when we’re balanced in the ordinary, unholy, uneven world.

Because when our balance is forced to shift,

when we wonder who we are,

it’s a chance to see who we actually are not to ourselves, but to God.

That we are simply and primarily beloved.

A chance to know that who I am

is not what I do for God, or what others say of me, or what I have to offer,

the good and the bad of all of that.

No, who I am – who you are – is deeply and entirely beloved of God,

who is both fiery and gentle,

fierce and calm,

personal and universal,

and always not what we expected.