Not What You're Waiting For

Matthew 11:2-11

I’m not the one you have been waiting for.

Well, I am the New Rector you planned and discerned for, the one announced a couple months ago, now here, in your pulpit. And I’ve been waiting for you, too.

But I’m not.

I’m not the one you’ve been waiting for.

Wait  -- what??

If that’s what you’re thinking, you may have some sympathy for John in today’s gospel story.

John the Baptizer has preached the coming of God’s Anointed, the Messiah who will cleanse evil and corruption from the faith, and bring peace through the power of his judgement, who will change the world. John has recognized that Anointed in Jesus, when they met for baptism in the wilderness. Now he’s imprisoned for the courage of his convictions, for acting on his trust in that cleansing Messiah, but he has seen none of this fierce and fiery transformation he’s been counting on.

So he sends his disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Are you the one we’ve been waiting for?

And Jesus, apparently constitutionally incapable of giving a yes or no answer to a yes or no question, says: “Go and tell John what you see and hear. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the marginalized have good news brought to them.”

The one you’ve been waiting for? Yes or no?

Whatever, doesn’t matter, the Kingdom of God is here.

Jesus is teaching them to see healing, reversal, transformation. This is what God has been doing all along, while you were waiting for the Messiah, whoever that is.

The blind see, the lame walk, the hopeless receive hope…This is what you’ve been waiting for, whether you were waiting for it or not.

So tell John.

Tell John to stop waiting. To see, to hear, to walk, to live, to receive good news himself. To experience God’s Kingdom now – whether or not it’s the right way for God to come.

It’s impossible for us – thousands of years of storytelling and interpretation and cultural change later – to understand how wrong it was that the Messiah was not judging and cleansing and getting rid of all the bad guys and fixing the government so we could all live in righteousness and peace.

Here and now, we’ve managed to create ourselves a world where we elect people to do that every couple of years, and we’ve gotten used to the idea that God is supposed to heal the sick, cheer up the poor, and stay out of government.

So it really is impossible for us to understand how thoroughly Jesus was disappointing and disrupting the Messianic expectations of the faithful in his day.
Well, unless, perhaps, Donald Trump dropped off of Twitter, nominated a slew of pro-choice left leaning justices to the federal bench,  went around comforting the lonely and grieving and doing dishes for welfare recipients when it was all just too much, initiated national single-payer health plan, and spent four years facilitating Bible studies about race, privilege, hospitality and diversity with both Black Lives Matter activists and white supremacist groups. 

Are any of you – honestly – expecting that from Mr. Trump? Did anyone vote for him to do that?
Are any of you – honestly – expecting that presidential transformation from God?

Right. All the healing, transformative, stuff that Jesus was doing in his day didn’t fulfill anyone’s expectations at all, either.

Jesus went around doing God’s work in the ways that no one was looking for – often in the opposite way from what anyone was looking for! So seeing and hearing that healing transformation they were supposed to tell John about might have required a wrenching change of focus and lenses for those disciples.

That’s true for us, too.
While does God meet some of our expectations, I suspect that most of the transformative work God is doing now is in the opposite places to the ones we’ve come to expect.

That – now that we’ve gotten used to the idea of Jesus being gentle, cheerful, and nice, God may be bringing about healing through fierce, disagreeable, even rude disruptions in our relationships and communities and even bodies.

Or – if we’re used to the idea of Jesus being righteous – God may be out there saving the world by actions and attitudes that feel “unchristian” to us.

Or, well, we’re expecting a baby this Christmas, wrapped in the heartwarming wonder of birth – what if God is – in those very moments – pouring out loving joy in some sort of brutal death?

I’m shuddering. It feels wrong to say it, even. But I think that’s what Jesus is talking about, today. About the raw reality that the Messiah, the bringer of God’s will and reign to everyday earth, is not going to do it the way we want or expect, and that we need to tune our eyes and ears and hearts to see and hear what God is doing in the things it would be wrong or silly or simply out of place for God to do.

And that might be good news.

VERY good news, in fact.

Because the world is full of things that are just plain wrong these days, isn’t it?

Politics, culture, economics, media…

So what if -

What if God is bringing salvation through ISIS, or in Russian email hacking or reality TV or climate change or the rising cost of health care or the really, really, annoying person in your office or neighborhood?

It may be comforting to think of God bringing salvation in the things that are otherwise just awful for us, but it’s also challenging.

Because, well, would we notice?

Would we hear and see the Kingdom of God in those events and places and things that are so opposite of where we expect the holy?

And if we did – what would happen if we told the story of what we see and hear – of healing and transformation in those things that feel wrong, healing and transformation that would be otherwise easy to overlook, to miss…

I don’t know what would happen.

But I do know that Jesus would like to find out.

Because one thing I know about Jesus, the thing he’s reminding John and you and me about today,

is that he’s never the one we were expecting,

but he’s always the one God has sent.

That’s true for us, too, here at Trinity.

You are not going to be exactly what I was expecting. I will not be exactly what you were expecting.

Instead, we are the ones God has sent.

And Jesus is commanding us to tell the story of what we see and hear – of healing and transformation, glory and grace, happening in the places we weren’t expecting,

and reminding us to look for that, in the places and ways we’ve never looked for God before.

It’s a good thing to do – individually and together – as we make this new start in the life of Trinity: to look with new lenses and new focus. To see, despite any blindness imposed by our expectations, hear despite any deafness conferred by our customs, walk despite the binding limits of our comfort zones: to stop waiting for what we expect from God, and become what God has been doing all along.

Because in the end, and in the moment, at Trinity, for the world, in our own hearts, it doesn’t matter what we have been waiting for.

The only thing that matters is that God is here.

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Trinity Episcopal Church, Moorestown NJ

The End of the World As We Know It

Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 21:5-19

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

A man with no political experience, treated as a long shot for his entire campaign, has won the US presidential election. The Cubs have won the World Series. 

This is my last Sunday with you.

In big ways and small, healthy and painful, sublime and ridiculous, things are not the way they used to be, and they won’t be again.

Whoever you voted for, however delighted or devastated you have been this week, however you care or don’t about baseball or pastoral transitions, the end of what we know and have gotten comfortable with is here.

Not the end of the world, period.

But the end of the world as we know it.

This is what Jesus is talking about today, too.

The center of faith and identity will be torn down, unrecognizably destroyed, he tells his disciples. The world will be filled with false prophets, dangerous leaders, wars, riots, revolutions, famine, disease, natural disaster.

That’s worse than anything that’s happening to us, here, today – but it probably resonates for many with some of what we’ve felt recently.
Change brings loss, even when it’s good change.
Some changes bring overwhelming fear.

And those are the kinds Jesus is talking about today.

If they aren’t happening to you now, they will.

Or they have in the past.

Because the world never, actually, stays as we know it.

And right now, my world is changing fast and hard.

I have been heartbroken this week.

In a good way, in a way that speaks of enduring love, as I have said goodbye to many of you.

In a not so good way, as I have struggled with feelings of betrayal and anger, and have shared the fears of friends and colleagues who see their hard-won safety eroding under proposed new policies, or have been harassed or threatened by individuals whose bitterness and intolerance have been released by the election results.

Others are feeling betrayed and angry because their faithful and perhaps difficult vote is being characterized by many as stupidity and thoughtless bigotry.

With the best of intentions, by accident, in love – and in some few cases, on purpose – we are hurting one another.

So my heart keeps breaking, but that’s what it’s supposed to do.

I think that’s what all our hearts are supposed to do when the world we’ve known is ending.

Because protecting ourselves, protecting our hearts from breaking, means withdrawing from our love for one another, for God’s world, and for God.

Protecting our hearts from breaking is what tempts us into pursuing false prophets– the ones who promise cheap safety or triumph without hard, ongoing, open-hearted work – on every part of the social and political spectrum.

Protecting our hearts from breaking is what leads us to build defenses around ourselves so strong that the Holy Spirit has a hard time finding a way in.

Broken hearts hurt.

But letting our hearts break when the world we know is ending – when we are losing a person, a way of life, a trust – letting our hearts break is part of giving ourselves over to love, and staying open to God in the chaos or the loss.

And when we leave our hearts open God rebuilds the world with us.

You heard the promises of the world God plans to build from the prophet Isaiah this morning. Those promises are independent of who the pastor or the president is, how hurt or relieved you feel about either, or which church you go to.

And you heard what Jesus said to his disciples about what to do when the world you know is ending: Testify. 

Keep your heart and your mind open for what God is going to do with you even when you feel upset or threatened, when you are betrayed or endangered, keep yourself open to how God is going to speak through you.

Be witnesses for God’s grace and justice and stand up for the Kingdom of God, even while it feels like it is shattering into a million pieces. 

That's hard to do. And Jesus doesn’t promise it will all be okay.

(Oh, if only he would!)

But his instruction to testify is also a promise – a promise that God will not let us down.

God will not let you go, in the midst of chaos or devastation.  God will be with you, and will speak through you to the world – if we are willing to take the risk of keeping our hearts wide open in the face of danger and loss.

This week, moments of anger and grief, and stories of unleashed aggression and bitter backlash have been accompanied by stories of people acting with love, generosity, hope; caring for one another above and beyond the usual; building connections in ways they couldn’t have imagined before this change in the world we know.

These are the witnesses God needs. 

In every whirlwind of chaos, every end of the world as we know it, the signs of disaster are accompanied by the signs of God’s kingdom breaking through.

And Jesus tells us to be those people. Tells us to be the signs of God's kingdom in the midst of the world's uncertainty, and our own.

So if you are heartbroken or if you are happy about the election results, you are called to testify – to hold the friends you grieve or celebrate with to the standards of human dignity, generosity, and hospitality, to the rejection of evil and the nurturing of the holy.

If you fear for Calvary or if you are full of confidence and trust, you are called to testify to your dreams and hopes, to witness with your ongoing presence here – even when here is not what you want it to be – to show up, to share yourself, and to listen to others, so that the strength of Calvary can be nurtured among you and revealed to the world in service and celebration.

If your world is changing for some other reason – the loss of a job or a loved one, an illness, something unimaginable – you are called to testify, to let God bear witness with your life and words to the eternal promise of love and compassion.

We are called to keep our hearts open to what God may do with us, even in the hardest times and places. To refuse to build the inner walls that protect us, and stay open to how God will preach the gospel with your life – and to how God will reveal that gospel to you in the lives of those who seem so different from you.

So share your dreams, your hopes, your transformations. Testify with word and action to the importance of the promises we make and renew at baptism: to continue to pray and worship and work together, to share good news, to repent and seek reconciliation and renewal, to truly look for Christ in every person, to love and serve both friends and strangers as Christ, and to respect and uphold the dignity of every human being.

Because that call to testify is a promise, to us and to the world, in change and uncertainty and loss, that God will not let us down. That God will never let us go, and will be with us, right through the end of the world as we know it, however long it takes, however often it happens, right through until we build, together with God, the world as God dreams it will be.

Revealed

Luke 19:1-10

This is one of my favorite gospel stories. I love the comic element: I see Zacchaeus as a short little guy in an expensive suit, bobbing along behind the crowd, stretching his neck, trying to peer around and through, and finally giving up, rushing up a tree so that he can actually see this local celebrity coming into town. 

He just wants to get a glimpse of Jesus, the way many of us would with a celebrity. You don’t need a personal relationship, but it would be great to tell your grandkids you were there. You saw him. Maybe got an autograph.

Well, everybody in Jericho is out to see Jesus that day. Some of them probably want to touch him, to be healed, to become famous by association. The crowd is thick.

And now rich, short, Zacchaeus is up in a tree. Near the crowd but not really part of it.

You ever do that?
The center of the action isn’t for everyone. Sometimes you like to be just a little removed from the crowd; from the rough and tumble. You want to vote, but not knock on doors or go to rallies. Enjoy the music, but don’t need the crush and noise of a stadium concert. Love the worship; like your seat two-thirds of the way back; enjoy the sermon, but, you know… don’t want to demand attention up front, or get involved in how the sausage is made.

Anybody here ever feel like that?

I suspect Zacchaeus was feeling like that about seeing Jesus. He’s drawn to this wandering rabbi, this God-touched celebrity, but he’s just staying a bit apart. He’s got his observation post, up in the tree – not among the crowd, but able to enjoy it without getting too involved.

And then Jesus stops.
Looks up, straight at Zacchaeus.

“Hurry and get out of your tree, Zacchaeus. I’m coming to your place for dinner!”

Wait. What?!

I bet Zacchaeus’ heart stops for just a minute.

He wanted to see, but did he want to be seen?

Recognized?

I don’t know. There’s a good chance Zacchaeus didn’t know either.
Is this what he wants?

Well, he doesn’t have a choice now.
Jesus has just inserted himself into his life in a big and intimate and public way.

And now Zacchaeus is out of his tree, standing in front of Jesus, in the center of attention with everyone’s eyes on him. And nobody likes this.

Because Zacchaeus is a tax collector. He’s got one of those jobs that runs against the public good.  Think tobacco company marketer, slum landlord, telemarketing magnate, or subprime mortgage banker. He might be a nice guy, but he works for the bad guys. A little morally suspect if you don’t know him. And probably no one really knows him well.

Until Jesus bursts into his world, demands a personal relationship (how un-Episcopalian), and suddenly Zacchaeus is in the spotlight. And people are complaining that Jesus is going over to the dark side. Or he’s been duped into consorting with the Wrong People.

His reputation is at stake, and everyone’s cranky.

Now Zacchaeus’ character matters. And so – in public, in the presence of God – he confesses. He comes clean. But it’s not the confession anyone is expecting.

“Look,” he says, “I am giving away half of my wealth, and if anyone is injured by me, I pay it all back and more.”

The original Greek suggests that this is something Zacchaeus is in the habit of doing. Our translators see the powerful conversion moment, the encounter with Jesus, and translate it as a promise of new life, but it’s just as possible to read this as a revelation of the deep and long held character of Zacchaeus.

Something he doesn’t talk about, that people don’t know. The kind of care for others that prefers to remain anonymous, apart from the crowd, behind the scenes.

I mean, I want to keep my finances private. It’s between me and God, isn’t it?

But whether Zacchaeus is making a new commitment of life, or a revelation of the private, holy generosity he has practiced for years, it’s real and now it’s public.

It’s out there.

People know. (How un-Episcopalian.)

You know, I don’t talk about my giving habits either.

I bet you don’t, very often.

But here is Zacchaeus, one of my favorite biblical characters, thrust into the spotlight, yanked out of his tree, stuck in the center of attention and confessing his true character.

And maybe we should, too.

Maybe it’s time, after all these years, for me to come out as a tither. To talk about my quiet habit of giving ten percent of my gross annual income to the church, and of giving beyond that to other organizations that matter to me and help make God’s dreams for us real in this world.

And to tell you that I’m not doing this because I’m your priest. But because years and years ago,

someone else told me a story like this, and it moved into my heart and settled in.

It took time to take root; longer to grow. It wasn’t easy or immediate. It took years to build up to the goal, once I set it, of giving a full ten percent, and more.

And I never talked about it.

But on the way, I’ve discovered the truth of another thing Jesus is reported to have said: that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

When we spend real money on something, when we invest, that cause or object or community gets bigger in our attention, in our perception of the world. It happens with our homes, cars, families, friends, hobbies… And let me tell you, investing a noticeable chunk of my income in the church has made me a lot happier, since that money pulls my attention and heart to the quietly life changing work that happens in classrooms and hospital rooms, meetings and study groups, over meals, and by prayer and worship. So the more I gave, the easier it got; and the more I gave, the more I saw God at work not only through the church, but beyond: in the community, in the world.

And I wonder if Zacchaeus found that out, too: that by investing in generosity, his heart and his attention are drawn more deeply to the presence of God in and among us, so that while it’s a shock to have Jesus at his dinner table, it’s not actually a new thing to find God so close to him.

It’s just new and shocking – and transformative for both him and his community – that he confesses his heart, revealing God already at work in unexpected ways, and instead of just seeing Jesus, becomes seen and known as an agent of salvation.

Maybe Zacchaeus’ story will be your story too.

Maybe it already is.

But if it hasn’t happened yet, I suspect it will. Someday Jesus is going to show up in your life, demand to eat at your house, and make your personal relationship with God public, whether you want it or not.

What character will you confess, then, when the spotlight shines suddenly on your relationship with God?

Will Jesus reveal your best self to the world?

What will your best self be?

And shouldn’t you be sharing that now?
Shouldn’t I be sharing that now?

I wonder what will happen if we all give up on the back of the crowd, expose our whole selves to the good and the holy that we are already attracted to, start sitting up front and meeting Jesus’ eyes, risk getting out of the tree and being seen, risk letting God burst in and take over and reveal our lives to ourselves and everyone else.

I don’t know what will happen, but I suspect there’s some glorious generosity hiding among us.

And maybe it’s time to find out. 

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