What, Then, Did You Go Out To See?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
When President Bush came to Canada last week, he was met by John the Baptist. Well, by a crowd of protesters, anyway, who wanted him to know they were not happy about the war in Iraq. This was no surprise to anyone: Canadians have always had a dialectical relationship with United States' foreign policy, and in the matter of Iraq even the most insular American has to be aware that much of the world would like to see a different approach.
But if the protest was no surprise, neither was the President's response: I have polled my people, and they're happy, so there will be no change. End of discussion.
If none of the above was news, why did any of us bother? Why did Mr. Bush come to mend fences? Why did the protesters pick up their signs? Why did the rest of us watch? If none of us expected anything to change, why did we go through the whole charade?
Well, if nothing else, it's a good fireworks show. We watch the protest the same way we watch a one-sided football game, even when we know in advance how it's going to turn out. The office pool is 11-0 for this year's big team, but there we all are, glued to our sets, not because we expect to lose our loonie ("dollar," south of the forty-ninth parallel), but because we want to see the excitement along the way -- the spectacular tackle, the missed conversion, the coach who chews out the ref, and just the general action of the game. And besides, just in case the million-to-one odds come through and the little guy wins, we don't want to miss it.
Jesus challenges this spectator mentality. To the crowds of his own day, who had thrilled vicariously to John's fearless castigation of the royal house, flocking to the river to hear him call down Herod, the Pharisees, and anyone else a cut above, Jesus asks sharply, "What did you go out to see?" A soap opera? Or a word to your own life? John baptized for transformation, he was calling you into a new creation, and you went out to see Days of Our Lives!"
Some Background
Dennis C. Duling, writing in the Harper-Collins Study Bible (NRSV), notes that verses 7 and 8 may be an allusion to Herod Antipas, who placed a reed on his coins. It is a matter of record (see chapter 14, inter alia) that John's bold preaching both angered and fascinated Herod. John seems to have made a particular point of denouncing the ruler's more flagrant misdeeds. So Herod arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed the Baptist.
We may surmise that the public enjoyed the back-and-forth between these two personages in much the way that the public today enjoys the dust-ups between the media and public figures like politicians or Hollywood celebrities. Jesus calls the people on this. He says are you just going out for a scandal fix? To watch the John vs. Herod soap opera? To see Mr. Soft Robes quaking in his boots, the regal Reed shaken by the scorching invective of the Wind from the desert? Or are you actually hearing what John is saying, not just to the royal house, but to you? Are you going out to hear him because he's good entertainment? Or are you going out to hear the Word of the Lord pronounced on your world, your reality, your life, and your choices? Is John to you a piece of theatre, or is he a prophet?
And if you're ready to hear him as a prophet, you're ready to know that he's more than a prophet: not only is he bringing the message of God's will, he is introducing God in the flesh. You are not watching a soap opera; you are standing on the hinge of time. If you go where John is pointing, you will be part of something even more astonishing and unsettling than John.
If some in the crowds failed to engage John's ministry appropriately, it seems that even John was not entirely clear on what to look for. Perhaps, like many, he hoped for a military Messiah to come and rout the Romans, restoring the nation to independence and reuniting Israel and Judah under a Davidic monarch. (That dream is still alive 2,000 years after John's time: a PBS special several years ago, "Quest for the Lost Tribes of Israel," traced the efforts of one man to locate the tribes that disappeared into exile, in the belief that when they were found, the broken unity of Israel and Judah would be restored and the nation would come into its own under a Davidic monarchy and Aaronic priesthood.) If this was John's hope, then Jesus' ministry may have been baffling in its failure to address the political situation.
Yet Jesus' ministry was not without political import. When he invited John to notice that "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" (Matthew 11:5) he was borrowing Isaiah's language about the promised return from exile and about the messianic Jubilee (Isaiah 35:5-6; 26:19; 29:18; 42:7, 8; 61:1). Where we today are likely to read these passages spiritually or metaphorically, they had for Jesus and his contemporaries, very real political significance. Luke places very similar words in Jesus' mouth at the beginning of his ministry, in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-19). That these were heard as political words addressed to Israel may be inferred from the hostile reaction Jesus got when he went on to suggest that God's favor was also extended to the historic enemies of Israel (vv. 25-29).
John and Jesus seem to have shared a vision of restoration beginning with the purification of Israel. Both preached repentance to all who would listen. John attacked the Jewish royal house, not for toadying to Rome or even for political ineptness, but for immorality according to traditional Jewish mores. Both Matthew and Luke show John preaching both against Herod and to common people, advocating individual initiative to live according to the core Jewish values of justice and compassion. Jesus, meanwhile, focused on a ministry of healing individuals and restoring them to community. For both men, it would seem that the beginning of the messianic restoration was the shepherding of Israel in the ways of life. If John and Jesus differed, it would seem to be on the role of the political leadership. John evidently believed the official shepherds of Israel should be called to account, whereas Jesus, though not without harsh words for the political and religious leadership, put most of his energy into opening the Reign of God to any least person who was ready to enter it. "Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matthew 11:11).
From There to Here
Just about anything is easier and more palatable than letting God deal with us where we ourselves actually live. We want to see God stick it to the big guys, the fat cats, the ones who are making our lives difficult, or just getting away with what we would never get away with. And it is true that political leaders, fanatics with guns, large companies, and ethnic tensions all create conditions the rest of us have to live with, often with little recourse -- though at times lamenting the incorrigibility of the world may be a distraction from or an implicit excuse for our own "stuckness." Regardless of where the perceived trouble lies, John and Jesus raise the question of how, in God's name, we deal with a world gone awry.
Many people, in much of history, have had little choice but to put up and shut up. Today, in the wealthy West, we have other options. Many of us have enough resources to ensure our own escape from the worst of the troubles around us. Oil and water both threaten to become scarce, yet few of us have had to give up cars, heated homes, or green lawns. We lament the decline of our cities, but we can escape to suburbs and gated communities. Troubles that in a previous age or another part of the world we might have had to numbly endure, we here have the means to escape.
More than that, we have the means to blind ourselves to distressing realities through the ubiquity of entertainment. Television, concerts, sports, eating out, and a host of other things can serve the function of distracting us from knotty problems that resist simple solution. Even the exercise of parliamentary democracy, which was intended to allow us to think together about how to conduct our common life, is too often reduced to cheap theatre. Candidates seek to score points on each other and get good sound bites; substantive discussion is rare, and often tuned out in any case by people weary with keeping up with their own lives.
This mentality is often carried into church. I mentioned to one parishioner that I'd been invited to write for an online resource that seeks to draw connections between the Bible readings and current issues and events, and she, sighing, said she came to church to get away from all that.
Engagement is always difficult. In lives already overloaded, and in a culture that urges self-fulfillment and instant gratification, the call to do more than watch the soap opera is not a popular one. We would rather hear Jesus say he came to give us rest than that he came to bring division or to call us into a counter-intuitive kingdom.
Advent is a challenge to move from escapism to expectation. It asks us to see that no matter how bad or how good our present reality, God is calling us into a world that operates on different terms. Sometimes that comes as a challenge to leave the spectator seats and do the hard work of transformation. Sometimes it is a radical gift of healing and restoration that we could not do for ourselves.
This Advent, what are we going to see?
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: We get John the Baptist for two weeks in Advent. Last Sunday it was John himself calling for repentance in preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God. This week Jesus is the central figure, and John doesn't seem quite as certain as he was before. He's in prison and, as the text says, has begun to wonder if Jesus is really the one who was expected. This is fairly plausible historically. In fact, the Gospel writers seem to have made an effort to fit the missions of John and Jesus together smoothly, and it's likely that the historical John with his fire-breathing rhetoric was to some extent puzzled and taken aback by some aspects of Jesus' teaching.
In the Gospel for this Sunday Jesus speaks about the greatness of John as the forerunner. But his immediate response to the question from John is to call attention to his own work. He doesn't give a straight "Yes" answer to the question, "Are you the one who is to come?" but points to the things that have been happening in his ministry. They are things that prophetic texts should have led John and other Jews to expect with the in-breaking of the kingdom. Without using the term Messiah, Jesus points to the messianic signs that accompany his work.
"And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me." It is a gentle rebuke to John, and to anyone who is upset because Jesus doesn't fit their ideas about what the coming of the kingdom means.
And we can see some deeper meaning if we dig a little, if we take Jesus' speech to its natural conclusion in verse 19, and if we aren't content just to read the NRSV text. There the passage begins, Matthew 11:2, with a reference to "what the Messiah was doing...." This expresses the sense accurately but misses something about the wording. The Greek is ta erga tou Xristou, "the deeds of the Christ" (RSV). The passage ends at verse 19 with the statement that wisdom is justified "by her deeds" (apo ton ergon autes). (Older translations, such as KJV, follow a more weakly attested manuscript tradition that says "of her children" and that probably arose by assimilation to the corresponding Lukan verse 7:35. See the UBS Greek New Testament for the textual evidence.)
Thus there is a "bookending" of the passage by this phrase if we equate "Christ" with "Wisdom" i.e., if Christ is understood as the Incarnation of Holy Wisdom, a personification that we find in a number of places in the Old Testament (e.g., Proverbs 8) and the Apocrypha. This identification of Christ with Wisdom was widely accepted by the early church fathers. It has been of special interest to modern feminist theologians, because Wisdom is grammatically feminine in Hebrew and Greek and is often pictured as a woman -- Sophia or "Lady Wisdom." Thus a Wisdom Christology provides a parallel to -- but also some differences from -- a Word Christology. (See, e.g., Denis Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God: An Ecological Theology [Orbis, 1995]; Joan Chamberlain Engelsman, The Feminine Dimension of the Divine [Westminster, 1979]; and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology [Continuum, 1994].) Other New Testament passages that hint at the identification of Christ with Holy Wisdom are Luke 7:35, Luke 11:49, Matthew 23:34, and 1 Corinthians 1:30.
This identification is also found in the first of the "O Antiphons" that have traditionally been used as part of Daily Prayer during the week before Christmas. (These are the verses on which the hymn "Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel" is based.) For December 17 (but of course you're free to make use of this at some other time, like this coming Sunday) the antiphon is O Sapientia:
"O Wisdom, proceeding for the mouth of the Most High, pervading and
permeating all creation, mightily ordering all things: Come and teach us the way
of prudence." (Lutheran Book of Worship [Augsburg, 1978], p. 174)
Carlos Wilton responds: First, Chris, I'd like to publicly welcome you as an Immediate Word guest writer. I have known your writing and your sermons for some years, and am impressed by what you have to share with us this week. Particularly interesting for me is your Canadian perspective. Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, acknowledges that one of the greatest of God's gifts is "to see ourselves as others see us." Your comments on Canadian reactions to President Bush's visit help citizens of the USA like myself to see ourselves as others see us -- which is always a valuable perspective, whether or not we happen to agree personally with what those others are saying.
I like where you're going with the spectator idea. Is faith a spectator sport? Jesus thinks not -- but even so, a great many people in our culture do seem to treat Christianity as something to be observed, rather than something to be participated in. In leading worship, we pastors constantly struggle against the entertainment mindset that threatens to creep in. Congregations, of course, are not audiences, and church musicians (and preachers!) are not performers -- yet all too many people, as a matter of everyday practice, treat their worship leaders as such. They applaud choirs and soloists -- or yearn to do so, if such is not the tradition in their church -- and say to the preacher at the door, "Nice job!" or "That was a good sermon," and nothing more. An effective sermon should impel listeners to action, but too often the only response is, "I liked it" or "I disliked it." Beyond the realm of worship, too many people approach Christian faith itself as a spectator sport. Faith -- in this distorted view -- is not so much something people do, as something they observe, or perhaps think about. It becomes largely an intellectual and emotional exercise, affecting the way Christians think and feel, but having little impact on their active life.
Ironically, the message Jesus asks John's followers to take back to their master is a spectator's report: "Tell John what you hear and see...." Yet the implication is that no one can witness mighty acts such as these and remain unchanged. When the blind see, lepers are cleansed, and so on, those who observe these things are compelled to decide for or against the one who performs such wonders. There's a lot of emphasis, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, on "holiday entertainment." Great sacred musical works like Handel's Messiah and Vivaldi's Gloria are often presented in concert format -- an aesthetic as much as a spiritual experience. Well-loved Christmas carols, written and cherished by the church for centuries as hymns, are often relegated to the role of background music for shopping, Christmas parties, or whatever. The temptation to turn faith into a spectator sport is particularly intense during Advent and Christmas.
As Jesus sends John's disciples back to him, proclaiming what they have heard and seen, so too he sends us back to the larger culture, proclaiming what we have heard and seen. If it is truly Jesus the Messiah we are hearing and seeing, we cannot remain spectators. We must step onto the playing field.
Related Illustrations
From Chris Ewing:
A participant in a "Dancing with the Text" session of Aha! told of a friend who many years ago, had told all her loved ones she did not want any things for Christmas. "What I would like from you," she said, "is a story. Tell me a story about something that has happened to you over the year. Not a year-end review of everything your family has done, but a real, gritty story of your life with God, something that changed you this year. Write me a story about something that happened in your soul."
-- Aha! 14/1 (Oct/Nov/Dec 2004), p. 49
Homily Service 22/9 (December 1989, p. 28) suggested that, like John, "we intuit the messiah's reign has begun, but we find ourselves in prison.... An example of the pain of slow restoration is the recovery of mental patients ... One cannot force a depression to lift, just as anyone cannot force the kingdom to come...."
From Carlos Wilton:
A November 26, 2004, news story by the Associated Press tells how Anaheim, California's annual "Jingle Bell Jump" -- Santa parachuting out of an airplane to land at a shopping center -- has been cancelled for a second year in a row, because Homeland Security regulations do not permit airplanes to fly that close to Disneyland (the renowned amusement park is considered an ideal target for terrorists). Ryan Williams, promotions director for the shopping center's owner, doesn't buy that line of reasoning, and plans to protest. "The terrorists are not involved in any way whatsoever," he said. "This is Santa landing with his elves." Williams has already begun his campaign now to get the "Jingle Bell Jump" restored for next year. He plans to circulate a petition asking Congress to reconsider the law, and is distributing signs that read, "Let Santa land in 2005."
"What did you go out to the shopping mall to look at? A man in a red suit floating on the wind?"
***
In October 1989, the city of San Francisco was struck by a powerful earthquake. Huge cracks appeared in the walls of Candlestick Park, where thousands of fans were waiting to watch the third game of the World Series. Sections of freeway twisted and buckled; some collapsed. At least twenty-seven fires broke out across the city; the largest, in the Marina District, consumed dozens of buildings. At the edge of the Marina District, a crowd of curiosity-seekers gathered, watching the firefighters as they battled the flames. After a few minutes of this, a police officer came up to the crowd and began shouting at them. "What have you come to look at?" he said to them. "This is no time to be standing around. There's been an earthquake. You all have work to do! Go home. Fill your bathtubs with water (if you still have water). Prepare yourselves to live for the next several days without electricity. The sun's going to set in another hour; your time is running out. The firefighters will do their job here: now you go home and do yours!"
That police officer spoke truth, as John the Baptist and Jesus spoke truth. He spoke with urgency, as John the Baptist and Jesus spoke with urgency. His message, like that of John and Jesus, was what the people truly needed to hear. What's the message you and I most need to hear, in these ever-shortening days of Advent? Is it a message of spending and partying and conspicuous consumption? Or is it a message of repentance and forgiveness and faithfulness?
***
A couple of years ago, David Edwards, an Immediate Word reader, responded to the weekly resource with these words, which are relevant to the issue of faith as a spectator sport:
The number one idol in today's society is entertainment. We love to be entertained and we will go anywhere or do just about anything to be entertained. Sadly, this has crept into the church. We want our so-called "worship" to be entertaining, so we have given up on hymns with their theological depth and adopted "worship" choruses that are light and airy, fun to sing, and that appeal to our emotions. We want sermons to be short and happy, letting us go from "church" feeling all warm and fuzzy and loved. We don't want to hear about God's holiness, God's justice, sin and death and hell. We want the crucifixion to be a golden cross without blood and agony. We want our pastors to do all the work of ministry while we sit on the sidelines being entertained. We want church to be fun and sociable. And we want worship to be "disposable." By that, I mean that we would rather watch three hours of televised football than sit in church for one hour. We shuttle our children to Sunday Little League games, Sunday children's leagues of football, softball, soccer, and whatever, rather than take them to Sunday School. If schedules conflict, we choose sports over church. To me, the most depressing days in the church year are Super Bowl Sunday, the World Series, and the NBA playoffs. Our people would rather talk about their favorite team and sports hero than to talk about Jesus. We would rather wear an "I Like Mike" T-shirt than a WWJD bracelet....
-- David Edwards, responding to a segment of The Immediate Word, 10/07/02
***
For some time now I have been troubled by the seeming disappearance of any robust alternative to the pervasive culture of late capitalism, whether in the church or in the society at large. We are drowning in floods of consumer goods and are drenched in showers of media images. We live a smorgasbord culture in which everything is interesting and nothing really matters. We have lost a vision of the good life, and our hopes for the future are emptied of moral content. Instead of purposefully walking to determinate places, we are aimlessly floating with random currents. Of course, we do get exercised by issues and engage in bitter feuds over them. But that makes us even less capable of resisting the pull of the larger culture, a resistance that would take shape in formulating and embodying a coherent alternative way of life.... If we can neither state what the gospel is nor have a clear notion of what constitutes the good life, we will more or less simply float along, like jellyfish with the tide. True, a belief in our ability to shape the wider culture is woven into the fabric of our identity. So we complain and act. But in the absence of determinate beliefs and practices, our criticism and activism will be little more than one more way of floating.
-- Miroslav Volf, "Floating Along?" in The Christian Century, April 5, 2000
***
There are many reasons for the failure to comprehend Christ's teaching ... but the chief cause which has engendered all these misconceptions is this: that Christ's teaching is considered to be such as can be accepted, or not accepted, without changing one's life.
-- Leo Tolstoy
***
Christianity has been made so much into a consolation that people have completely forgotten that it is first and foremost a demand.
-- Søren Kierkegaard
***
A tourist in New Mexico visited the Santuario de Chimayo during Holy Week. This is a place to which thousands of pilgrims come, some of them walking hundreds of miles to be healed, to give thanks for healing, or simply to walk in solidarity with the suffering of Christ. The tourist asked a Hispanic friend to suggest a good spot along the road from which to view the procession. He responded with mild horror. "This not something you view," he said to the tourist, "this is something you do."
Worship Resources
By Julia Ross Strope
CALL TO WORSHIP (based on Isaiah 35)
Leader: Welcome to this place of rest and beauty. If you've come to express your thanks to the Creator and to experience hope, you've come to the right place! Long ago, Poet Isaiah sang his expectation for rest and happy times:
The desert will rejoice
and the flowers will bloom in the wilderness.
Everyone will see God's splendor and divine power.
God will give strength to hands that are tired
and to knees that tremble with weakness.
Everyone who is discouraged will be no longer be anxious!
People: What lyrics! We, too, anticipate shouting with joy and traveling in safety; we want to be free from sorrow and grief. We want rest.
Leader: Our hope is in God, Creator of the Universe and Creator of each of us!
People: We look forward to Christmas day -- a reminder that the Holy One is among us.
PRAYER OF ADORATION
Holy One, our calendars say it's December. The celebration of your coming to earth as an infant is here. We expect to give and receive gifts; we anticipate wonderful feelings of pleasure. As we go about our preparations, keep us mindful of angel songs and star sightings. Thank you for the gift of life, now and for eternity. Thank you for coming to us in Jesus. Amen.
CALL TO CONFESSION (based on James 5:7-10)
Scriptures remind us that we have a tendency to be impatient and to complain about other people. In these next few moments, each of us has opportunity to be aware of internal struggle and judgment. First we will make a group confession and then, turn to God personally.
COMMUNITY CONFESSION
Living God, though you are mystery to us, we do feel your presence. With your gentle Spirit, reveal what separates us from one another; show us what minimizes our best selves; point out what saps our strength and hope. Pull us to action when we are reticent to get involved. Give us high hopes; keep our minds alert to your activity around and in us. Thank you for your compassion. Amen.
WORDS OF GRACE
The Holy One is gracious. God hears our prayers and guides us to different ways of believing and behaving. As we prepare to celebrate God's coming to earth as a baby for the two thousandth time, notice how you are pregnant with divine love. It may be different from what you expect.
ADVENT CAROL/HYMN SUGGESTIONS
"The Desert Shall Rejoice" (Isaiah 35). This carol is not well known; it works well with a solo voice singing the stanzas and the congregation responding with the affirmation, "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose." It is available in the Presbyterian Hymnal, (1990), 18.
"People, Look East"
"Comfort, Comfort You My People"
"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"
"On Jordan's Bank The Baptist's Cry"
"The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came"
AN AFFIRMATION, with Advent themes
The world seems to be self-destructing and God is calling us, and all Creation, to prepare for change. In Jesus of Nazareth, born to Mary and cared for by Joseph, we hear the hopes of God for peace, compassion, and justice. By the Holy Spirit, we are filled with power to make this world a safe and loving home. Together, we participate in making God's rule palpable. We are not alone! Thanks be to God!
OFFERTORY STATEMENT
We are individuals with our own expectations. Each of us breathes deeply and receives life. Our thanks to God for our talents and opportunities shows up in our tithes and offerings.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
God of all the world, with grateful hearts, we give you what we can. Amen.
INTERCESSORY PRAYERS
Light for living, thank you for the stories of scriptures, which teach us how to live in a way that satisfies us and empowers us to walk with truth, hope, and love.
Often our expectations for wholeness and for walking close to you are shaped unconsciously by another generation's experiences. Our sense of what is real is often determined by the politics of our culture. Speak to us, again. Open our eyes to what is possible when Christ lives within us!
Hope of the world, see the sorrow and suffering throughout this global village. End the causes of war; cease the belligerent preoccupation with terrorizing other human beings and animals. Gather to yourself the anger and grief, the fear and stress that haunt the minds of oppressed people. Help us avoid participating in the greed and arrogance of politicians and society. We pray for peace within ourselves and among all peoples.
Healing God, body and soul we ache to be whole, to be healed in mind and psyche. We hear Jesus asking his friends what they expected and we realize that some of our expectations about the wildernesses of life and satisfying living are wounding in themselves.
Free us from unhealthy habits and addictions.
Recreate our expectations for peace and justice.
Give us good thoughts to help our bodies toward healing. Guide health-care providers with insight and keen listening. Keep us safely in the palm of your hand.
Spirit Divine of temple and church, mosque and dome, look with compassion upon your people's self-centeredness. Open ears with hospitality and knowledge; dismiss weapons and ignorance.
Come again to this earth with hope and grace.
Come again in Jesus. Amen.
BENEDICTION/CHARGE
About your expectations for this coming week:
On Monday, may beauty surprise you.
On Tuesday, may beauty reveal God's love.
On Wednesday, amid the stress and blaring of Advent, may beauty bring harmony and hope.
When beauty shows up on Thursday, chuckle!
When beauty on Friday points to grace on the streets of (name of town), rejoice.
On Saturday, may beauty bring you rest for your weary bones and thoughts.
And when next Sunday comes, look in the mirror and see beauty in your eyes.
And now, may the Holy Spirit surround you and give you energy for the tasks you must do outside these walls.
Go in peace.
A Children's Sermon
The joy of our favorite room
Object: a lamp, a picture, a candy dish, a newspaper or magazine, a rocking chair, and other small items that come from a room in a home
Text: vv. 2-3 -- When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" (Matthew 11:2-11)
Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you have a favorite room in your house? (let them answer) Which one is it? (let them answer) Some of you like your bedroom, some like the kitchen, and others like the family room. What makes these rooms special to you? (let them answer)
No one said they like the room because of the walls, ceiling, or floor, did they? They like the bed, the toys, or the television. I brought some things that I have in my favorite room at home. This is a rocker that I love to sit in when I am reading the newspaper or a book. Here's a lamp that I turn on when I want to read. Here's a candy dish I keep nearby for a little snack. The room is my favorite because of all the enjoyment these things bring to me.
Last week we talked a little bit about John the Baptist. John was arrested by the king and put in prison. While in prison, John thought a lot about Jesus. He believed Jesus was the Messiah. But John was impatient and wanted Jesus to get rid of the king. The Messiah was supposed to raise a great army and rule the nation like other great kings of Israel like David and Solomon. Instead, Jesus was walking around by the Sea of Galilee and talking to people.
When John's disciples found Jesus they asked him if he really was the Messiah, or if they should look for another one. Jesus knew that John was impatient and wanted a great army, a palace, and a crown for Jesus to wear. But Jesus answered John's disciples and sent them back to the prison to report to John. Jesus told them the blind were being given their sight, the crippled were walking, the very sick people were being healed, and the deaf could now hear. When John the Baptist heard these words he knew that he had introduced the right Messiah into this world.
Jesus did not just come to us looking like a room with walls, ceiling, and floor. Jesus brought with him things like chairs, lamps, magazines, and candy dishes that make the room our favorite. Jesus did not just forgive sin, he taught people how to live without sin and to love God. God's plan was for Jesus to come into the world and show it the love God has for everyone and everything. He makes life warm and joyful and brings peace.
When you go home today and look around your favorite room, you will know the joy that Jesus brings to each of our lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 12, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
But if the protest was no surprise, neither was the President's response: I have polled my people, and they're happy, so there will be no change. End of discussion.
If none of the above was news, why did any of us bother? Why did Mr. Bush come to mend fences? Why did the protesters pick up their signs? Why did the rest of us watch? If none of us expected anything to change, why did we go through the whole charade?
Well, if nothing else, it's a good fireworks show. We watch the protest the same way we watch a one-sided football game, even when we know in advance how it's going to turn out. The office pool is 11-0 for this year's big team, but there we all are, glued to our sets, not because we expect to lose our loonie ("dollar," south of the forty-ninth parallel), but because we want to see the excitement along the way -- the spectacular tackle, the missed conversion, the coach who chews out the ref, and just the general action of the game. And besides, just in case the million-to-one odds come through and the little guy wins, we don't want to miss it.
Jesus challenges this spectator mentality. To the crowds of his own day, who had thrilled vicariously to John's fearless castigation of the royal house, flocking to the river to hear him call down Herod, the Pharisees, and anyone else a cut above, Jesus asks sharply, "What did you go out to see?" A soap opera? Or a word to your own life? John baptized for transformation, he was calling you into a new creation, and you went out to see Days of Our Lives!"
Some Background
Dennis C. Duling, writing in the Harper-Collins Study Bible (NRSV), notes that verses 7 and 8 may be an allusion to Herod Antipas, who placed a reed on his coins. It is a matter of record (see chapter 14, inter alia) that John's bold preaching both angered and fascinated Herod. John seems to have made a particular point of denouncing the ruler's more flagrant misdeeds. So Herod arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed the Baptist.
We may surmise that the public enjoyed the back-and-forth between these two personages in much the way that the public today enjoys the dust-ups between the media and public figures like politicians or Hollywood celebrities. Jesus calls the people on this. He says are you just going out for a scandal fix? To watch the John vs. Herod soap opera? To see Mr. Soft Robes quaking in his boots, the regal Reed shaken by the scorching invective of the Wind from the desert? Or are you actually hearing what John is saying, not just to the royal house, but to you? Are you going out to hear him because he's good entertainment? Or are you going out to hear the Word of the Lord pronounced on your world, your reality, your life, and your choices? Is John to you a piece of theatre, or is he a prophet?
And if you're ready to hear him as a prophet, you're ready to know that he's more than a prophet: not only is he bringing the message of God's will, he is introducing God in the flesh. You are not watching a soap opera; you are standing on the hinge of time. If you go where John is pointing, you will be part of something even more astonishing and unsettling than John.
If some in the crowds failed to engage John's ministry appropriately, it seems that even John was not entirely clear on what to look for. Perhaps, like many, he hoped for a military Messiah to come and rout the Romans, restoring the nation to independence and reuniting Israel and Judah under a Davidic monarch. (That dream is still alive 2,000 years after John's time: a PBS special several years ago, "Quest for the Lost Tribes of Israel," traced the efforts of one man to locate the tribes that disappeared into exile, in the belief that when they were found, the broken unity of Israel and Judah would be restored and the nation would come into its own under a Davidic monarchy and Aaronic priesthood.) If this was John's hope, then Jesus' ministry may have been baffling in its failure to address the political situation.
Yet Jesus' ministry was not without political import. When he invited John to notice that "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" (Matthew 11:5) he was borrowing Isaiah's language about the promised return from exile and about the messianic Jubilee (Isaiah 35:5-6; 26:19; 29:18; 42:7, 8; 61:1). Where we today are likely to read these passages spiritually or metaphorically, they had for Jesus and his contemporaries, very real political significance. Luke places very similar words in Jesus' mouth at the beginning of his ministry, in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-19). That these were heard as political words addressed to Israel may be inferred from the hostile reaction Jesus got when he went on to suggest that God's favor was also extended to the historic enemies of Israel (vv. 25-29).
John and Jesus seem to have shared a vision of restoration beginning with the purification of Israel. Both preached repentance to all who would listen. John attacked the Jewish royal house, not for toadying to Rome or even for political ineptness, but for immorality according to traditional Jewish mores. Both Matthew and Luke show John preaching both against Herod and to common people, advocating individual initiative to live according to the core Jewish values of justice and compassion. Jesus, meanwhile, focused on a ministry of healing individuals and restoring them to community. For both men, it would seem that the beginning of the messianic restoration was the shepherding of Israel in the ways of life. If John and Jesus differed, it would seem to be on the role of the political leadership. John evidently believed the official shepherds of Israel should be called to account, whereas Jesus, though not without harsh words for the political and religious leadership, put most of his energy into opening the Reign of God to any least person who was ready to enter it. "Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matthew 11:11).
From There to Here
Just about anything is easier and more palatable than letting God deal with us where we ourselves actually live. We want to see God stick it to the big guys, the fat cats, the ones who are making our lives difficult, or just getting away with what we would never get away with. And it is true that political leaders, fanatics with guns, large companies, and ethnic tensions all create conditions the rest of us have to live with, often with little recourse -- though at times lamenting the incorrigibility of the world may be a distraction from or an implicit excuse for our own "stuckness." Regardless of where the perceived trouble lies, John and Jesus raise the question of how, in God's name, we deal with a world gone awry.
Many people, in much of history, have had little choice but to put up and shut up. Today, in the wealthy West, we have other options. Many of us have enough resources to ensure our own escape from the worst of the troubles around us. Oil and water both threaten to become scarce, yet few of us have had to give up cars, heated homes, or green lawns. We lament the decline of our cities, but we can escape to suburbs and gated communities. Troubles that in a previous age or another part of the world we might have had to numbly endure, we here have the means to escape.
More than that, we have the means to blind ourselves to distressing realities through the ubiquity of entertainment. Television, concerts, sports, eating out, and a host of other things can serve the function of distracting us from knotty problems that resist simple solution. Even the exercise of parliamentary democracy, which was intended to allow us to think together about how to conduct our common life, is too often reduced to cheap theatre. Candidates seek to score points on each other and get good sound bites; substantive discussion is rare, and often tuned out in any case by people weary with keeping up with their own lives.
This mentality is often carried into church. I mentioned to one parishioner that I'd been invited to write for an online resource that seeks to draw connections between the Bible readings and current issues and events, and she, sighing, said she came to church to get away from all that.
Engagement is always difficult. In lives already overloaded, and in a culture that urges self-fulfillment and instant gratification, the call to do more than watch the soap opera is not a popular one. We would rather hear Jesus say he came to give us rest than that he came to bring division or to call us into a counter-intuitive kingdom.
Advent is a challenge to move from escapism to expectation. It asks us to see that no matter how bad or how good our present reality, God is calling us into a world that operates on different terms. Sometimes that comes as a challenge to leave the spectator seats and do the hard work of transformation. Sometimes it is a radical gift of healing and restoration that we could not do for ourselves.
This Advent, what are we going to see?
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: We get John the Baptist for two weeks in Advent. Last Sunday it was John himself calling for repentance in preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God. This week Jesus is the central figure, and John doesn't seem quite as certain as he was before. He's in prison and, as the text says, has begun to wonder if Jesus is really the one who was expected. This is fairly plausible historically. In fact, the Gospel writers seem to have made an effort to fit the missions of John and Jesus together smoothly, and it's likely that the historical John with his fire-breathing rhetoric was to some extent puzzled and taken aback by some aspects of Jesus' teaching.
In the Gospel for this Sunday Jesus speaks about the greatness of John as the forerunner. But his immediate response to the question from John is to call attention to his own work. He doesn't give a straight "Yes" answer to the question, "Are you the one who is to come?" but points to the things that have been happening in his ministry. They are things that prophetic texts should have led John and other Jews to expect with the in-breaking of the kingdom. Without using the term Messiah, Jesus points to the messianic signs that accompany his work.
"And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me." It is a gentle rebuke to John, and to anyone who is upset because Jesus doesn't fit their ideas about what the coming of the kingdom means.
And we can see some deeper meaning if we dig a little, if we take Jesus' speech to its natural conclusion in verse 19, and if we aren't content just to read the NRSV text. There the passage begins, Matthew 11:2, with a reference to "what the Messiah was doing...." This expresses the sense accurately but misses something about the wording. The Greek is ta erga tou Xristou, "the deeds of the Christ" (RSV). The passage ends at verse 19 with the statement that wisdom is justified "by her deeds" (apo ton ergon autes). (Older translations, such as KJV, follow a more weakly attested manuscript tradition that says "of her children" and that probably arose by assimilation to the corresponding Lukan verse 7:35. See the UBS Greek New Testament for the textual evidence.)
Thus there is a "bookending" of the passage by this phrase if we equate "Christ" with "Wisdom" i.e., if Christ is understood as the Incarnation of Holy Wisdom, a personification that we find in a number of places in the Old Testament (e.g., Proverbs 8) and the Apocrypha. This identification of Christ with Wisdom was widely accepted by the early church fathers. It has been of special interest to modern feminist theologians, because Wisdom is grammatically feminine in Hebrew and Greek and is often pictured as a woman -- Sophia or "Lady Wisdom." Thus a Wisdom Christology provides a parallel to -- but also some differences from -- a Word Christology. (See, e.g., Denis Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God: An Ecological Theology [Orbis, 1995]; Joan Chamberlain Engelsman, The Feminine Dimension of the Divine [Westminster, 1979]; and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology [Continuum, 1994].) Other New Testament passages that hint at the identification of Christ with Holy Wisdom are Luke 7:35, Luke 11:49, Matthew 23:34, and 1 Corinthians 1:30.
This identification is also found in the first of the "O Antiphons" that have traditionally been used as part of Daily Prayer during the week before Christmas. (These are the verses on which the hymn "Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel" is based.) For December 17 (but of course you're free to make use of this at some other time, like this coming Sunday) the antiphon is O Sapientia:
"O Wisdom, proceeding for the mouth of the Most High, pervading and
permeating all creation, mightily ordering all things: Come and teach us the way
of prudence." (Lutheran Book of Worship [Augsburg, 1978], p. 174)
Carlos Wilton responds: First, Chris, I'd like to publicly welcome you as an Immediate Word guest writer. I have known your writing and your sermons for some years, and am impressed by what you have to share with us this week. Particularly interesting for me is your Canadian perspective. Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, acknowledges that one of the greatest of God's gifts is "to see ourselves as others see us." Your comments on Canadian reactions to President Bush's visit help citizens of the USA like myself to see ourselves as others see us -- which is always a valuable perspective, whether or not we happen to agree personally with what those others are saying.
I like where you're going with the spectator idea. Is faith a spectator sport? Jesus thinks not -- but even so, a great many people in our culture do seem to treat Christianity as something to be observed, rather than something to be participated in. In leading worship, we pastors constantly struggle against the entertainment mindset that threatens to creep in. Congregations, of course, are not audiences, and church musicians (and preachers!) are not performers -- yet all too many people, as a matter of everyday practice, treat their worship leaders as such. They applaud choirs and soloists -- or yearn to do so, if such is not the tradition in their church -- and say to the preacher at the door, "Nice job!" or "That was a good sermon," and nothing more. An effective sermon should impel listeners to action, but too often the only response is, "I liked it" or "I disliked it." Beyond the realm of worship, too many people approach Christian faith itself as a spectator sport. Faith -- in this distorted view -- is not so much something people do, as something they observe, or perhaps think about. It becomes largely an intellectual and emotional exercise, affecting the way Christians think and feel, but having little impact on their active life.
Ironically, the message Jesus asks John's followers to take back to their master is a spectator's report: "Tell John what you hear and see...." Yet the implication is that no one can witness mighty acts such as these and remain unchanged. When the blind see, lepers are cleansed, and so on, those who observe these things are compelled to decide for or against the one who performs such wonders. There's a lot of emphasis, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, on "holiday entertainment." Great sacred musical works like Handel's Messiah and Vivaldi's Gloria are often presented in concert format -- an aesthetic as much as a spiritual experience. Well-loved Christmas carols, written and cherished by the church for centuries as hymns, are often relegated to the role of background music for shopping, Christmas parties, or whatever. The temptation to turn faith into a spectator sport is particularly intense during Advent and Christmas.
As Jesus sends John's disciples back to him, proclaiming what they have heard and seen, so too he sends us back to the larger culture, proclaiming what we have heard and seen. If it is truly Jesus the Messiah we are hearing and seeing, we cannot remain spectators. We must step onto the playing field.
Related Illustrations
From Chris Ewing:
A participant in a "Dancing with the Text" session of Aha! told of a friend who many years ago, had told all her loved ones she did not want any things for Christmas. "What I would like from you," she said, "is a story. Tell me a story about something that has happened to you over the year. Not a year-end review of everything your family has done, but a real, gritty story of your life with God, something that changed you this year. Write me a story about something that happened in your soul."
-- Aha! 14/1 (Oct/Nov/Dec 2004), p. 49
Homily Service 22/9 (December 1989, p. 28) suggested that, like John, "we intuit the messiah's reign has begun, but we find ourselves in prison.... An example of the pain of slow restoration is the recovery of mental patients ... One cannot force a depression to lift, just as anyone cannot force the kingdom to come...."
From Carlos Wilton:
A November 26, 2004, news story by the Associated Press tells how Anaheim, California's annual "Jingle Bell Jump" -- Santa parachuting out of an airplane to land at a shopping center -- has been cancelled for a second year in a row, because Homeland Security regulations do not permit airplanes to fly that close to Disneyland (the renowned amusement park is considered an ideal target for terrorists). Ryan Williams, promotions director for the shopping center's owner, doesn't buy that line of reasoning, and plans to protest. "The terrorists are not involved in any way whatsoever," he said. "This is Santa landing with his elves." Williams has already begun his campaign now to get the "Jingle Bell Jump" restored for next year. He plans to circulate a petition asking Congress to reconsider the law, and is distributing signs that read, "Let Santa land in 2005."
"What did you go out to the shopping mall to look at? A man in a red suit floating on the wind?"
***
In October 1989, the city of San Francisco was struck by a powerful earthquake. Huge cracks appeared in the walls of Candlestick Park, where thousands of fans were waiting to watch the third game of the World Series. Sections of freeway twisted and buckled; some collapsed. At least twenty-seven fires broke out across the city; the largest, in the Marina District, consumed dozens of buildings. At the edge of the Marina District, a crowd of curiosity-seekers gathered, watching the firefighters as they battled the flames. After a few minutes of this, a police officer came up to the crowd and began shouting at them. "What have you come to look at?" he said to them. "This is no time to be standing around. There's been an earthquake. You all have work to do! Go home. Fill your bathtubs with water (if you still have water). Prepare yourselves to live for the next several days without electricity. The sun's going to set in another hour; your time is running out. The firefighters will do their job here: now you go home and do yours!"
That police officer spoke truth, as John the Baptist and Jesus spoke truth. He spoke with urgency, as John the Baptist and Jesus spoke with urgency. His message, like that of John and Jesus, was what the people truly needed to hear. What's the message you and I most need to hear, in these ever-shortening days of Advent? Is it a message of spending and partying and conspicuous consumption? Or is it a message of repentance and forgiveness and faithfulness?
***
A couple of years ago, David Edwards, an Immediate Word reader, responded to the weekly resource with these words, which are relevant to the issue of faith as a spectator sport:
The number one idol in today's society is entertainment. We love to be entertained and we will go anywhere or do just about anything to be entertained. Sadly, this has crept into the church. We want our so-called "worship" to be entertaining, so we have given up on hymns with their theological depth and adopted "worship" choruses that are light and airy, fun to sing, and that appeal to our emotions. We want sermons to be short and happy, letting us go from "church" feeling all warm and fuzzy and loved. We don't want to hear about God's holiness, God's justice, sin and death and hell. We want the crucifixion to be a golden cross without blood and agony. We want our pastors to do all the work of ministry while we sit on the sidelines being entertained. We want church to be fun and sociable. And we want worship to be "disposable." By that, I mean that we would rather watch three hours of televised football than sit in church for one hour. We shuttle our children to Sunday Little League games, Sunday children's leagues of football, softball, soccer, and whatever, rather than take them to Sunday School. If schedules conflict, we choose sports over church. To me, the most depressing days in the church year are Super Bowl Sunday, the World Series, and the NBA playoffs. Our people would rather talk about their favorite team and sports hero than to talk about Jesus. We would rather wear an "I Like Mike" T-shirt than a WWJD bracelet....
-- David Edwards, responding to a segment of The Immediate Word, 10/07/02
***
For some time now I have been troubled by the seeming disappearance of any robust alternative to the pervasive culture of late capitalism, whether in the church or in the society at large. We are drowning in floods of consumer goods and are drenched in showers of media images. We live a smorgasbord culture in which everything is interesting and nothing really matters. We have lost a vision of the good life, and our hopes for the future are emptied of moral content. Instead of purposefully walking to determinate places, we are aimlessly floating with random currents. Of course, we do get exercised by issues and engage in bitter feuds over them. But that makes us even less capable of resisting the pull of the larger culture, a resistance that would take shape in formulating and embodying a coherent alternative way of life.... If we can neither state what the gospel is nor have a clear notion of what constitutes the good life, we will more or less simply float along, like jellyfish with the tide. True, a belief in our ability to shape the wider culture is woven into the fabric of our identity. So we complain and act. But in the absence of determinate beliefs and practices, our criticism and activism will be little more than one more way of floating.
-- Miroslav Volf, "Floating Along?" in The Christian Century, April 5, 2000
***
There are many reasons for the failure to comprehend Christ's teaching ... but the chief cause which has engendered all these misconceptions is this: that Christ's teaching is considered to be such as can be accepted, or not accepted, without changing one's life.
-- Leo Tolstoy
***
Christianity has been made so much into a consolation that people have completely forgotten that it is first and foremost a demand.
-- Søren Kierkegaard
***
A tourist in New Mexico visited the Santuario de Chimayo during Holy Week. This is a place to which thousands of pilgrims come, some of them walking hundreds of miles to be healed, to give thanks for healing, or simply to walk in solidarity with the suffering of Christ. The tourist asked a Hispanic friend to suggest a good spot along the road from which to view the procession. He responded with mild horror. "This not something you view," he said to the tourist, "this is something you do."
Worship Resources
By Julia Ross Strope
CALL TO WORSHIP (based on Isaiah 35)
Leader: Welcome to this place of rest and beauty. If you've come to express your thanks to the Creator and to experience hope, you've come to the right place! Long ago, Poet Isaiah sang his expectation for rest and happy times:
The desert will rejoice
and the flowers will bloom in the wilderness.
Everyone will see God's splendor and divine power.
God will give strength to hands that are tired
and to knees that tremble with weakness.
Everyone who is discouraged will be no longer be anxious!
People: What lyrics! We, too, anticipate shouting with joy and traveling in safety; we want to be free from sorrow and grief. We want rest.
Leader: Our hope is in God, Creator of the Universe and Creator of each of us!
People: We look forward to Christmas day -- a reminder that the Holy One is among us.
PRAYER OF ADORATION
Holy One, our calendars say it's December. The celebration of your coming to earth as an infant is here. We expect to give and receive gifts; we anticipate wonderful feelings of pleasure. As we go about our preparations, keep us mindful of angel songs and star sightings. Thank you for the gift of life, now and for eternity. Thank you for coming to us in Jesus. Amen.
CALL TO CONFESSION (based on James 5:7-10)
Scriptures remind us that we have a tendency to be impatient and to complain about other people. In these next few moments, each of us has opportunity to be aware of internal struggle and judgment. First we will make a group confession and then, turn to God personally.
COMMUNITY CONFESSION
Living God, though you are mystery to us, we do feel your presence. With your gentle Spirit, reveal what separates us from one another; show us what minimizes our best selves; point out what saps our strength and hope. Pull us to action when we are reticent to get involved. Give us high hopes; keep our minds alert to your activity around and in us. Thank you for your compassion. Amen.
WORDS OF GRACE
The Holy One is gracious. God hears our prayers and guides us to different ways of believing and behaving. As we prepare to celebrate God's coming to earth as a baby for the two thousandth time, notice how you are pregnant with divine love. It may be different from what you expect.
ADVENT CAROL/HYMN SUGGESTIONS
"The Desert Shall Rejoice" (Isaiah 35). This carol is not well known; it works well with a solo voice singing the stanzas and the congregation responding with the affirmation, "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose." It is available in the Presbyterian Hymnal, (1990), 18.
"People, Look East"
"Comfort, Comfort You My People"
"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"
"On Jordan's Bank The Baptist's Cry"
"The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came"
AN AFFIRMATION, with Advent themes
The world seems to be self-destructing and God is calling us, and all Creation, to prepare for change. In Jesus of Nazareth, born to Mary and cared for by Joseph, we hear the hopes of God for peace, compassion, and justice. By the Holy Spirit, we are filled with power to make this world a safe and loving home. Together, we participate in making God's rule palpable. We are not alone! Thanks be to God!
OFFERTORY STATEMENT
We are individuals with our own expectations. Each of us breathes deeply and receives life. Our thanks to God for our talents and opportunities shows up in our tithes and offerings.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
God of all the world, with grateful hearts, we give you what we can. Amen.
INTERCESSORY PRAYERS
Light for living, thank you for the stories of scriptures, which teach us how to live in a way that satisfies us and empowers us to walk with truth, hope, and love.
Often our expectations for wholeness and for walking close to you are shaped unconsciously by another generation's experiences. Our sense of what is real is often determined by the politics of our culture. Speak to us, again. Open our eyes to what is possible when Christ lives within us!
Hope of the world, see the sorrow and suffering throughout this global village. End the causes of war; cease the belligerent preoccupation with terrorizing other human beings and animals. Gather to yourself the anger and grief, the fear and stress that haunt the minds of oppressed people. Help us avoid participating in the greed and arrogance of politicians and society. We pray for peace within ourselves and among all peoples.
Healing God, body and soul we ache to be whole, to be healed in mind and psyche. We hear Jesus asking his friends what they expected and we realize that some of our expectations about the wildernesses of life and satisfying living are wounding in themselves.
Free us from unhealthy habits and addictions.
Recreate our expectations for peace and justice.
Give us good thoughts to help our bodies toward healing. Guide health-care providers with insight and keen listening. Keep us safely in the palm of your hand.
Spirit Divine of temple and church, mosque and dome, look with compassion upon your people's self-centeredness. Open ears with hospitality and knowledge; dismiss weapons and ignorance.
Come again to this earth with hope and grace.
Come again in Jesus. Amen.
BENEDICTION/CHARGE
About your expectations for this coming week:
On Monday, may beauty surprise you.
On Tuesday, may beauty reveal God's love.
On Wednesday, amid the stress and blaring of Advent, may beauty bring harmony and hope.
When beauty shows up on Thursday, chuckle!
When beauty on Friday points to grace on the streets of (name of town), rejoice.
On Saturday, may beauty bring you rest for your weary bones and thoughts.
And when next Sunday comes, look in the mirror and see beauty in your eyes.
And now, may the Holy Spirit surround you and give you energy for the tasks you must do outside these walls.
Go in peace.
A Children's Sermon
The joy of our favorite room
Object: a lamp, a picture, a candy dish, a newspaper or magazine, a rocking chair, and other small items that come from a room in a home
Text: vv. 2-3 -- When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" (Matthew 11:2-11)
Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you have a favorite room in your house? (let them answer) Which one is it? (let them answer) Some of you like your bedroom, some like the kitchen, and others like the family room. What makes these rooms special to you? (let them answer)
No one said they like the room because of the walls, ceiling, or floor, did they? They like the bed, the toys, or the television. I brought some things that I have in my favorite room at home. This is a rocker that I love to sit in when I am reading the newspaper or a book. Here's a lamp that I turn on when I want to read. Here's a candy dish I keep nearby for a little snack. The room is my favorite because of all the enjoyment these things bring to me.
Last week we talked a little bit about John the Baptist. John was arrested by the king and put in prison. While in prison, John thought a lot about Jesus. He believed Jesus was the Messiah. But John was impatient and wanted Jesus to get rid of the king. The Messiah was supposed to raise a great army and rule the nation like other great kings of Israel like David and Solomon. Instead, Jesus was walking around by the Sea of Galilee and talking to people.
When John's disciples found Jesus they asked him if he really was the Messiah, or if they should look for another one. Jesus knew that John was impatient and wanted a great army, a palace, and a crown for Jesus to wear. But Jesus answered John's disciples and sent them back to the prison to report to John. Jesus told them the blind were being given their sight, the crippled were walking, the very sick people were being healed, and the deaf could now hear. When John the Baptist heard these words he knew that he had introduced the right Messiah into this world.
Jesus did not just come to us looking like a room with walls, ceiling, and floor. Jesus brought with him things like chairs, lamps, magazines, and candy dishes that make the room our favorite. Jesus did not just forgive sin, he taught people how to live without sin and to love God. God's plan was for Jesus to come into the world and show it the love God has for everyone and everything. He makes life warm and joyful and brings peace.
When you go home today and look around your favorite room, you will know the joy that Jesus brings to each of our lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 12, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
