Expecting
Sermon
It's News To Me: Messages of Hope for Those Who Haven't Heard
Cycle A Gospel Sermons For Advent, Christmas, Epiphany
When a woman is pregnant, we often say she is "expecting." That is a good term for it, because she's expecting or anticipating that a baby will be born at some appointed time in the future, and along with that baby will come a whole wealth of other expectations. There will be expectations about who the baby will look like, and what that baby will be like. There will be expectations about the baby's future -- the kind of life he or she will live; the kind of person the child will become. As V. S. Naipaul once said, "One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas -- and you have to work through it all."1
How true that is! Expectations do play a major role in our lives. Even if we're just doing something as ordinary as driving down the road, we have expectations. We expect the other drivers to obey the traffic laws, and remain on their side of the highway, and we expect the same of ourselves. If we're gardeners, and plant some seeds, we have expectations. We expect those seeds to take root and grow and produce.
The same thing is true in many other situations as well. There are expectations of the kind of grades we'll get in school, or how we'll do in athletic endeavors. A teacher in the classroom has expectations of how students will learn and behave, and students have their expectations of what will happen in the class. The same is true in the workplace. Both employers and workers have their expectations of the work to be done, and what it takes to succeed. Anytime we're in a relationship with another person, most of us have some expectations of what that relationship should be, and the needs that are to be met as a part of that connection.
The issue of expectations does create a bit of a quandary. There are times when holding high expectations is a good thing. Having high expectations can often help us reach beyond what we thought possible. However, expectations can be tricky, and sometimes they do just the opposite. There are expectations that tend to hold us back or limit us or keep us down.
It's like something I read about flea trainers and what they have observed in the course of training fleas. Apparently, if we want to train fleas, we do it by putting them in a cardboard box with a top on it. The fleas will jump up and hit the top of the box over and over and over again. If we watch carefully, we will discover that, although the fleas continue to jump, they stop jumping high enough to hit the top. And then when the top of the box is removed, the fleas continue to jump, but they will not jump out of the box. What's the reason for this? They have conditioned themselves to jump just so high, and that's all they will do.
Expectations can be limiting and restrictive, and they can also blind us. We may be so convinced that what we expect is real, that we fail to see what actually is happening around us. Dr. Rachel Remen, in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, talks about such a scenario. She was caring for a twelve-year-old patient named Carlos, who had a dangerously low hemoglobin level. It seems that his marrow had suddenly stopped making red blood cells. The outlook was not good. In desperation, Remen tried an experimental treatment which offered a slim hope of jump-starting the marrow. It required massive doses of testosterone. The once-delightful, animated, lively twelve-year-old became sullen and short-tempered, but because his life was at stake, the treatment continued.
Remen followed his treatment closely, and monitored the results of the hemoglobin testing, which at that point in time, had a range of accuracy of 0.2. His first test was 6.0 -- the same as it had been in the hospital. Then it went to 6.2, still within the error of the test method. After six weeks of the treatment, it became obvious to Dr. Remen that the medicine was not working, and it was only a matter of time before the young man would die. Week after week, she looked at the current test results, and compared them to the previous week's results. She was so certain of his prognosis, that his hemoglobin had risen to 7.4 before she realized what was happening. Even then, when Remen gave the youth's mother the bad news, his mom leaned forward, touched the doctor's arm, and said, "Doctor, my boy is better, my boy is getting well!"2 Remen had been expecting the young man to die, and that's all she saw. She had not been able to see that he was actually getting well. Like Dr. Remen, our expectations can sometimes blind us to reality.
Perhaps that's what's going on in the Bible passage we have for today. The people of the day were expecting someone -- the Messiah -- to come to deliver them from their suffering. It's very possible that their expectation was blinding them to the one who was right there in their midst. In fact, even John the Baptist, who had baptized Jesus, was now in prison, and seemed to be wondering if he had it all wrong. Jesus didn't seem to be fulfilling the expectations he had of what the savior was to be. Jesus didn't exactly fit the picture of what they expected in the Messiah, and he wasn't doing things the way they anticipated.
That was, in fact, true. Jesus was not acting in mighty, powerful ways. He hadn't amassed an army, nor had he broken into the political scene. Instead, he seemed to be working one by one, acting out of love, and changing lives in the process. His words and deeds cut across traditional ideas of what life, love, and faith were all about, and caused many to wonder. He just simply wasn't what people expected in terms of a savior.
This reality causes me to wonder how I would have responded had I lived during the time of Jesus. Like many of you, I often get my heart set on a certain thing, and that's what I look for, that's what I expect to find or experience. Very often, my expectations act like blinders, and I have difficulty seeing the truth that's all around me. I wonder if I could have shaken free of my expectations to see what was really happening with Jesus.
The same thing is true when it comes to this time just before Christmas. We all have expectations of what will happen this year, but I wonder if our expectations are blinding us to what's really going on? Will we see the Christ Child being born anew, or will we miss it?
I'd like to think that we could set aside all our preconceived notions about what Christmas is like, and what it's all about, and be open to see what is going on in our lives. I'd like to hope you and I could be like the little boy who was playing the role of the innkeeper in a re-enactment of the birth of Jesus. He was troubled by having to play the role, because he was the only one who had to turn Mary and Joseph away, telling them there was no room for them in the inn.
The time came for the play to be presented and it began with Joseph knocking on the door of the inn. When the young boy, turned innkeeper, opened the door, he couldn't restrain himself. He shouted at the top of his voice, "Come on in! I've been expecting you!"
May that be so for each of us this Christmas.
Closing Word
Dr. Remen talks about her home on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Northern California. When she moved there from Manhattan, she planted fifteen rose bushes, and expected to have a picturesque rose garden. However, after the first blooms, the roses started disappearing. Finally, she got up at dawn one morning to see what was eating the roses. She was astounded to find a magnificent 6-point stag browsing among the roses, and then choosing one of her Queen Elizabeths for breakfast! She commented: "I had thought I was planting rosebushes in order to have roses. It now seems I was actually planting rosebushes in order to have half an hour of silence with this magical animal every morning and every evening."3
As we look toward Christmas, I hope and pray we can expect more, much more than we ever imagined. Be ready to expect the unexpected, and go in peace. Amen.
____________
1. V. S. Naipaul, Quotable Quotes (Pleasantville, New York: Reader's Digest, 1997), p. 67.
2. "Sleight of Hand," "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," "Surprised by Meaning," from Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., copyright (c) 1996 by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. Used by permission of Putnam Berkley, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
3. Ibid. Used by permission.
How true that is! Expectations do play a major role in our lives. Even if we're just doing something as ordinary as driving down the road, we have expectations. We expect the other drivers to obey the traffic laws, and remain on their side of the highway, and we expect the same of ourselves. If we're gardeners, and plant some seeds, we have expectations. We expect those seeds to take root and grow and produce.
The same thing is true in many other situations as well. There are expectations of the kind of grades we'll get in school, or how we'll do in athletic endeavors. A teacher in the classroom has expectations of how students will learn and behave, and students have their expectations of what will happen in the class. The same is true in the workplace. Both employers and workers have their expectations of the work to be done, and what it takes to succeed. Anytime we're in a relationship with another person, most of us have some expectations of what that relationship should be, and the needs that are to be met as a part of that connection.
The issue of expectations does create a bit of a quandary. There are times when holding high expectations is a good thing. Having high expectations can often help us reach beyond what we thought possible. However, expectations can be tricky, and sometimes they do just the opposite. There are expectations that tend to hold us back or limit us or keep us down.
It's like something I read about flea trainers and what they have observed in the course of training fleas. Apparently, if we want to train fleas, we do it by putting them in a cardboard box with a top on it. The fleas will jump up and hit the top of the box over and over and over again. If we watch carefully, we will discover that, although the fleas continue to jump, they stop jumping high enough to hit the top. And then when the top of the box is removed, the fleas continue to jump, but they will not jump out of the box. What's the reason for this? They have conditioned themselves to jump just so high, and that's all they will do.
Expectations can be limiting and restrictive, and they can also blind us. We may be so convinced that what we expect is real, that we fail to see what actually is happening around us. Dr. Rachel Remen, in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, talks about such a scenario. She was caring for a twelve-year-old patient named Carlos, who had a dangerously low hemoglobin level. It seems that his marrow had suddenly stopped making red blood cells. The outlook was not good. In desperation, Remen tried an experimental treatment which offered a slim hope of jump-starting the marrow. It required massive doses of testosterone. The once-delightful, animated, lively twelve-year-old became sullen and short-tempered, but because his life was at stake, the treatment continued.
Remen followed his treatment closely, and monitored the results of the hemoglobin testing, which at that point in time, had a range of accuracy of 0.2. His first test was 6.0 -- the same as it had been in the hospital. Then it went to 6.2, still within the error of the test method. After six weeks of the treatment, it became obvious to Dr. Remen that the medicine was not working, and it was only a matter of time before the young man would die. Week after week, she looked at the current test results, and compared them to the previous week's results. She was so certain of his prognosis, that his hemoglobin had risen to 7.4 before she realized what was happening. Even then, when Remen gave the youth's mother the bad news, his mom leaned forward, touched the doctor's arm, and said, "Doctor, my boy is better, my boy is getting well!"2 Remen had been expecting the young man to die, and that's all she saw. She had not been able to see that he was actually getting well. Like Dr. Remen, our expectations can sometimes blind us to reality.
Perhaps that's what's going on in the Bible passage we have for today. The people of the day were expecting someone -- the Messiah -- to come to deliver them from their suffering. It's very possible that their expectation was blinding them to the one who was right there in their midst. In fact, even John the Baptist, who had baptized Jesus, was now in prison, and seemed to be wondering if he had it all wrong. Jesus didn't seem to be fulfilling the expectations he had of what the savior was to be. Jesus didn't exactly fit the picture of what they expected in the Messiah, and he wasn't doing things the way they anticipated.
That was, in fact, true. Jesus was not acting in mighty, powerful ways. He hadn't amassed an army, nor had he broken into the political scene. Instead, he seemed to be working one by one, acting out of love, and changing lives in the process. His words and deeds cut across traditional ideas of what life, love, and faith were all about, and caused many to wonder. He just simply wasn't what people expected in terms of a savior.
This reality causes me to wonder how I would have responded had I lived during the time of Jesus. Like many of you, I often get my heart set on a certain thing, and that's what I look for, that's what I expect to find or experience. Very often, my expectations act like blinders, and I have difficulty seeing the truth that's all around me. I wonder if I could have shaken free of my expectations to see what was really happening with Jesus.
The same thing is true when it comes to this time just before Christmas. We all have expectations of what will happen this year, but I wonder if our expectations are blinding us to what's really going on? Will we see the Christ Child being born anew, or will we miss it?
I'd like to think that we could set aside all our preconceived notions about what Christmas is like, and what it's all about, and be open to see what is going on in our lives. I'd like to hope you and I could be like the little boy who was playing the role of the innkeeper in a re-enactment of the birth of Jesus. He was troubled by having to play the role, because he was the only one who had to turn Mary and Joseph away, telling them there was no room for them in the inn.
The time came for the play to be presented and it began with Joseph knocking on the door of the inn. When the young boy, turned innkeeper, opened the door, he couldn't restrain himself. He shouted at the top of his voice, "Come on in! I've been expecting you!"
May that be so for each of us this Christmas.
Closing Word
Dr. Remen talks about her home on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Northern California. When she moved there from Manhattan, she planted fifteen rose bushes, and expected to have a picturesque rose garden. However, after the first blooms, the roses started disappearing. Finally, she got up at dawn one morning to see what was eating the roses. She was astounded to find a magnificent 6-point stag browsing among the roses, and then choosing one of her Queen Elizabeths for breakfast! She commented: "I had thought I was planting rosebushes in order to have roses. It now seems I was actually planting rosebushes in order to have half an hour of silence with this magical animal every morning and every evening."3
As we look toward Christmas, I hope and pray we can expect more, much more than we ever imagined. Be ready to expect the unexpected, and go in peace. Amen.
____________
1. V. S. Naipaul, Quotable Quotes (Pleasantville, New York: Reader's Digest, 1997), p. 67.
2. "Sleight of Hand," "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," "Surprised by Meaning," from Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., copyright (c) 1996 by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. Used by permission of Putnam Berkley, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
3. Ibid. Used by permission.
