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December 16, 2007 Third Sunday of Advent
Joke: Three buddies die in a car and go to heaven for an orientation. They are all asked, "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?"

The first guy says, "I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor of my time, and a great family man."

The second guy says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher which made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow."

The last guy replies, "I would like to hear them say, ‘LOOK, HE'S MOVING!!!!!'"

Joke: After a preacher died and went to heaven, he noticed that a New York cab driver had been awarded a higher place than he.

"I don't understand," he complained to God. "I devoted my entire life to my congregation."
"Our policy here in heaven is to reward results," God explained. "Now, was your congregation well attuned to you whenever you gave a sermon?"

"Well," the minister had to admit, "Some in the congregation fell asleep from time to time."
"Exactly," said God, "and when people rode in this man's taxi, they not only stayed wake, they even prayed."

This morning on the 3rd Sunday of Advent we want to continue to stay awake and pray, so that we can see and hear what God is up. So that we can see and hear what holiness looks like, so that we can keep moving – to borrow from the imagery of Isaiah — on the Holy Way Highway. The one Jesus lived on, the one he referred to in the passage of scripture we’re about to read together in Matthew 11:2-6, what he became if you will.

Now if you are able would you please stand for the reading of God’s word.

*Matthew 11:2-6 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" 4Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the 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. 6And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

Sermon: “People who come to walk in the footsteps of Jesus are not doing it,” is what a Palestinian brother in Christ said to our Student Ministry Director Eric Colby. “Jesus stopped to help those in need.”

This is where I want us to begin this morning, as we look more closely at this story about John the Baptist and Jesus. I want to us to begin with this image of a Palestinian Christian telling Eric Colby what he has seen and heard – and as importantly what he has not seen and heard – in those coming to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

I want us to begin here because of how this story fits into our scripture story this morning. John the Baptist is in prison and he hears what Jesus is doing – and as importantly he hears what Jesus is not doing. His questions give him away: 1. Are you the one who is to come? 2. Or are we to wait for another?

These are stunning questions coming from John. Just a week ago when we heard from John in Matthew 3, he was so sure that Jesus was the one comes as “a figure of power,“ says Dale Bruner. “John was convinced that Jesus was the one who would bring judgment. The one who was coming with fire, with an ax in hand to chop down the unfruitful trees and a shovel in the other hand to sift the chaff in the granary.”

But now John is in prison. His days of preparing the way for Jesus, of preparing the way for humanity to recognize the Messiah are numbered, because of his religious zeal for righteousness. He dared criticize the king who was sleeping with his brother’s wife Herodias. Eventually John paid the price with his life in a gruesome death, his head delivered on a platter to the daughter of Herodias.

John is feeling defeated. Doubt is creeping in. He is alone and discouraged. He has heard nothing about Jesus gathering up forces of power to come and rescue him.

Jesus maybe you’re not the one I thought you were. Jesus where is your power, the power that I referred, the power that I first felt as a child in my mother’s womb. They told me when I heard the voice of your mother Mary coming to visit my mother Elizabeth I leapt for joy in the womb.

Thirty years later I prepared the way for your ministry shouting, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” I told them you were coming behind with weapons in hand. I told them you would be a militant Messiah, that you who would take control and restore righteousness to Israel, with judgment and fire. You are so different than what I expected. Are you the one? Or are we to wait for another?

You might linger in these questions for a moment, for they are great Advent questions to reflect on as we wait and pray and listen: “Jesus are you the one? Or should I follow something else?”

You might linger in these questions for even in his doubt John is preparing the way for us to make room for Jesus beyond our expectations of what we think Jesus, or anybody else in our lives for that matter, should be.

I stumbled across a great 100-year old Christmas story from The Thoughtful Christian that I wish I would’ve know about when my children were young called, Why the Chimes Rang, by Raymond MacDonald Allen.

“Once upon a time,” the story begins, “a long way from here, there was a very large church situated on a hill. The church was so long you could scarcely see to the other end.” There was a huge organ, and ivy winding up the tower. Rumor had it special Christmas bells were housed at the top. But they had not been rung in years.

You see tradition was worshippers would bring their offerings for the Christ child at the annual Christmas service. Any time a truly great gift was placed on the alter, the chimes would ring, but it hadn’t happened for many years. Two children Pedro and Little Brother lived in the small village. One Christmas the boys snuck away to go to the Christmas service, only to stumble upon a dying woman lying in the snow. Despite tearful objects from Little Brother Pedro said, “She will die if no one cares for her. I will rub her to keep her from freezing, and give her what food I have left in my pocket. You must see everything twice, once for you and once for me. And if you get the chance, slip up to the alter and place this little silver piece down when no one is looking.”

As the service began people brought fantastic gifts. The king even placed his crown on the alter. But there weren’t any chimes. People began to murmur, “Perhaps there really aren’t any chimes after all.” But just as the minister got ready to give the benediction, Little Brother finally made his way up to the alter and laid Pedro’s coin there. Of course you know what happened next. The people heard “a sound sweeter than any they had ever heard.”

Nothing could satisfy the heightened expectations of the chimes ringing, until this holy gift of coin and living sacrifice came together, until someone following in the footsteps of Jesus stopped to help someone in need. I wonder in the midst of the heightened expectations of this season can you see and hear the truth in this story of the ringing chime bells?

When Jesus hears John’s questions he sends a rather cryptic message back to John. He quotes partially from this passage in Isaiah that Amber read earlier in our service. “Tell John what you see and hear, the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk.” Isn’t that beautiful language? Tell John what you see and hear! “The lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” And then Jesus says, “Blessed are those who take no offense at me.”

In other words if you’re wondering if Jesus is the one, or if you should wait for someone or something else to follow wake up, pay attention, open your eyes and ears so that you can see and hear what Jesus is up to beyond your own narrow expectations.

Last week I told you a story about my father and me – about our journey into breaking the cycle of sons hating their father. I told you how unexpected it was, that I didn’t even know at the time as a 15-year old that repentance and forgiveness were happening. Truthfully I didn’t think it was possible. I also mentioned how difficult it has been for him to deal with my God of grace, and for me to deal with his God of wrath. In fact we’d finally agreed not to talk about this [God] anymore. It was simply too painful.

Now I’d like to tell you the rest of the story (smile). We finally had a breakthrough on this right after I’d graduated from Gonzaga University. I was home again – this time as the first person to receive a Masters degree. We’d just sat down to the dinner table. My dad didn’t waste any time. “So now that you’re a learned man, what do you think heaven is going to be like?” I can’t tell you how discouraged I was to hear this question. I felt defeated, alone, there was nowhere go hide. “I thought I told you in no uncertain terms, that we were not going to talk about this any longer,” is what I was about to say. And then I caught the gleam in his eye.

So we started talking, eventually it did get around to our God (smile). I discovered some of the fears my father had about what he had been told about spending an eternity in heaven. As I was listening to him I remembered how painful it was a child to hear that God either loved or damned someone the minute they were born, and how holiness was about following a narrow, prescribed set of rigid religious rules that were aimed at controlling behavior.

I was able to tell to my Dad about one of my favorite passages of scripture, that I didn’t even know existed in the Bible until I met Dale Bruner in 1984 – the one in Micah 6:8: “He has shown you O human what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with the Lord thy God.”

Do you know what I was thinking about during that conversation?
So this is why I went to seminary – for this moment! I’d always had this sense that I had to go to seminary, and I was convinced that Gonzaga was where I needed to be – but this was totally unexpected. I thought I was going to seminary to make a career change, so that I could be come a powerful preacher (laughter). But instead I got this gift, because now I was a learned man, and it was worth every penny and every doubt I paid for and encountered while in seminary. I got to receive more sight together with my dad. I got to be present when my dad and I heard each other in new ways.

Do you what else I was thinking? Back when I wasn’t completely sure if Jesus was the one, back when I was wondering if perhaps I should find something else to follow, I woke up. It began with this act of repentance that I told you about last week when I was fifteen years old, and heard that my father crying, wondering if I hated him like he hated his father.
The truth there have been stages of my waking up, of my seeing and hearing beyond my narrow expectations of Jesus. As I was receiving these gifts of grace in this conversation with my dad, I remembered there was a time when I was terrified because I realized I didn’t know if I would cry at my father’s funeral. It is part of what brought be back home to the Northwest, to see if God could restore the roots, without the ax.

Wherever you find yourself lingering in these questions, “Jesus are you the one? Or should I wait or find someone or something else to follow?” – move along the Holy Way Highway.
As you enter into what God is doing around you, pay attention to what God wants do for others through you. May what you see and hear blow away all of the narrow and heightened expectations of this season.

A reporter once asked Mother Theresa who like John had he own moments of darkness and doubt – “Why are you so holy?” She snapped right back, “You talk as if holiness were abnormal. To be holy is normal. To be anything else is abnormal.”

Open yourself to being human and holy, God in you, using you. Joy to the World, The Lord is Come, Let every heart prepare him room, as Heaven and Nature sing! Amen.

Please pray with me: God bless our world, and all of our relationships, through our hearing this living word.