Are You the One

Are You the One?   (based on Matthew 11:2-11


I stumbled across a quote from the great (and admittedly controversial) stage and film director Elia Kazan who, in his autobiography, summed up his philosophy of life with a few simple words: “Wonder is our need today, not information.” I am forced to admit this is not a popular philosophy. We are products of a different culture and a different way to thinking. We demand understanding. We want clear explanations for everything. We measure our progress by our scientific knowledge and technological no-how. What works? We ask. And what will be in it for us? Pragmatists, materialists, even in our religious beliefs, we are not as concerned about how we might best live our lives today as we are in how much we can assure ourselves of salvation and eternal life in the hereafter. To counter that, I would suggest we re-examine this interchange between John and Jesus.

John, please remember, was sent as the prophet who would foretell the arrival of the messiah and the new kingdom of heaven for which the Jews had longed for centuries. He had a following of his own. He had met Jesus at the river Jordan and baptized him, a sign of passing on his prophetic mantle to the new prophet of God. Surely he must have known who Jesus was and trusted him more than anyone else who ever met him. But John is in prison. His followers are being torn between faithfulness to John and curiosity about Jesus. John succumbs to doubt, uncertainty, wonder. He needs reassurance and asks for it.

In this sense, John is our stand-in. We too know prisons. Perhaps not with bars and guards, but we know the cold, damp confinement of fear, uncertainty. Perhaps we are struggling with financial problems. Perhaps we are in a relationship that is eroding our self-worth. Perhaps we are battling some addictive behavior. Perhaps we are in the grip of a relentless disease that seems to have no cure. All these, and God knows how many more forms of prison can trap us and leave us feeling helpless and lost.

Do we wonder? Do we question? Do we face a black and empty sky, and ache for some security, some place to stand that will not let us down? Of course we do. We would scarcely be human if we did not. I’ve quoted him before, but he keeps coming back to mind: the poor young Jew who, in a time of devastation, having just been told he and his neighbors must leave their home village in three days, cries out to the rabbi, “We’ve been looking for the messiah all our lives. Wouldn’t now be a good time for him to come?” We may not be Jews, but we do look for a savior nonetheless. John thought he had found him. But had he? He did not know. And he had met Jesus, some accounts claim they were even related. Would not he - of all people - be certain?

My first word to you today: do not be dismayed that you have your moments of uncertainty. You are not failing your Christianity because you can’t see the clear road ahead. You are no less Christ’s friend because you find yourself in you own private prison. Send for help. Ask. See if God cannot give you help at a time you need it most.

But now notice the answer Jesus gives. Rather than reply, “Of course I am” as we might desperately want him to do, he says “Tell John what you see happening.” This is scarcely the kind of answer we were looking for - or John either, I imagine. Explanation, education, clarification, instruction - this is what we expect, what we want. Instead, Jesus says nothing about himself. He doesn’t even say explicitly “I am giving sight to the blind, I am curing leprosy, I am raising the dead.” He simply points to these miracles and - by implication - points us to a renewed trust in God who is doing these things. The Kingdom of God is that gathering of trusting folk who embody the presence of a very much alive and active and involved and caring and loving God, right here and right now.

This is a message too little heard or remembered. We are quick to look for someone to rescue us. I will be the first to confess this. Give me something to deal with, a strange ache or pain in my body, a new grief at the loss of a friend, a fear that overwhelms me as I face some new dilemma I can’t seem to unravel, and instinctively I begin wondering “Who can I call?” “Who can I turn to?” Where’s my messiah, now, when I so obviously need him?

We think that is Jesus’s job. He is the ultimate rescuer. I remember hearing a young girl remark, “When trouble knocks on my door, I tell Jesus to answer it.” I liked that idea. I even tried it. It didn’t work. I could just imagine Jesus saying “Answer it yourself, it’s your door.”

Today I think that may be pretty much what Jesus did say to John. What you need, John, is not my telling you who or what I am. What you need is to wonder, to puzzle over, and discern the signs of what God is doing in this situation - not what I am doing.

My second word for you is to depend on wonder, not on answers. Wonder prompts us to look for signs we have overlooked or forgotten, or failed to see the significance of. It may be a small point, but the very fact we ask is a sign of trust. We look for answers because we expect answers to be there, somewhere. What we don’t realize is that many times the signs point us in directions we either did not expect, or could not see the importance of.

We have often been told God never closes a door without opening a window. What I would like to suggest is that it isn’t always God who closes those doors. And the windows that open aren’t always the best choices either. Wondering about them both frees us to explore, to choose, to backtrack and examine again until we do find the key that opens our prison. But in order to do that, trust must come first. And Jesus remembers this by pointing toward the miracles that are taking place all around us.

You see, God is, and God is here. God is alive and he lives here in us. Even in our prisons, God is present. Theologians speak of this living, abiding God as both Emmanuel (meaning God with us) and the Holy Spirit. This living, present God gives the lie to the idea that we are somehow abandoned, on our own, left out, forgotten, lost.

I remember Helen. She once remarked - and quite possibly she was quoting someone else: so much of the wisdom that finds its way into our lives is borrowed from somewhere else - “I love you, not for what your are, but for what I become when I am with you.” I think Jesus would have smiled at that remark. He did not need to be the center of attraction. (May I tell you a secret? I am really uncomfortable with prayers that keep repeating Jesus’ name. I’m especially disturbed by all this emphasis on how “Precious” Jesus’ name is. I think he would be equally uncomfortable.) Instead, Jesus lived his life as a walking billboard of the presence of God, and he dedicated himself totally to making God more real. What he saw was transformed lives - not because of him, but because of the transforming love of God.

And that leads me to one final word: if Helen spoke truly, and she loved her friend - not for what her friend was, but for what she became when she was with her friend - is it not quite possible that you may well be “The One” through whom God is at work for someone you may not even know? “Look, the blind see, the lame walk, the leper is cleansed, the deaf hear, and even the dead are raised to life.”

Such miracles are the work of God - who’s to say they may not be works God is achieving through the use of you? Wonder, my friends, please wonder! Amen.