December 15, 2013, "Great Expectations"

Isaiah 35 Luke 11:1-15 As any of those who have been in 9th Grade in our schools, or the parent or grandparent of a daughter or son could tell, Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. The authors goal was to write a story so scandalous, so offensive, that it would be a cliff hanger. The story was published in installments, such that every chapter left you wanting to read the next, waiting for what would come. The story opens with the hero Pip, an orphan being attacked by an escaped Prisoner. Throughout, we the audience have great expectations for Pip's education, his career, his love. Our lives are built on great expectations the problem is that no matter our expectations, the world around us is in revolution, transformation; technological, political, economic and social change. Recently, I went to purchase a map of the world, and the order form required that you list your email address so that the publishers of the Map could send new labels of names for countries as they went through revolution, not if they did, but when. Friday, the Dictator of North Korea executed his own uncle for treason. Yesterday there was yet another school shooting in a Colorado town outside Littleton. The population of the world, all humanity, has become traumatized, we have lived with the constant stress and fears of war, of attack of collapse. Expectations are based on our hopes and dreams and prophecies, and our fears, offenses, scandals. Is there anything in the world today, that we believe could not happen? Is there anything, any one, that we are certain of? What is there that we find scandalous, offensive? Our Gospel lesson this morning is odd for Advent. We might expect Mary's Song, the Magnificat, hearing the music, awed by the poetry, missing the point that her song is of revolution, total change of everything in God's world. Mary was not simply a young girl, she was a servant girl, of the class of a slave and this 12 year old is told she is to be the Bearer of God! We might expect Joseph having a dream, because in the Old Testament there was a Joseph with dreams. But those who select our Biblical passages have chosen a reading from after Jesus was already 30 years of age. At that time, all the world was going out to the desert to hear John the Baptist preach. They did not need a ticket. They did not travel by car. The people, from the most affluent and highly educated, to the servants and slaves, walked 20, 30, 40 miles into the desert to listen. People went, not because he was a great story-teller, not because of pyrotechnics or slide presentations, or great intellect or a new spirituality, not because he had a fabulous choir. They went to listen to John because John was an authentic prophet, man of God. John the Baptist was exactly what people expected someone who had lived in the wilderness, totally dependent upon God to look like. John the Baptist was destined to be a little weird. He was a Preacher's Kid, whose father had given up believing, gave up believing in miracles, gave up believing in God entering life to change circumstance, John's father was the priest who offered prayers to God who himself no longer believed in prayer. John was orphaned at a very young age, because his parents were very old when he was born. John was a little weird. John the Baptist grew up in the desert wilderness, playing with scorpions and snakes, talking to cactus and dreaming of water. John was not making a fashion statement by entering society dressed in camel's hair with a cloth tied round his waist like a diaper. John was not advocating a new diet, by eating locusts and wild honey. John had an authentic vision of God's Messiah coming. A Savior sent from God, with a Winnowing Fork in one hand and a Torch in the other, so as to separate the wheat from the chaff, the good from the evil, and where Noah had saved a remnant from flood, this cleansing by the coming Savior would scorch and burn all that was wrong. The problem of John the Baptist was not the sin of his father or mother. Where his father did not believe, where his parents represented an outdated society, John not only prophesied the coming of Jesus, he recognized Jesus. At the Baptism, you can almost hear John chastising Jesus out of the corner of his mouth, “What are you doing here, get out of the water! You will get all wet. This is not for you!” The problem of John the Baptist was not that he did not have expectations, not that John did not believe but rather that his expectations were different. His expectations of the world, of the Messiah, of God, ALL were his expectations. Is that not our problem as well? A few years ago, the Washington Post tested people's Expectations. The paper had a street performer play his violin on the platform of the Subway. Thousands of people walked by without noticing. Some crossed over, to stay as far away from him as possible. Some were impressed by the music he played and tossed a few coins, even a few dollar bills into the open violin case. Except, the street performer in this case was Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest violinists, and the instrument he played was a multi-million dollar Stradivarius. The night before, a concert of exactly the same music by the same performer had cost people $100 a seat. Here our expectations caused us to not listen, not pay attention, not respond. Our Great Expectations of Christmas, are that we could get everything we ever wanted and more. We could have a celebration with family and friends, where everyone loved one another and got along. We could have a meal that was perfect and everyone was satisfied. We have each created constructs of what our world is expected to be. So when a job lay-off occurs, our expectations are threatened. When a divorce is filed,when Cancer is suggested, our expectations crumble. When a disability happens, our Expectations shift from believing life will get better, hoping for the best, to grasping at shifting sand, that the worst we have experienced might be the best we could ever again hope for. John the Baptist was in a prison cell. The irony of Jesus' questions to the crowd, were that John the Baptist was in the Prison of Herod's palace. King Herod like all the King Herod's of the Bible, wore long soft robes. Herod had minted coins that on one side had the image of a reed bending, as a symbol of the King of Israel, a son of David, being a servant of Rome. The Caesars of Rome had their expectations, King Herod had his expectations, John the Baptist had expectations of what the Messiah would be, so sends a messenger to Jesus asking if he is the fulfillment of John's expectations. Jesus does not give the messenger a YES or NO, but instead describes, the blind receive sight, the deaf hear, the lame not only walk they leap and the dead are raised. Jesus here quotes the Book of Isaiah, naming the blessings promised. Painfully, for John, what Jesus does not quote from Isaiah, is “And the Prisoners shall be set free.” The word “Blessing” and all these are blessings, is the opposite of the word scandal/offense. This passage from Isaiah is among the best known and most loved. But the word which seems obscure is that the water in the desert would provide a road. Most of us see floods and rivers as barriers, as obstacles. But throughout Scripture, the water created the opportunity for dry fertile land to appear. The water washed clean the earth, creating the opportunity for Noah to begin anew. The water of the Red Sea not only drowned the Egyptians but provided a way across safely for the people of God. Water we know in Baptism as sign and seal of a new relationship, an eternal relationship with God.