The Nagging Questions

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?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 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. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

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.”

Do you have any doubts or nagging questions about Jesus? I won’t ask for a show of hands. Nor will we get into small groups and share our doubts and questions. I realize also that most of us who hang out at church a lot have the general impression that doubts and questions about Jesus are bad. We’re supposed to trust, not doubt. We’re supposed to have faith, not questions that nag at us and won’t go away. Right? In light of today’s text, maybe not. Or at the very least, if we have doubts and questions, we are in good company for one of the greatest who ever lived had nothing but doubts and questions about Jesus. As far as we know, John the Baptist may have died with all his nagging questions unanswered, still not finding what he was looking for.

John’s problem came about because hundreds of years before him, in Isaiah’s prophecy,[1] there was a vision of the salvation that God was going to bring. Isaiah wrote:

In other words, because of Isaiah, John expected some serious, dramatic, earthshaking stuff when the Messiah came. He said as much in the text we looked at last week. John pictured the Messiah coming with “a sharpened axe in one hand and a flaming torch in the other”[2] and spiritual dead wood would be cut down and the chaff of uncommitted lives would be burned as God’s Messiah cleaned up the world’s mess.

But Jesus was only doing part of that. It’s nice that some blind could now see and some lame walk. But where was God’s real power? John had lots of nagging questions and I emphasize all of this because I have those questions too and I suspect most of you do as well.

So let’s think first today about the nagging questions in the text and the one that seems to jump out the most at us is John’s question of disappointment: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Certainly John asked that question because of his own circumstances. He was in jail for his preaching and baptizing and challenging of the religious and political leaders of his day and he was no dummy. He knew that once you were in Herod’s jail you probably didn’t come out of it alive.

But John was toughened by his years in the wilderness where he had likely been near death many times and he wasn’t afraid of dying. What he did fear was having hitched his wagon to the wrong horse. John was filled with passion for God. Isaiah’s promises that God would come with vengeance burned in his heart. Isaiah’s promises were the hope John lived for and he thought Jesus would make those promises happen. But John didn’t see vengeance coming from Jesus and the world was still the same. Jesus wasn’t doing what John expected so he doubted and questioned. “Are you the one?”

It’s not just a question for ancient disciples. Even a modern, sometimes disciple like Bono and the rock band U2 ask the question. On an album from the late 80s Bono sings:

It’s the same for most of us. We look at Jesus. We believe. We follow. But we still haven’t found what we’re looking for.

I think our doubts about the love and power of God grow out of God’s failure to meet our expectations. The thought process goes something like this. “If God …” and then we insert things like: “… is all-loving” or “… is all-powerful” or “… cared about me” and then we insert some condition we don’t like.

Or sometimes it’s just a plaintive cry — Why? Why me, God? Why? We begin to doubt the goodness and love of God because God fails to do what we think is right. We doubt because God doesn’t measure up to our standards and the nagging questions persist. They did for John and they do for so many, at least some of the time.

But the second point I want to make this morning is that we may be asking the wrong question. As I studied this text the questions that nagged at me the most ended up being Jesus’ questions, not John’s. The real questions are Jesus’ and they turn this text in a whole different direction. Jesus asked:

(Now here’s the turn.) Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is populated by those greater than John. Jesus asked nagging questions to make that one point. Even the least in the kingdom is greater than the greatest. In other words, Jesus’ questions turn the question back on the questioner. The question is no longer, “Are you the one?” The real question is, “What do you see?” What do you have the faith to see? In other words, do you have the faith to see God in ordinary things and little people? For even the little ones in the kingdom are greater than John.

Maybe a story will help this come home to our hearts today. The story is told in many forms but the version I know is from a book entitled The Different Drum by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. Dr. Peck doesn’t know where he heard it but only that it is called “The Rabbi’s Gift.”[5]

It seems that a monastery had fallen on hard times. Fewer and fewer men were entering this monastic order and now there were just five old monks — the abbot and four brothers. As the demise of the monastery drew ever nearer the abbot decided to pay a call on a rabbi who often went on prayer retreats nearby. The abbot explained the problem with the monastery and the rabbi commiserated with him because he was experiencing similar struggles. People were not attending synagogue as in previous days. So the two of them wept together.

Then the rabbi and the abbot read scripture and quietly spoke of deep things. And when he finally rose to leave, the abbot said, “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years. But I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me that would help me save my dying order?”

“No, I am sorry,” the rabbi responded, “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

When the abbot returned to the monastery, his fellow monks gathered around to ask what happened. “He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Torah together. But just as I was leaving — this was very cryptic — he did say that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”

The Messiah is one of us? The rabbi’s words seemed so strange. But the monks couldn’t forget that. How could this be? each of them wondered. Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.

On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that. He could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah.

Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet suppose he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn’t be that much for you, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery, to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate and pray. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

And as it happened, some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery became once again a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant center of life.

I think our Lord smiles at us and says, “Yes, but a more important question is, Are you the one? Are you the one in which my life takes hold and brings life to others?”

There is a promise in the scriptures that the great prophet Elijah would return before the Messiah came.[6] Christians, who affirm that Jesus is the Messiah, assert that John the Baptist fulfills the role of the returning Elijah. But because the Jews still await the Messiah, they also still wait for Elijah to return.

Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story that for many Jews at Passover, there is a tradition of saving a seat at the Seder feast for Elijah. At a poignant moment in the Seder service the door is flung open for Elijah and everyone falls silent with anticipation. For thousands of years that door has been opened, and for thousands of years all that has entered has been the wind. One Hasidic story tells of a pious Jew who once asked his rabbi, “For forty years or more I have opened the door for Elijah, waiting for him to come, but he never does. What’s the reason?”

The rabbi answered, “In your neighborhood there lives a very poor family. Call on that man and propose to him that you and your family celebrate the next Passover at his house, and for this purpose provide him and his whole family with everything that is necessary for the eight days of Passover. Then on the Seder night Elijah will certainly come.”

The man did as the rabbi told him, but after Passover he came back and claimed that again he had waited in vain for Elijah. The rabbi answered, “I know very well that Elijah came on the Seder night to the house of your poor neighbor. But of course you could not see him.”

Then the rabbi held a mirror before the face of the man and said, “Look, this was Elijah’s face that night.”[7]

Look in the mirror, my friend, and see your own face and search the face of everyone you see. For the Messiah is in our midst and in us, even in the least ones in the kingdom of heaven who are greater than John.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” From time to time we will probably keep asking that question of Jesus but he will keep asking in return that we:

[1] Many scholars feel that Isaiah 35 probably belonged originally to Isaiah 40-66, a section of the book commonly referred to as Second Isaiah. Most of chapters 1-39 are associated with the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, who delivered his message to Judah and Jerusalem from 742-701 bce. Most of Second Isaiah originated just before and after the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile in 539 bce. Bruce M. Metzger, Roland E. Murphy, eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 911OT.

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004) 11.

[3] From the album “Rattle and Hum” released in 1988. Many of the songs on the album were recorded live on the Joshua Tree tour in the United States and Europe in 1987. The song, sung with a gospel choir, was Bono’s first official “gospel foray.” U2 Lyrics, online, http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/u2/rattle_and_hum, Internet, 10 Dec. 2004.

[4] For example, in 1998 Hurricane Mitch dumped such heavy rain on Central America that floods and mudslides in Honduras were blamed for at least 10,000 deaths. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne caused an estimated $20.6 billion in insured losses during August and September 2004. In their aftermath, 46 of Florida’s 67 counties were declared federal disaster areas. Those hurricanes along with tropical storm Gaston took at least 1,725 lives in eleven countries.

[5] M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (New York: Touchstone, 1987) 13-15.

[6] The promise is in Malachi 4.5-6: “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.”

[7] Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings (Boston: Cowley Publications, 199) 92-93.