Give us strength for witnessing, that we may go and tell others what we see and hear. Give us patience for waiting, until the precious harvest of your kingdom, when the return of your Son will make your saving work complete. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Some Thoughts on Matthew 11:2-11
"The undercurrent of the entire text is the difference between people's expectations, even John's, and the reality of who Jesus was and the actual character of his ministry."
Commentary, Matthew 11:2-11, Advent 3A, Ben Witherington, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"The challenge for us in Advent is to allow Jesus to restore our senses, to have him open our eyes and ears so that we can go and tell others what we hear and see."
"Hear and See," Blogging Toward Sunday, Erin Martin, Theolog: The Blog of The Christian Century, 2007.
"...tell John about change and transformation in people?s lives. That is what we are here for and that is what excites us. Spiritualities excited by anything else (like the magic of miracles, like overcoming the enemies of God by judgment, like getting all the rules right) miss the point."
"First Thoughts on Year A Gospel Passages in the Lectionary: Advent 3," William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
We have skipped to the end of the second major section of the Gospel of Matthew in order to continue with the theme of John the Baptist and his relationship with Jesus. While our reading for today does not include the whole pericope it is important to note that Jesus has been offering his missiology, his missionary vision for the reign of God. The framework of Jesus’ teaching was to go to the “lost sheep of Israel.”(10:6) Jesus is giving instruction and continuing the overarching Gospel message that the Word and its proclamation include action. As we saw in last week’s reading the action was repentance: change of heart, mind, and place. Now in the preaching of the reign of God we see action as proclamation of the reign of God, healing, raising, cleansing, and casting out. Jesus has finished giving his orders and he has sent the disciples out to teach and preach – to act out the mission.
It is in this important framework of mission, the word is spreading from city to city, that we arrive at the first verse of today’s Gospel reading. John is in prison. He hears of the work being done. John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we wait for another?” Most every scholar I read this week showed an interest in how out of sync this question seems to be with the proclamation made by John the Baptist. The pre-modern scholars too ask similar questions. The themes of doubt, disappointment, and disillusionment are present throughout the scholarly wrestling with the text. Perhaps it is a crisis of faith. Maybe it is the narrator’s desire to distance John from Jesus’ ministry. It seems to me though to go too far down this road of inquiry (while biblically fascinating) can lead us to miss Jesus’ answer: “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.”
Jesus then continues teaching them and reminds them of the image of the prophet and the message of transformation. He says:
“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.
Our translation does something interesting here in verse 11. Perhaps you are using a bible that translates it differently too. In the translation by Daniel J. Harrington (Luke, Sacra Pagina, 157) he believes Jesus is saying, “Amen.” John the Baptist is the greatest prophet of the past, but he remains in the past.
Harrington also writes:
The assessment of John is prefaced by “Amen” – an indicator of special solemnity on Jesus’ part. His saying assumes that John does not participate in the kingdom of heaven, that is, he belongs to a different stage in the history of salvation (see Luke 16:16 [The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until the time of John] for a similar schema). John may be the greatest figure of the past. But from Jesus’ perspective he belonged to another age.
As I meditated on this passage this week I wondered what age has passed for our church. I too think it is the age of prophecy. We have for many recent years spent our time prophetically calling the world to change. This era of prophecy was captured best when one political leader remarked the world had changed from the time when the Presiding Bishop was sitting in the Oval Office to a time when the Presiding Bishop was across on the lawn picketing the actions of the Oval Office. To everything, there is a season. John’s question and Jesus’ answer tell us of a season of proclamation and prophetic work that prepared the way for the incarnation. Jesus is saying that season is over, this is the season of incarnation, of the reign of God. Perhaps the challenging message for our congregations today is the message that as communities that have received the prophetic Word, we are to be at work in the world.
You and I are to be in the world and at work in the world incarnating Christ’s love, community, and transformation. It is time for action on behalf of God’s people. It is a time when the church must enter a new age, an age where it is known not for what it says but for what it does.
Some Thoughts on James 5:7-10
"In the light of the story of Job, we return to the passage of James with perhaps a bit more wisdom. Using a language that might sound distant and removed, James asks his addressees to consider God as in charge, as paying attention."
Commentary, James 5:7-10, Advent 3A, Valerie Nicolet-Anderson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"So to wait for Christ to come in his fullness is not just a passive thing, a pious, prayerful, churchly thing. On the contrary, to wait for Christ to come in his fullness is above all else to act in Christ's stead as fully as we know how. To wait for Christ is as best we can to be Christ to those who need us to be Christ to them most and to bring them the most we have of Christ's healing and hope because unless we bring it, it may never be brought at all."
"Be Patient," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.
"None of what James proposes here is possible through human strength, will or power. The patience and the hope are both grounded in faith, that gift of the Holy Spirit."
Commentary, James 5:7-10, Advent 3A, Dirk G. Lange, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"...patience is essential to the process of becoming a peacemaker. The premature resolution of conflict usually inflicts some kind of violence on one of the parties involved, by silencing them. The patience to listen, to withhold judgment, to attend to each person's or group's or country's concerns, is a major part of diplomacy..."
Commentary, James 5:7-10, Susan Eastman, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2007.
So...what is missing? In James 5:4-5, just before this we are told that God opposes the arrogant, the oppressive rich, and is interested in the cries of the laborer. What a great passage! Wow! One has to wonder why we don't read that part on Sunday morning.
Yet it is important because we don't arrive at our passage today without knowing who it is addressed to and why. The author is telling those who are poor and oppressed to be patient and faithful. God is very much the judge - and this is not an abstract judge either. James believes that God will return as judge and this is out of a deep sense of hope and desire for justice. God will oppose the wicked and reward the good.
James says, not unlike the farmer who is patient so the poor and oppressed need to be patient. He writes, "Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord, is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord."
Depend upon those who have come before you and their stories to understand the present age of oppression is where our text ends. So...what is missing? Here at the end of the passage, we are missing the last verse which helps to interpret vs 10. Specifically, Luke Timothy Johnson and others, believe that this last little bit is a reference to Job from vs 11. (James, LTJ, 1995, p 324)
Which prophet, which story? Specifically: Job. Look to his endurance, his faithfulness, and his waiting. "God rewarded the one who, despite his suffering, stayed loyal to God." (IBID) So too you must wait and be faithful.
Some Thoughts on Isaiah 35:1-10
"Czech dissident and first post-communist president Václav Havel said it so well: "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it will turn out.""
Commentary, Isaiah 35:4-7a, Patricia Tull, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
Some Thoughts on Isaiah 35:1-10
"Czech dissident and first post-communist president Václav Havel said it so well: "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it will turn out.""
Commentary, Isaiah 35:4-7a, Patricia Tull, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
"Isaiah dares to speak a word out of place. A word that refused to wait until things improved."
Commentary, Isaiah 35:1-10, Barbara Lundblad, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"To preach this passage, then, you will need to exegete not only text but also context. The oracle gives no sure clues as to its own originating context. The contexts it calls you to interpret are your own and those of the people who have called you to preach."
Commentary, Isaiah 35:4-7a, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.
"God in Isaiah 35 now promises a new and fresh wilderness, filled with lovely blossoms, rather than jackals and ostriches, ringing with the sounds of joy and singing rather than the hoots and screeches of owls and buzzards."
"The Hope of New Vision," John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2010.
"The Hope of New Vision," John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2010.
God's garden social imaginary is a creation abundant. In it, there is community and relationship. It rejects sibling rivalry, mimetic desire, and violence as tools to deal with scarcity. In fact, God's narrative rejects scarcity.
In our Isaiah passage, we hear a prophecy that the world will be made new. The people living in the land and in relationship with others. Desert flowers blossoming, alive with creatures, all reflecting the abundance of God.
God is an interested party and will free the people. He will not withhold his hand from the accountability that comes when responsibility is shirked by authorities and those in power.
The passage we are given is the passage that Jesus likely reads in the synagogue. It is a key image of a renewed social imaginary that is proclaimed in word and deed by God in Christ Jesus.
Isaiah cries to the people on God's behalf: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way."
Truly a way is made in the desert. We know this way because we have been reading about it in Mark's Gospel. This is the way that John the Baptist says is coming, this is the path that Jesus follows, it is the road upon which the disciples are invited to walk. Jesus, in fact, opens the eyes of the blind. The people who can not hear justice hear again as if for the first time. The lame walk. Jesus feeds the people and brings living water to the woman at the well.
Isaiah is, of course, speaking of the imminent return of the people of Israel from the wilderness of Babylon back to their home. He is showing that God has heard their cry and they have suffered long enough. Isaiah, as he will do in chapter 40, is literally bringing comfort to the people.
It is true that we cannot remove the context of violence from the passage. Isaiah and his prophetic school cannot help but suggest that God will bring a violent end to the people's persecutors. This is not the full revelation that Jesus brings as peacemaker. Isaiah can only imagine a world where the lion is no longer there. Instead, we have in Jesus an image of lion and lambs together.
Isaiah does offer something beautiful. The rejection of violence and scapegoating will end - he suggests. The lion and ravenous beast will not be anymore, instead, there will be a people who are redeemed. Rejecting violence, they will sing, and be glad and sorrow will be no more.
As always, we read the text backward with the first and second commandments and Jesus as our hermeneutical lens. This helps us to understand the eagerness of vengeance placed in the mouth of God as merely a human's desire for repetitive violence - a continuation of scapegoating. When we see clearly the greater vision of Isaiah, we not only see revealed in the passage the revelation of Jesus himself who will come and preach the message of peace and healing. We also see the great potential for a society built upon peace and healing that brings joy and gladness into the world.
This is a passage filled with good news for those who need it. It is also a passage filled with vision for those who have lost theirs. Prophetic leadership always points to our participation in God's narrative. The prophet invites us to find our place within it.
Sometimes I think preaching is described as finding the context that you are in and preaching into it. But this fractures the narrative and reorients it. I think preaching may more be the work of the prophet to invite people into God's narrative, to invite them to hear God's words of freedom and hope for others like them. The scripture is not a medicine kit with salve for this or that issue. Instead, the scripture is a pool in which to wade, swim and dive. It is living and abundant water in which we are invited so we may root ourselves and be like the blossoms in the midst of the desert.
In our Isaiah passage, we hear a prophecy that the world will be made new. The people living in the land and in relationship with others. Desert flowers blossoming, alive with creatures, all reflecting the abundance of God.
God is an interested party and will free the people. He will not withhold his hand from the accountability that comes when responsibility is shirked by authorities and those in power.
The passage we are given is the passage that Jesus likely reads in the synagogue. It is a key image of a renewed social imaginary that is proclaimed in word and deed by God in Christ Jesus.
Isaiah cries to the people on God's behalf: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way."
Truly a way is made in the desert. We know this way because we have been reading about it in Mark's Gospel. This is the way that John the Baptist says is coming, this is the path that Jesus follows, it is the road upon which the disciples are invited to walk. Jesus, in fact, opens the eyes of the blind. The people who can not hear justice hear again as if for the first time. The lame walk. Jesus feeds the people and brings living water to the woman at the well.
Isaiah is, of course, speaking of the imminent return of the people of Israel from the wilderness of Babylon back to their home. He is showing that God has heard their cry and they have suffered long enough. Isaiah, as he will do in chapter 40, is literally bringing comfort to the people.
It is true that we cannot remove the context of violence from the passage. Isaiah and his prophetic school cannot help but suggest that God will bring a violent end to the people's persecutors. This is not the full revelation that Jesus brings as peacemaker. Isaiah can only imagine a world where the lion is no longer there. Instead, we have in Jesus an image of lion and lambs together.
Isaiah does offer something beautiful. The rejection of violence and scapegoating will end - he suggests. The lion and ravenous beast will not be anymore, instead, there will be a people who are redeemed. Rejecting violence, they will sing, and be glad and sorrow will be no more.
As always, we read the text backward with the first and second commandments and Jesus as our hermeneutical lens. This helps us to understand the eagerness of vengeance placed in the mouth of God as merely a human's desire for repetitive violence - a continuation of scapegoating. When we see clearly the greater vision of Isaiah, we not only see revealed in the passage the revelation of Jesus himself who will come and preach the message of peace and healing. We also see the great potential for a society built upon peace and healing that brings joy and gladness into the world.
This is a passage filled with good news for those who need it. It is also a passage filled with vision for those who have lost theirs. Prophetic leadership always points to our participation in God's narrative. The prophet invites us to find our place within it.
Sometimes I think preaching is described as finding the context that you are in and preaching into it. But this fractures the narrative and reorients it. I think preaching may more be the work of the prophet to invite people into God's narrative, to invite them to hear God's words of freedom and hope for others like them. The scripture is not a medicine kit with salve for this or that issue. Instead, the scripture is a pool in which to wade, swim and dive. It is living and abundant water in which we are invited so we may root ourselves and be like the blossoms in the midst of the desert.
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