Zeal, Despair, and Patience – 11 December 2016 – Third Sunday of Advent

John the Baptist’s despairing question in prison may well be our own: Jesus, are you the one? Really?

The answer for us as well is to look for evidence of God’s good will at work in the world. And yet, when we find ourselves disappointed, we need to ask: Is our frustration the fruit of too much clarity about what God’s promises ought to look like? Do we presume to know the shape of God’s love?

Matthew 11:2-11

John the Baptist called all people to repent, making no distinctions between them. He obeyed God’s call to him, and then found himself in prison for preparing Israel to welcome the Lord and for daring to condemn the king.

Given Matthew's characterization of John's message, it is easy to imagine that John expected the reign of God to arrive with dramatic manifestations of judgment against sinners (“the wrath to come” [v 7]; “the ax is at the root of the trees” [v 10]; “burn the chaff with unquenchable fire” [v 12]). The merciful character of Jesus' message and work appear to have caused John to question whether Jesus was “the one.” – Aaron Couch

John—who had once been so sure, who had said to Jesus with such joy and confidence when Jesus came to him at the Jordan, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”—John is struggling now. . . What has his life meant? What difference has he made? – Judy Buck-Glenn

Jesus does not so much answer John's question as direct John's attention to scripture so that John may answer the question for himself. – Aaron Couch

We know the word sent to John: the blind see, the lame walk, the poor receive good news.

But underlying these assurances and this message of hope is a warning: John, maybe it won't look the way you thought it would. Maybe the coming of the kingdom of God isn't going to bring a world that will look literally like the once promised in Isaiah. Maybe even you, the greatest of the prophets, have made the mistake of telling God what God should be doing. – Judy Buck-Glenn

Isaiah 35:1-10

How can we tell whether what we are about is doing any good, making a difference in someone’s life, fulfilling God’s intent for us?

Some people I know go regularly to the juvenile detention facility and talk with the adolescents there. These are children and teens who have been imprisoned for a variety of offenses, some serious and some not. The people who visit engage in conversation, do Bible studies, and, in one notable instance, facilitate a drumming circle, one of the most popular activities among the young men in the facility.

When we talk about their experience, they reflect on how much the children seem to need someone simply to pay attention to them. For most, the hardness of their lives and the neglect from those who are supposed to love them has cost them dearly in self-esteem, freedom, and the knowledge that they are beloved of God. Even the little that the visitors do does make a difference.

Isaiah's vision points to a God who cares for his people with strength and compassion. God is well aware of the “feeble hands,” “weak knees,” and “frightened hearts” that are characteristic of a people in distress. Our faith tells us that God sees all these things and will give us what we need. In the midst of trouble, it might be hard to imagine that God can bring comfort, healing, and peace, but time and again in scripture, God is envisioned as changing the world. – Mary Katharine Deeley

James 5:7-10

Finally, the epistle gives us a mandate: be patient. While commands for patience can seem facile and naïve, the truth is that waiting for God’s purposes to be revealed is the hardest work. Patience is a special spiritual discipline.

James calls attention to a significant danger for the people. Impatience can easily lead to friction within the community of faith. One must instead recognize God's closeness and remember with awe that only God is able to render a true and just judgment. – Aaron Couch

Judith Buck-Glenn is associate rector at Christ Church Episcopal in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.

Aaron J. Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Mary Katharine Deeley is the director of Christ the Teacher Institute of the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, the author of many books, a frequent speaker on diverse topics, and a pastoral advisor.

Homily Service 41, no. 1 (2007): 32-42.

Dogs, Crumbs, and Hearing – 6 September 2015 – Lectionary 23/ Proper 18

Stories of Jesus’ healing extend in multiple dimensions, including physical and spiritual depths. In these stories, we may also be witnessing Jesus’ own healing… of himself.

Mark 7:24-37

Is the Syrophoenician woman too aggressive? Or is she assertive, smart, and desperate?

The Syrophoenician woman . . . shows no pious reticence at all. She speaks openly when she begs Jesus to come heal her daughter and she speaks even more openly—audaciously—when he refuses. There is no good way to pretty up Jesus' words. He speaks a harsh word, insisting that his mission is to Jews and not to gentiles such as this woman and her daughter. Attempts to imagine a winsome smile on Jesus' face while he chats warmly about children and little puppies are bound to fail. Jesus speaks a harsh word, is outfoxed, and changes his mind.

It may be that Mark's gospel is unashamed to tell the story of a savior who learns as he goes along. (Did Jesus know that he was God's son before God said so at the baptism? Did he know he was the Christ before Peter told him so at Caesarea Philippi?) At any rate, by the end of this story Jesus reaches out farther than he intended to reach out—to two gentiles, to two women. Surely Mark, as a gentile, tells this story in part to remind his readers that they are included in the story of God's mercy as much as the Jews are, but it is striking here that Jesus is the reticent one and the woman sees the breadth of his mission better than he.

Jesus changes his mind because the woman opens his eyes. The deaf man speaks openly because Jesus opens his ears. Notice that here the power is all God's power. Jesus doesn't say to the man, “Open your ears. Listen up. Shape up.” He says: “Be opened”—let God do God's will. Surely the healed man who speaks plainly is a forerunner of Christians in Mark's church who are to speak plainly of what God has done for them in Jesus Christ.

Jesus' order to the onlookers to tell no one is part of the complicated device of the messianic secret in Mark's gospel. No one has fully explained all the nuances of this theme in Mark, but part of the idea seems to be that we cannot fully understand Christ's significance until we know him as crucified and risen. Those who witness his miracles get the truth but not the whole truth.

We do note, however, that Jesus has no more success dissuading the crowds than he does in dissuading the Syrophoenician woman. – David Bartlett

Isaiah 35:4-7a

We hear from the prophet Isaiah that God who promises healing and comfort also commands from the people strength rather than fear. Perhaps the courage of the woman who desperately needed the crumbs from Jesus’ healing power took seriously the prophet’s admonishment to put away reticence.

These verses are part of a larger oracle in which the prophet predicts the return of his people to Zion. The hope to which Isaiah points is both a hope for persons and a hope for the world of nature. Human suffering and disability will be cancelled. But more than that, the very scarcity of nature will be overcome. Nature will be restored not only for its own sake but for the sake of the people who will now be able to travel home to Zion through the transformed desert. . . – David Bartlett

James 2:1-17

God’s promise of healing for all creation leaves us with a great challenge: to reconcile Jesus’ reluctance to heal a desperate woman, as told in Mark’s Gospel, with the blatant assertion from the writer of James: “. . . faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

This is the statement over which followers of Christ Jesus trip daily. How is faith to be measured? Can it be measured? Is the action of the believer the final measure? Is failure to act a denial of faith? What of the problem that no perfection is granted us in this life? Can we ever fulfill all of God’s commandments? And, if not, what is it that saves us? Are we not, then, thrown back on the mercy of a gracious God?

Jesus faced the Syrophoenician woman, at first, with a stern fixation about his assumed path. His encounter with her, however, opened up his proclamation to an englarged horizon. He engaged with someone outside of his calling.

And finally, we have to ask who God means to bring into the promised dominion. Are we not all included in James’s famous question, “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith…?” If none of us can fulfill what is required of us, are we not all poor beggars?

David Bartlett, an ordained American Baptist minister, is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and Lantz Professor Emeritus of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut.

Homily Service 39, no. 10 (2006): 14-23.