I. BEGINNING

There’s an old joke that I remember from my childhood. It was told by my pastor, Rev. Boston, during the middle of one of his sermons. It told the story of a family on the drive home from church one Sunday. As they drove along, the father was complaining non-stop about the sermon. “It was terrible. It had no focus. It didn’t say anything meaningful. It was hard to follow. And it was terribly delivered,” he said. He continued to speak ill of the sermon for a while. When he finally stopped, his son piped up from the back seat: “Well, what did you expect for a dollar?”

This is not an irrelevant question. Expectation is a vital consideration when we consider our experience of something.

No doubt you have known someone who panned a movie for being silly and pointless and having an unbelievable plot. And when you learn that they’re talking about Fast and Furious 7, you hear yourself asking, “Well, what did you expect—a critically acclaimed art film?”

Sometimes our expectations can be too low, which results in us being surprised by something. At other times, our expectations are too high, which leads to disappointment. (Many a family vacation has been ruined by expectations of what the vacation ought to be rather than the vacation it actually is.) The way we frame our expectations drives how we experience something.

One of my best friends and I share a favorite movie, which we find incredibly funny. But it wasn’t always so. The first time he saw it, he was expecting a straight-up horror-drama and missed all the humor. He just thought the movie was stupid without realizing that the stupidity was intentional. Conversely, when I first saw it, I’d heard of it as a satire and enjoyed it thoroughly that way. My friend, realizing that he’d misread the film, enjoyed it upon this rewatch with me.

I raise all of this because we’re in a time of expectation and our expectations shape our experience of that which we are waiting for.

II.   THE TEXT

Jesus is dealing with something of mismatched expectations in this morning’s Gospel lesson. He has just been asked by some of John the Baptist’s disciples whether he is the one they’re waiting for or whether they should be waiting for someone else. Jesus responds:

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.

What’s fascinating about this is that it doesn’t answer John’s disciples’ question directly. It all depends on what your expectations are of the coming one. If you believe that the coming one is a military, political, or religious leader who’ll kick the Romans out, or set up a new Israelite kingdom, or kick the Sadduccees out of the Temple, then this might not answer your question. “Yes, Jesus, that’s all well and good, but how many battles have you won?” “That sounds nice, but are you electable?”

If, however, your expectations of the coming one are shaped by the vision found in the Book of Isaiah’s (as Jesus’ own expectations appear to be), then your answer would be somewhat different:

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.

So, Jesus gives an answer to John’s disciples when they ask about him. But then he turns to his own disciples and the crowd following him and talks about their expectations of John:

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. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”

And this addresses a very different set of expectations.

III. TWO CHRISTIANITIES

For some time now, I have been aware that there are two major versions of Christianity that exist side-by-side.

A.   Sentimental Christianity

One of these Christianities is perfectly comfortable with how things are and its sole purpose is to make us comfortable with how things are. Kendra Creasy Dean refers to it as “Moral Therapeutic Deism.” There are a lot of names I’ve come up with for this brand of Christianity but for purposes of this sermon, I’ll call it “Sentimental Christianity” because it is full of sentiment and warm and fuzzy feelings. It’s the kind of Christianity that can be summed up in bumper-sticker theology and simple statements like “The Lord helps those who help themselves” and “God never gives you more than you can bear” (neither of which is in the Bible anywhere).

It’s the Christianity where the portraits of Jesus are all in soft focus and he has hair with long, flowing soft curls.

This is the Christianity that was marketed to enslaved Africans that promised them good things in heaven that would make up for all their sufferings now. This is the Christianity that was marketed to the Russian serfs, who were told pretty much the same thing. This is the Christianity wherein God roots for the winning football team (we haven’t had that problem in Washington in a while, I suppose). This is the Christianity where everything is just wonderful and let’s just not talk about the other stuff—it’s too sad and maybe if we ignore it, it’ll go away.

This is a problematic version of Christianity because it puts up with an awful lot and seeks to make palatable things that are problematic. It’s no coincidence that this brand of Christianity is the favorite of kings, emperors, and other people in positions of power. It seeks to tell those who have no power that everything is fine and that any real problems can be prayed away or just ignored until we all get our rewards in the next life.

The problem with this kind of Christianity was summed up recently so well by Pentecostal preacher Jonathan Martin who said, “if your Christianity makes emperors feel comfortable and oppressed people feel unsafe, it’s time for a grand reversal.”

B.    Biblical, Prophetic Faith

The biggest problem with this kind of Christianity, is that it is not the Christianity of the Bible. The faith outlined in the Bible is not sentimental. It is not prone to easy, warm and fuzzy thoughts. It’s a trouble-maker, not comfortable with the status quo at all. And we can see that when we look deeper into the passages from scripture we heard earlier.

When Jesus addresses the expectations of the crowd, he’s doing far more than simply gauge whether the crowds are expecting certain particulars about the messiah. He’s addressing what it is they expect from faith altogether.

When he asks, “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?” he is asking the people what kind of messenger they were expecting, and thus, what kind of message. There are two phrases in particular that he uses—a reed shaken by the wind and soft robes—that help us to understand his thinking.

The reed was a symbol of Herod’s dynasty. Did the people come out to see someone who was aligned with King Herod? John was no Herodian. John had attacked Herod’s rule and morality as deficient. And where had that landed him? The passage begins with that important information: “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing…”

Second, Jesus asks his listeners if they went to see a man “dressed in soft robes”—a reference to luxury and ease, privilege and comfort. He even follows up that sentiment by noting, “Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.” Jesus makes it clear: John was not part of the establishment. He was not preaching a message that would make anyone’s life easier. It was a message that challenged the status quo and had definite consequences for John, including imprisonment and, ultimately, his life.

It’s for this reason that I’ll refer to this second version of Christianity as “Consequential Christianity.” For it is a faith that does not seek to mollify us in our distress or to accommodate power and privilege. It speaks truth to that power and bears the consequences.

If there are any images associated with this view, it’s usually of Christ on the Cross, or of Jesus overturning the tables in the Temple.

In addition to Jesus’ words about John, there is Jesus’s own self-understanding as to his message and ministry. When John’s disciples ask Jesus if he’s the one they’re waiting for, he responds

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.

This is a direct reference to the passage from Isaiah we heard read earlier:

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.

Jesus is making an explicit connection between his own ministry and that vision found in the 35th chapter of the Book of Isaiah.

This passage dates from a time long after the ministry of Isaiah of Jerusalem, to a time after the Exile in Babylon, to a time when an anonymous prophet whom scholars call “Second Isaiah” was speaking to the people in Exile about God’s plans to restore them to the land of their ancestors:

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom…”

With these opening words, the prophet gives to the exiles a hopeful vision: a restoration, life in the desert, new hope, new possibilities. It is hopeful, inspiring, and must have landed on their ears much the way that rain lands on parched ground.

But for all its flowery language, note what the prophet’s words are not: sentimental. Indeed, the prophet’s words are full of consequence—they are framed by the experience of Exile for the people. The background of these oracles is seventy years of captivity, precipitated by the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and of the cities of Judah, followed by the slaughter of untold thousands and the deportation of tens of thousands more.  The kind of thing that Jesus has in mind when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence.”

These words of hope, found here in Isaiah and referenced by Jesus, are words that are not joyfully oblivious of the trials and sorrows of the world, they are words that name and understand those sorrows but promise restoration out of those sorrows. This is not the religion of all sunshine and roses. It’s a religion of stumps… out of which God grows a new shoot.

Jesus will go on to live out this religion of consequence the rest of his ministry. Jesus challenges power and authority. He overturns not only tables, but people’s conceptions of what religion is. He does not offer sentimental clichés but difficult lessons on discipleship, suffering, and the willingness to lose all for God’s kingdom.

Jesus is one who, like his forerunner John, spoke truth to power and who bore the consequences of that witness.

IV. THE PROBLEM

Now, why is any of this relevant to what we’re doing here this week at this church and in this community? It’s relevant because this season is fraught with peril for us and Sentimental Christianity is everywhere.

See, it’s so easy to see Christmas as a beautiful story about a sweet little baby in a manger. It’s teed up for us to see that way: cute little manger scenes, carols and stories of cute animals around the Baby Jesus. Mary illuminated in soft light holding her child in swaddling clothes. Beautiful carols that are sweet and dreamlike, with a lullaby quality to them. It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by this sentimental version that we can forget just how powerful, just how consequential this story is.

And while it is generally a good thing to put the Christ back in Christmas, it’s important to ask, “Which Christ do you mean?” The Christ who makes emperors feel comfortable and oppressed people feel unsafe? Or the Christ who comes into our world, overturning all our expectations about who and where God is.

A friend of mine was a United Methodist missionary in Palestine. One Christmas day he posted the following comment:

The first time I got the Nativity was in Yanoun, in the northern West Bank. The shepherds we were with showed us where they keep the sheep. It was a low, dark, cave. Noisy, crowded with animals, and smelling like—well—sheep shit. The mangers were rusty, with sheep pushing at each other to find space to eat. Not the sort of place you’d want to have a kid. If God can be born here, I guess God can be born anywhere. [1]

And that is exactly right. The powerful message of Christianity—one celebrated especially at Christmastime—is that in the midst of our sorrows, our suffering, our brokenness, God should dwell with us. God should take on our life, our pain, our suffering, our joys, our being, even our death.

Christmas is about the Word becoming Flesh and dwelling in our midst. It is the radical declaration of the Eternal God’s solidarity with mortal humanity: and all the implications and consequences that that solidarity has for us.

V.   END

Consequential Christianity is less popular than Sentimental Christianity. It can often be seen as a downer, a killjoy. The “why did you have to ruin our Thanksgiving dinner by bringing up the poor?” kind of Christianity. It tends to rock the boat. It tends to challenge people’s assumptions and push us out of our comfort zones. Just when we’d rather be told everything’s okay and that we can relax and be comfortable, the Gospel compels us to engage with the world and to speak out on behalf of the oppressed and the marginalized.

But it is precisely in those consequences that Christian faith gains its power. It was not because the powerful favored it that it thrived—indeed, the powerful have never been comfortable with Consequential Christianity because it fearlessly refuses to acknowledge their power. It was because of those consequences that it spoke first to those on the bottom rungs of society—shepherds and peasants, women, the poor, the dispossessed and disenfranchised.

So, what have we come out to the wilderness of Advent to see? The Christ of sentiment and go-along, get-along ease? Of soft robes and VIP parking? Or the Christ who calls us to discipleship, who calls us to take up our cross and follow him?

Oh, it’s not easy. Sentimental Christianity will always be easier and more tempting. But if we really need sentiment, I suppose, that’s what we have the Hallmark Channel for.

And sentiment cannot deliver what a courageous faith of consequence can, such that when such a faith is lived out:

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.

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Texts

Isaiah 35:1–10 • The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

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; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Matthew 11:2–12 • 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. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”

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Notes

[1] Hosey D. City of [Internet] 2009. [cited 2014]. Available from: http://hoseyblog.blog.com/2009/12/28/the-first-time-i-really-understood-the-nativity/.