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.”
Matthew 11:2-11
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.
My sermon from 3rd Sunday of Advent (December 11, 2022) on Matthew 11:2-11.
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I have never been to prison but I’m well aware that my experience might not be your own because we are a diverse community with many different stories. Many of us have interacted with prisons in many different ways through our callings as police officers, lawyers, aids, paralegals, guards, health care workers, family members, friends, and more. Dealing with the prison system isn’t something that only other people do since we live in the #1 country in the world when it comes to people who are incarcerated. There’s a good chance that, right now, we know someone who’s either been in prison or who has dealt with prisons for a significant part of their lives. And while we might think we know all we should know what prisons are, the stories we hear from people in prison often change our points of view. For the last 45 years or so, we, as a church, have stayed connected to someone who grew up here and is serving a life sentence behind bars. I don’t write to him as much as I would like to but he always responds to the four or six letters I send every year. His letters are always several pages long, written on yellow lined paper in a cursive script that’s not always easy to read. Yet I often find that the stories he shares from his life refine my own understanding of what prison is truly like. It’s important for us, I think, to examine what we think a prison is since being in prison shows up in the Bible all the time. It would be easy for us to assume that a prison today is, in general, similar to what a prison was like 2000 years ago. But as we just heard in today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew, the prisons of the past had this sort of unique way of making even one of the most faithful people we meet in the Bible – question their God.
Now last week, we saw John the Baptist teaching and preaching in an untamed place while also describing who he imagined the Messiah to be. The Messiah would be the One who would change the world and they would do this kind of like what a super hot fire does when it comes into contact with metal that’s impure. This super hot fire would burn out the impurities to make the metal better, stronger, and easier to work with. This language, while very Biblical, can also be very problematic when we use it to justify our own hatred and sin. Yet John’s Messiah would be very different because they would change people and their communities into something more. When Jesus came to see John, John confidently declared that this son of Mary would be the One everyone was waiting for. And after baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan, John kept teaching and preaching but was soon arrested and imprisoned. That action served as a kind of catalyst for Jesus’ own public ministry which he developed through his own preaching, teaching, and healing. Now John sat in prison for a significant period of time and soon learned Jesus was out in the world traveling from village to village. John sent his disciples to Jesus to ask him what appears, at first, to be a rather strange question. Before Jesus’ ministry began, John declared that Jesus would be the one who would burn and change the world. And yet when he finally heard what Jesus was up to, he couldn’t help but wonder if Jesus really was who he imagined him to be.
So what happened? What made John doubt what he had seen and heard from God? Well one way to think about this is to realize that being imprisoned today isn’t the same as being imprisoned in the past. In our country, prisons are designed to be all sorts of things. They are isolating and awful and degrading and rehabilitative all at the same time. But there is an expectation, in theory, that someone in prison will be provided a place to sleep and given food to eat. That doesn’t mean prisons are designed to be safe spaces but there are mechanisms that could be used to hold people accountable if they didn’t provide for those basic needs. That tiny bit of care that society promises to give to those in prison wasn’t something that existed in the ancient world. Instead, when a person was arrested, they were placed in a version of house arrest. There were very rarely buildings designed to hold prisoners or their guards. A home, either belonging to the person who was arrested or to someone else, would then be designated to be their prision and modified to house the prison and those guarding them. Since this home was designed to be a prison, it didn’t have all the basic things we’d expect a prison to have. And one mechanism that wasn’t in place was for the one who imprisoned them to provide food for them or the one who watched them. It was the responsibility of the prisoner to find a way to feed themselves and the guards assigned to watch them. This, obviously, was a rather difficult task since the prisoner couldn’t really leave where they were. They had lost all control and it was their responsibility to care for those who incarcerated them. John, when he was in the wilderness, knew what it was like to live in a place where he had no control. But this situation was very different because he was caught up in a system that, by design, wanted him to die. He was entirely dependent on others sacrificing their own time, energy, and resources to bring him just enough to survive. Nothing about his current experience felt like the world was being made into something new. Instead, it felt like the old world was winning like it always had. John the Baptist had experienced the presence of God in ways that I can barely imagine and yet even he wondered if he had gotten the Messiah wrong.
At this point in the sermon, we could move on to what Jesus said to John’s disciples. But I think it’s okay to sit with John’s question a little longer – especially if we have questions of our own. The Third Sunday of Advent is usually set aside as a time for us to remember that this season can be filled with joy. Yet too often, the magic of this moment feels very far away. If we truly believe that God is with us, we should wonder why everything is the way it is. And while I wish I had a good answer for that question, I also believe simply asking it is one of the most faithful things we can do. John’s doubt wasn’t a problem that needed to be solved. He was simply living through the fact we are very good at creating, needing, building, and maintaining all kinds of prisons. John’s question was an honest question because he didn’t pretend the world was something that it wasn’t. And while we don’t know how long John waited to ask his question, we do know he was willing to speak it out loud even though there was a chance he wouldn’t receive an answer. He had no idea how long it would take his disciples to find Jesus nor did he know if he would be alive once they returned. Yet he chose to name his truth and ask his question. And that, I think, invites us to do the same. We get to ask our whys, our wonders, and admit to Jesus that life is sometimes harder than it should be. We can give ourselves the grace to admit that we, like John the Baptist, sometimes doubt. And while that might feel as if we don’t have the faith we think we should, it, instead, serves as a reminder of the faith we have already been given. During your baptism, Jesus made the promise to be God-with-you no matter where your life took you. He didn’t make that promise because he knew you would be perfect. He did it because his love couldn’t do anything less. His love is big enough to hold all our questions, all our wonders, and every time we’ve asked Jesus to be Jesus in the here and now. And when it finally feels as if doubt is the only bit of faith we have left, trust that shows you already have all you need to take your place in the kingdom of God.
Amen.