Is the answer helpful?

Yesterday's sermon was based on the gospel Matthew 11:2-11, John questioning Jesus and Jesus preaching about John. And the sermon, at least the written sermon is below.


But I have noticed something with my sermons as of late: they tend to be incomplete.  Often I will either not write the end, or I'll write an abbreviated ending and during the actual preaching of the sermon, I will expand on this portion of my text.  While I think this is wonderful in preaching as I have become less reliant on the text, it is hard to equate to those of you who read my sermons.  Especially when you are missing the best part.


I tend to write my sermons using the "Four Pages of the Sermon" method, start with law in the text, then law in the world, then gospel in the text and gospel in the world.  The first two portions point out the sin, or the need for God.  The later half points out what the gospel, or good news, is that Christ has come and will come again.  So really when I don't write out the last bit of my sermon, you all are missing the best part, the part where God is active in your life today.  


Not adding the ending allows me to improvise more based on who is in worship and what prayer request have been.  It allows me to add good news that is more meaningful to the individuals who have gathered that day for worship or with how the Holy Spirit is calling me preach the gospel to those who hear it.  So I probably won't start adding the complete endings anytime soon.  So for now, enjoy the sermon, what is there, and add some of your own good news to the words you read. 


What a difference a week makes! Just last week we heard a gospel of John the Baptist out in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord, baptizing people with water for repentance and proclaiming that one more powerful than him is coming who will baptize with Holy Spirit and with fire. And now here he is (granted in the story of Matthew this is months or years later) and John the Baptist is in jail and he is questioning if he actually proclaimed and prepared the way for the right messiah.

Jesus was not turning out to be the messiah he was expecting. John wanted someone to over throw Rome, to free Jewish territory from outside occupation. He wanted a messiah who would lead an army not a messiah who healed the sick and threw parties for prostitutes.

And so John sent his followers to question Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” And Jesus being Jesus did not answer the question with a straight yes or no answer. Instead he listed what he has done “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.”

Now I have to wonder what John thought when his followers brought back this answer to him.

If he was truly doubting if he had wasted his life prophesying for the messiah who turns out not to be the messiah, would this list of Jesus’ miracles have answered his question? If he was in the mist of deep despair about a rebellion against Rome not being started, would this list of Jesus’ miracles have answered his question? If he truly questioned Jesus’ teaching about the temple, the center of Jewish religious life, being destroyed, would this list of Jesus’ miracles have answered his question? If he was truly skeptical about Jesus would this list even seem like a list of miracles, or would they just seem like a list of failures?

For us we all have doubts. For some of us our doubts are daily, hourly, as we are presented with hardships or other people’s doubts. For others the doubts are less frequent but always with us, and all it takes is one skeptic to bring those doubts to the forefront of our minds. Our ideas about who Jesus is and should be, do not always match with the Jesus who actually is. We are believers, we pray, therefore Jesus should be like a giant protective bubble over us keeping us from all harm and suffering. We are believers, we worship regularly, therefore Jesus’ teachings should never offend us by saying that we do not care enough for the poor and imprisoned, or that we need to give more of our time and riches away, or that our good deeds are not always pleasing to God if our heart is not in it. Or maybe, and probably the most prevalent view of Jesus in our society, is that he is like a lucky charm, someone that we call on when we are in trouble but as long as life is going okay there is no need to even acknowledge his existence (other than maybe Christmas and Easter but just so we can get presents and chocolate). As so the scriptures offend us or harm comes to us, or the struggles in life are not taken from us after one prayer, we start to doubt, we start to wonder if Jesus really is Christ, we start to wonder if we’ve gotten it right or if maybe a different religion is correct, or maybe no religions are right.

And in moments of brief doubts as someone list for us the things Christ has done, “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have received the good news.” Or maybe a list that hits a little closer to home for you: the loved ones in your lives, the good health you have been given, the joy on your child or grandchild’s face, the many conquensiences that had to happen for you to run into that old friend who happened to be struggling and needed someone to talk to, or that feeling you just cannot accurately describe when you stand in church on Christmas Eve in the darkness with just candlelight and sing “Silent Night”. And as you hear that list, if you are in a moment of brief doubt, of surface doubt, that list makes you realized that Jesus is Christ and Jesus is still performing miracles in our lives. But if you are in deep doubt, if you are ready to throw your faith out the window, then that list is not helpful to you. All it does is make you question more, agnostics have loved ones, atheist have good health, people of different religions see joy in their child’s faces, sometimes things are just conquensiences and well, we are all struck with awe on occasion.

See Jesus’ list of accomplishments, of miracles, may not have been a helpful answer to John. And if you are doubting your faith right now, what I am saying may not be a helpful answer for you either. But Jesus was still there performing miracles, restoring sight and hearing, healing the lame and the ill and even bringing people back to life. And Jesus is still out there, in our world today, healing the ill, bring grace, love and joy to people who sometimes feel undeserving of grace, love and joy. Jesus is still out there in our world today, making a million things that we often chalk up to conquesences happen, so that miracles, whether we call them that or no occur. Jesus is out there in our world today, listening to and answering our prayers, sometimes in ways that we expect and sometimes in ways that we would never expect. And Jesus is in here, in our hearts, filling us with awe in moments of worship that take place both in church buildings and beyond as we see God’s presence in the world, in our lives. So I ask, how have you seen Jesus in your lives this week?