THE REAL DEAL Matthew 11:2-11 December 11 th, 2016 In this week s gospel lectionary, John dispatches his followers to confront Jesus and ask him: Are

Transcription

1 THE REAL DEAL Matthew 11:2-11 December 11 th, 2016 In this week s gospel lectionary, John dispatches his followers to confront Jesus and ask him: Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? In other words, John wants to know if Jesus is the true messiah, or if he s just another in a long line of false prophets and hucksters trading on people s gullibility. Jesus response is intriguing he simply tells John s disciples to go and tell John what you hear and see. Rather than trying to sell them with a typical spiel, Jesus is content to let his actions speak, and for them to demonstrate his genuineness. And yet, it is not just John the Baptist and Jesus who are the real deal. We too are called to the same high standard of authentic Christian behavior for as Jesus pointedly remarks: Truly, I tell you, among those born of women no one has risen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. So, when we enter the kingdom we have surpassed our human frailties and sins. But how can we possibly live up to such a lofty standard? The answer is to be found in this week s Isaiah passage, where the prophet tells us that 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. God has provided us a roadmap one that anyone can follow. The real deal. Ask an internet search engine like Google or Bing for a definition of that phrase and you ll get a handful of entries that, when put together, look something like this: An American idiom used to describe people or things that are genuine, real, legitimate, or authentic; possessed of all of the characteristics attributed to them; genuinely superior or impressive in some regard and therefore worthy of appreciation or respect. Synonym: The real McCoy. 1

2 John the Baptist heard about this Jesus guy, some claims about miracles, some stories about healings. There was even some speculation that this guy might be the messiah, the anointed one of God. John wanted more than just hearsay, though. He wanted eyewitness testimony. He wanted it straight from the horses mouth. But he was in jail, so he sent his disciples to find out: Is this guy the real deal? And they tracked him down, and not the sort to hem and haw around, they walked right up to Jesus and asked him: Are you the real deal? Or are you another fake, another counterfeit prophet, telling people what they expect to hear for an easy buck? Jesus is not offended by the question. He answers it clearly and straightforward, frankly and honestly. His answer, and the question that occasioned it, are as important today as they were the first time they were asked. Was he? Are you? Am I? If not, how do I become the real deal? Am I the real deal? Is the person whom I present to the world the same person who lives inside my skin? Am I authentic? Am I all that I claim to be? And if I am not the real deal, how do I become so? Messiahs were a dime a dozen back in those days. In the scriptures we read how they stood on street corners, they ranted and raved at the city gates, they preached, they healed, they made threats and promises, and they insisted they were the one. And for almost everyone who claimed to be the messiah, there were a bunch of people ready to follow and vouch for the veracity of their favorite prophet. John the Baptist wasn t so sure. This, remember, is Matthew s version of John, the same John who 2

3 we saw last week calling the Sadducees and Pharisees a brood of vipers and screaming Repent! at everyone within earshot. He is the same John who told the Jews that being a Jew didn t cut them any slack where God s judgment was concerned, that God could raise up Jews from stones so God didn t have any real need for this particular crop. Matthew s John the Baptist does not suffer fools gladly, and he doesn t accept anything at face value, as witnessed by the fact that he is now in jail for insulting the wife of the local potentate. His jail experience has not humbled him, however. Hearing about Jesus, he sends his disciples out to find out if he s the real deal. The disciples of John track Jesus down, come right up to him and ask him to his face: Are you the real deal, or should we take our business elsewhere? It s not a great question, because who s going to say no? If the person is just a con artist or a grifter, he certainly is not going to say: Oh, okay. You got me. I m just a fake. I ll leave now. He s going to say: You betcha, buddy. I m the real deal. Interestingly, Jesus says neither yes or no. He tells them to judge for themselves. Look at what is happening, he says. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news brought to them. So you decide. Am I the one or not? In verse 7, John s disciples leave, probably shaking their heads and asking each other what just happened. As they go, Jesus turns to the crowd of people around him and turns this into a teaching moment. John the Baptist, he says, is the real deal. You go out into the desert to see a prophet, and you don t expect to see someone in a $1000 Armani suit and handmade Italian loafers. You don t expect 3

4 to see some weak, wishy-washy guy whose favorite phrase is on the other hand. No, you go to the wilderness to see a prophet and you see John the Baptist looking and sounding for all the world like Elijah. You expect to see someone who s long on insight and hard on sin. You expect to see someone confidently shouting Thus saith the Lord And what do you know? There s John the Baptist doing everything and being everything a prophet is supposed to do and be. When it comes to prophets, he s the real deal!! And there s never been anyone and there s never going to be anyone more so than him And yet (this is important) the lowest, least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than John. John the Baptist was the real deal. He was what he represented himself to be. He took Elijah as his role model, and he followed in that great prophet s footsteps even when it landed him in jail, even when it cost him his life. Jesus was the real deal. Indeed, he was the ultimate real deal. He was not just a representative of God or a spokesperson for God, as were the prophets (including John the Baptist). He was more. He was God in human form. You want to see God, look at Jesus. That s the best picture you re going to get. But how do we know? How do we know he s the real deal? His answer reminds us of the know the tree by its fruit saying. What do you see, Jesus asks? The answer to whether or not he is the real deal is found in his behavior and the things which spring forth out of it: those who are blind, see; those who are lame, walk; those who are dead, live; those who are hopeless, have hope. And the one who makes this happen is the real deal. Inevitably, the question works its way through John the Baptist, around and through Jesus, until it lands squarely on us. Are we the real deal? Do we live the religious faith that we say we believe? What kind 4

5 of fruit do we produce, literally and symbolically? Do we help bring dead people back to life? What does it look like when we do that? Do we help those who are paralyzed walk? How? Do we help those who are blind see? What do I see when I see you doing that? Do we give hope to the hopeless? Comfort to the afflicted? Direction to the lost? Food to the hungry? Education to the ignorant? And how do we go about doing these things? Here is where this week s Old Testament lesson comes into play. Isaiah paints a lovely verbal picture of what it is like to return home to Zion, the place where God lives, God s kingdom. And he reminds us that making this trip is not that tough. God has prepared a way for us. Actually, in verse 8 he says that this pathway that we are called to follow is not a pathway at all; it s a highway! It s wide and well-paved and easy to walk upon. And it s so easy to follow that even stupid people, the ones who are always getting lost, can t get lost on this road. In other words, being the kind of people God wants us to be isn t rocket science or brain surgery. Anyone, yes anyone, can do it. John Glenn, a freckle-faced son of Ohio who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth, then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95. In just five hours on Feb. 20, 1962, Mr. Glenn joined a select roster of Americans whose feats have seized the country s imagination and come to embody a moment in its history, figures like Lewis and Clark, the Wright Brothers and Charles Lindbergh. To the America of the 1960s, Mr. Glenn was a clean-cut, good-natured, well-grounded Midwesterner, raised in Presbyterian fortitude, nurtured in 5

6 patriotism and tested in war, who stepped forward to risk the unknown and succeeded spectacularly, lifting his country s morale and restoring its self-confidence. Author Walter A. McDougall wrote, It seemed that he had given Americans back their self-respect, and more than that it seemed Americans dared again to hope. Mr. Glenn was reluctant to talk about himself as a hero. I figure I m the same person who grew up in New Concord, Ohio, and went off through the years to participate in a lot of events of importance, he said in an interview years later. What got a lot of attention, I think, was the tenuous times we thought we were living in back in the Cold War. I don t think it was about me. All this would have happened to anyone who happened to be selected for that flight. On Thursday, President Obama said in a statement, John always had the right stuff, inspiring generations of scientists, engineers and astronauts who will take us to Mars and beyond not just to visit, but to stay. Tom Wolfe wrote of that time of Mr. Glenn s orbital flight in a bestselling 1979 book The Right Stuff, a phrase for coolness in the face of danger that is part of our vocabulary now. To combine two of those phrases, John Glenn had the right stuff and he was the real deal!!! May we return to the words of Jesus, those lessons he taught, those relationships, those commandments he gave us that we find in Holy Scripture, to become and remain the real deal!! With God s help, let it be so. Amen and amen. 6