Matthew 11: When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and

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Evan Crawford
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1 Matthew 11:2-6 As our text opens, John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way for Jesus, is in prison, facing death. He s been hearing reports about how Jesus is spending his days, and John is deeply disappointed by what he hears. Listen now for God s word to you: 2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? 4 Jesus answered them, Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 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. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. 1

2 Sermon: What We See and Hear I have a friend who collects nativity scenes. He is interested in the great variety of ways that artists in different cultures imagine the birth of the Christ. He has sculptures made from clay and fabric, stone and wood and paintings in a wide variety of styles, but the image that has stayed with me over the years is a print. It s an elaborately detailed village scene in which life is unfolding in every dwelling place and public intersection. Purchases are made in the market, food is prepared in homes, all sorts of work is accomplished people sleep and play and argue and laugh. And tucked off to one side in the painting, on the same scale as all the other figures, is a woman and a man and a baby in a shed. The family goes largely unnoticed by neighbors and strangers, who are focused upon their own concerns. The artist reminds me that God s intrusion into our ordinary days rarely is accompanied by a trumpet blast. So how are we to recognize Christ s coming? John thought he knew. He d staked his life on the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah. But then, locked up in prison, he begins to hear rumors that make him second-guess his commitment. He hears that Jesus is sharing food with reprobates and hanging out with abusive tax collectors. John knows the prophets: Ezekiel said a fire would come out against all Israel (5.4). Jeremiah said that nations that did not listen would be uprooted and destroyed (12.17). So John has been watching eagerly for great clouds of smoke, but nothing in the sky has changed. Finally, John sends some of his followers with an ultimatum of sorts. They ask Jesus on John s behalf: Are you the one to come, or are we to wait for another? John, in prison, is wrestling with doubt and disappointment. We are not often given permission to talk about disappointment at this time of year. But our celebration of Christmas is so layered with memories, and hyperbole, that disappointment is often part of what we experience, and try to paper-over, during these holy days. We are giving voice to our own disappointment whenever we ask: Why do I feel so lonely when everyone else seems happy? Or Why did this happen to me? Where is God in the particular circumstances of my life?... Are you the one to come, or are we to wait for another? 2

3 In 2007 The Washington Post conducted an experiment*, which later was chronicled in a long article. You probably know the outlines of this story, but this morning I am interested in the details. Here s what happened: The Post arranged for one of the world s very best violin players to play one of the world s very best violins in an indoor arcade, just outside a Metro station in Washington, DC, on a Friday in January, during the height of morning rush hour. In that same year, this musician, Joshua Bell, was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize, identifying him as the best classical musician in America. But on this early January morning he was an anonymous fiddler positioned against a bare wall near the top of a long escalator, not far from a shoe shine stand and a busy kiosk from which newspapers, magazines and lottery tickets were sold. For 45 minutes he acted like any other street musician. He put his case on the ground, threw in a few dollars as seed money, and began to play. The Post recorded the activity around him with hidden cameras. The acoustics were surprisingly good; the sound was rich and resonant. Commuters coming up the escalator could hear the music well, though they could not see the musician until they reached the platform. And how did they respond? More than 60 persons passed by before a single one even turned his or her head. The violinist played for six solid minutes before anyone paused to listen. John Mortensen was that first person. On the video you can see [him] get off the escalator and look around. He locates the violinist, stops, walks away, but then is drawn back. He checks the time on his cellphone he s three minutes early for work then settles against a wall to listen. He stays and listens for his allotted three minutes, and then, for the first time in his life, throws money in a street musician s case, before turning away. *All of the details and quotations related to Joshua Bell, which are contained in this sermon, come from an article that appeared in the Washington Post on April 8, 2007, entitled Pearls Before Breakfast, by Gene Weingarten 3

4 In the course of the experiment, almost 1100 individuals passed Bell as he played. During the entire 45 minute performance, only seven of them stopped to listen even for 60 seconds. Twenty-seven individuals gave money, most of them as they dashed by, for a total collection of thirty-two dollars and 17 cents. Most of the commuters kept their eyes straight ahead, never adjusting their pace, seeming oblivious to the performance unless they were using a cell phone. In that case the only observable change they made was simply to speak louder in order to rise above the noise that Bell was making. Later, Bell himself wondered whether some of this inattention was deliberate, an attempt to avoid any obligation to donate to his cause, but none of the commuters offered that explanation. More than 40 of these passersby were interviewed for the Post article. They were stopped by reporters after they d left the building and asked if they d be willing to be contacted later in the day for an article about commuting. Then later, when each was called, the first question posed was: Did anything unusual happen on your way to work? Only one, a man named John Picarello, mentioned the violinist. On the videotape, you see Picarello stop dead in his tracks, locate the source of the music, and then retreat to the other end of the arcade. He takes up a position past the shoeshine stand, across from [the] lottery line [he does not] budge for the next nine minutes, except that you can see [him] look around now and then, almost bewildered. When he was asked about that later he said, Yeah, other people just were not getting it. It just wasn t registering. That was baffling to me. Another man, Calvin Myint, reported he had no recollection of a musician, even though the tape showed that he had passed within four feet of Bell. Calvin was listening to his IPOD as he passed by, having already programmed his playlist for the day. Jackie Hessian, a labor relations lawyer, saw the violinist, but didn t hear very much. On the video you can see her giving Bell a long, hard look before walking on. It turns out that she wasn t noticing the music at all. I really didn t hear that much, she said. I was just trying to figure out what he was doing there, how does this work for him, can he make much money, would it be better to start with some money in the case, or for it to be empty, so people feel sorry for you? She said, I was analyzing it financially. 4

5 Not far from the musician was the entrance to an indoor shopping mall, and just inside that mall was the bakery where George Tindley was wiping down tables and filling salt shakers. He kept finding excuses to be near the door so that he could hear the music. But a hundred feet from George was the lottery line: people standing 5 or 6 deep to buy Powerball or Daily 6 from a dispenser. Any of them could have had a much better view of the violinist than Tindley, but never in 45 minutes did any one of them turn his head; their focus was keen. J.T. Tillman was in that line. [When he was interviewed later,] he remembered every number he played that day-all ten of them, but not what the musician was playing said it sounded generic. Tilman went on, I didn t think nothing of it just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks. Tilman would have given him one or two, he said, but he spent all his cash on lotto. Edna Souza was running the shoe shine stand at the arcade. Street musicians make her mad because they make too much noise. They keep her from chatting up her customers, which affects her tips. Bell was a good enough musician that she didn t call the police on him she said that was a first but she wasn t surprised that people didn t stop to listen. When interviewed, she pointed to a spot near the top of the escalator, and told the reporter, Couple of years ago, a homeless guy died right there. He just lay down there and died. The police came, an ambulance came, and no one even stopped to see, or slowed down to look. The author of the article writes: There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell or the ones who gave money from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians; young and old; men and women; were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away. Jesus tells John s disciples to go back to him and tell him what they have heard and what they have seen. That instruction ought to haunt us. 5

6 On any given day, what do we allow ourselves to hear, to see? Where does our focus on our schedules, our agendas, our careful playlists, keep us from noticing the holy interruptions God may be sending into our lives? Where are we turning up the volume of our own voices and in so doing shutting out the music of the spheres or the still, small voice of God? And are we so focused on hanging on to what we have, so wary of anything that might be asked of us that we miss completely what is being extended to us as free gift, as grace? Finally, sisters and brothers, what would it look like to cultivate the eyes and ears of children? No one expected to find a world-class musician busking with a Stradivarius outside a metro station in the early hours of a work day, so very few people could hear the music. And no one expected the Messiah to be born of a young girl in an animal s stable. No one expected him to grow up to hang out with the poor and despised of society, but that s where Jesus says we will find him: 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, Jesus finishes his message to John by saying And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. What an interesting question for the Advent season: What offends you, beloved of God? And is it possible that God is coming to you in those very places? Jesus says, in effect, Keep listening, keep paying attention even in your disappointment. Everywhere there are signs of God at work in the world. I am coming, and coming, and coming to you. 6

1 Advent ( ) C Malcolm Clemens Young 2

1 Advent ( ) C Malcolm Clemens Young 2 Malcolm Clemens Young Jeremiah 33: 14-16 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco CA Y45, P26 Psalm 25: 1-9 1 Advent (Year C) 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Eucharist 1 Thess. 3: 9-13 Sunday 2 December 2018 Luke 21: 25-36