Readings
Isaiah 35:1-10
In this section the return of the exiles is expressed in terms of the transformation of the wilderness and the transformation of the environment which coincides, or perhaps is linked, with a transformation in humanity.
People transform their environment and are transformed by their environment.
Maurice Andrew remembers that his grandparents had the text ‘streams in the desert’ on their bedroom wall and he goes on to say that they lived by the Waikato River and he doubts if he could ever have imagined what a desert was like.
He thinks they had the text on the wall because everyone realises, whatever their circumstances, there are times when transformation is needed and that even people in their own country may still need to return to their land and find their way back to where they belong. [1]
Matthew 11: 2-11
John the Baptist’s disciples come to ask if Jesus is ‘the one.’ According to Professor Elaine Wainwright Jesus’ reply turned attention away from titles like Christ or Messiah and back to what had been seen and heard. Jesus, she says is a doer of deeds rather than a bearer of titles’[2]
Warren Carter writes that John’s question underlines the means of recognising Jesus (or Christ). Jesus recognises John’s role in preparing the way for Jesus but also redefines greatness as service rather than domination.[3]
Bill Loader says there is a contrast between John’s vision of a Messiah and the way Jesus lived out his messianic calling. Jesus’ answer reflects the prophetic visions which remain the inspiration for the tradition today: ‘Tell John about change and transformation in people’s lives. That is what we are here for and that is what excites us.’[4]
Sermon
Towards the end of last month, I attended the launch of Andris Apse latest book The Deep South.
The event also served as an opening for his and his partner Lyn’s new home in Dimond Harbour. All the neighbours were there along with his family plus trampers, hunters, climbers, picture framers, and a few photographers. While Andy was glued to his bank card reader and exaggerating his adventures to perspective purchasers there was a time when I, as an aging ex-photographer, felt a bit like a fish out of water. Eventually I ended up sitting next to a man who told me about his trip to Africa with Canadian Photographer Freeman Paterson.
As well as being a world-renowned photographer Patterson has a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, New York. His master’s thesis was titled ‘Still Photography as A Medium of Religious Expression.’
A long time ago I attended a presentation by Freeman Patterson in which he showed magnificent images of the desert in Namibia. One image is still etched on my brain.
A picture of a dirt road winding over undulating landscape. The road was just two parallel wheel tracks with a strip of brightly coloured wildflowers between them.
From that strip in the middle the image invited the viewer to look either side of the road at the overwhelming saturation of colour as wildflowers spread as far as the eye could see. The whole desert was joyfully rejoicing with the blossoms of recreation evoking the poetry of Isaiah:
‘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. (Isaiah 35:1,2)
We always need to remember that the desert can rejoice, and wildflowers can bloom because it is not hard to see our world as a hopeless and frightening wilderness.
In a documentary I saw recently people were explaining that they were not having children because too many people were a threat to the planet, and it was not right to bring children into a world of extreme weather and inevitable disaster. But others pointed out that children born now may well be the people who stop global warming and restore the planet. The crocus that blossoms abundantly may yet to be born.
My mother grew up in England during the First World War and married my father and lived through the depression and the Second World War in Wellington. I was born eight years after they were married, and my mother told me they were apprehensive about bringing children into the world they had experienced.
I would imagine that their Jewish friends were even more apprehensive. In fact, mum told me a lovely story about a Jewish couple trying to choose very English names for their son. Their first choice was John Edward Williams until mum pointed out the initials on his school bag might raise suspicion.
I was born just before America dropped nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the Second World War. That gave very little security, because I grew up shielded by the nuclear umbrella but in fear of complete annihilation. I can still remember being at primary school and feeling apprehensive over the Suez Crisis while all the adults seemed to believe that the greatest threat to civilisation was Rock and Roll.
Later in life my brother-in-law trained soldiers who went to Vietnam and never returned. With a young family his sense of adventure was certainly dulled, but fortunately the army needed senior RSMs in Waiouru rather than in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
We are now hopefully emerging from a deadly pandemic that not only posed a risk to our lives but the conspiracy theories and resistance to controls threatened democracy.
According to the news media we are going through an unprecedented wave of youth crime and there are calls for harsher penalties. However, people with high adrenaline and limited imagination. don’t expect to be caught so the penalty is irrelevant. Furthermore, violence in intimate relationships is still the deadliest crime and fraudsters are very seldom arrested.
The world has always been a scary place and hope is vital in guiding humanity towards the future. Isaiah’s hopeful imagery gives the ongoing promise of future renewal.
At the time John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus he would not have had much hope for his life. Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus began his ministry after John was arrested.
They were tough on crime in the first century and, although there were no ramraids on dairies, execution was the universal penalty. Arrest usually led to execution. Not a joyful outlook for John.
Therefore, we can imagine that John would want some assurance that at least his mission would live on in Jesus’ mission.
But from John’s perspective the signs were not good. Jesus had not been sorting the wheat from the chaff, there was no sign of unquenchable fire and there was no axe at the foot of unfruitful trees. In fact, the scribes and the Pharisees, that John called a brood of vipers, were now giving Jesus a hard time.
Jesus’ answer was not to claim some special messianic title. There was not a leadership vote among John’s disciples or even Jesus’ disciples. There certainly, was no mention of Jesus in Herod’s New Year’s honours list. John was already on the executioners list and The Mikado hadn’t even been written.
Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples was to tell them to go and tell John what they had seen and heard.
Matthew 11:4 states. ‘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’.
I watched Brian Bruce’s documentary on revisiting his earlier programme on child poverty and a reply like Jesus gave to John the Baptist would certainly have cheered him up.
Jesus gave his whole life to hope in a hopeless world. We judge that life by what the Gospel writers tell us people saw and heard.
Furthermore, we have the privilege of looking back in history and seeing and hearing what impact Jesus’ life has had on the world we now live in.
In spite of all the scary things that have happened, and still happen, the transformation the church has brought into being must call us all to sing, ‘Joy to the world!’
The ongoing impact of Jesus on human history is indeed, a life-giving stream in the desert of human history.
But we still need to take note of Professor Elaine Wainwright’s comment in her commentary on Matthew’s Gospel:
‘Jesus’ reply certainly identifies Jesus as Christ or messiah, but it also challenges the church to identify itself as ‘Christ filled’ by what it does rather than what it says it believes.’ [5]
That is a very similar statement to Robin Meyers’ call to follow Jesus rather than simply worship Jesus. Elaine Wainwright and Robin Meyers, a Catholic and a protestant, both call the church to take note of Jesus’ example in today’s reading.
Our aim as a church and as church members, members of St Ninians, must be to be judged by what the church does rather than its statement of faith and theological position. The programme that Matthew’s Jesus outlines in Jesus’ reply to John is certainly challenging. It is also the vision for an outward facing church.
In this time of emails, the mail I get in my letter box comes mostly from Christian World Service, The Fred Hollows Foundation, Leprosy Mission, Plunket, Presbyterian Support and The Methodist Mission.
My letterbox gives a glimpse of the trickle of hope and joy that people like us send into a hostile world.
There is plenty of scope in our world to give sight to the blind, help the lame to walk, cleanse the lepers along with those with aids, polio, cystic fibrosis and of course covid. A whole host of nasties Jesus didn’t even know about.
We have the technology to allow the deaf to hear and I have two artificial lenses in my eyes. And yet over the years we have cut back on health spending as medical intervention becomes more expensive simply because incurable diseases are cured, and as we raise the dead, people stay in hospital longer using expensive equipment and miracle drugs.
I did a funeral for a nurse who had served in the second world war. In her notes she talked about soldiers coming into hospital with badly infected wounds and all they could do was make them comfortable. Some lived and most died. Then antibiotics arrived and they sent many more home.
We may not be called to such life changing situations but as a church and as individuals we can certainly bring good news to the poor.
Jesus was poor. The disciples were poor, they didn’t even have Kiwi Saver. Yet they began a movement that was like a stream in the desert that slowly trickled out into human history. They were not the leaders of their day; they were not excessively wealthy or have extraordinary knowledge or skill.
Jesus and his apostles, who took his message to the world, just trickled out into history and bloomed in history’s desert.
Likewise, each in our own way have the Christ inspired potential to bloom in our world. Our world may well be a scary world of climate change, pandemic, ramraids, war and uncertainty.
Certainly, looking back at my world there has been struggles and uncertainty. Times, even in our lifetimes, when our world seemed devoid of hope and filled with fear. But the worst never happened, and all the signs are it never will. As we live as Christ to others, we quite unexpectedly discover that we are indeed streams in the desert. Our lives blossom as we unthinkingly became part of a river of empowerment and joyful relationships.
Following Jesus and being Christ to others blossoms into transformed lives that bring joy to our world.
[1] Maurice Andrew The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington: DEFT 1999), p., 418.
[2] Elaine M Wainwright Shall We Look For Another? A Feminist Reading of the Matthean Jesus (New York: Orbis Books, 1998),p.69.
[3] Warren Carter, Mathew and the Margins: A Socio-Political and Religious Reading (London, New York: T&T Clark International 2000),pp250-253.
[4] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtAdvent3.htm
[5] Elaine M Wainwright Shall We Look For Another? A Feminist Reading of the Matthean Jesus (New York: Orbis Books, 1998),p.69.