How To Be Good
a sermon by Rev. Rebecca Segers
Isaiah 35:1-10
Matthew 11:2-11
John the Baptist is in prison. He’s been doing the prophet thing to the nth degree, following the guidelines of the Old Testament guys, which means wearing rough clothes and not brushing his hair, eating bugs and honey for lunch, and proclaiming the need for Israel to repent.
It’s getting on the nerves of some people in high places. They don’t like him – he’s rabble-rousing and stirring up the population. They don’t want people repenting, changing, especially not in a way that threatens them. They want their constituency docile and obedient. But here’s John out there telling them they’ve got to adjust their behavior big-time. They’ve got to turn around 180 and do things differently. On top of that, in our Scripture reading last week, we heard John telling them that he was the forerunner, the portend-er of the one who was to come after him, the one who was to baptize them with fire and the Holy Spirit. If you remember, while John told the people about the one who was coming after, but he didn’t call Jesus by name. It was a prophecy, but an uncertain one.
Then Jesus shows up to be baptized and John doesn’t want to do it. When he’s face to face with Jesus, with the Christ, John recognizes him. He tells Jesus that he needs to be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. Jesus insists, in his own quiet way, telling John that it is proper, fulfilling God’ will, to baptize him. So John does it; the heavens open up, the Spirit of God descends as a dove and the voice of God declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Well, at that point, John must have felt pretty sure of Jesus’ identity. It must have been pretty clear. But have any of you ever had a spiritual moment? A moment when you felt God’s presence as clearly as I’m standing here speaking to you today? A moment when you knew absolutely who God intended you to be or what God intended you to do? The clarity was like lightning illuminating the landscape of your mind and there was no doubt as to the next step you were to take.
Afterward, perhaps you were a little hesitant. After all, you didn’t want to get it wrong. So you waited for more instruction or inspiration – and it never came. Or maybe you did act as you thought you were being called to act. With great excitement and enthusiasm, you stepped out in faith and began the journey on the path you thought God intended. But it didn’t seem to go quite the way that you had imagined. There were struggles along the way that didn’t seem quite right. Or it didn’t all fall into place easily as you had thought it would. Or the people that you were working with weren’t on the same page with you…
Now John is in prison. He’s probably got a pretty good idea that he’s not going to last a whole lot longer. This journey has probably been something like he expected. After all, Jeremiah and Ezekiel didn’t last too long either. Prophets of old were not known for long lives and good benefits. They were known for faithfulness and early deaths at the hands of the powerful. Still and all, as he sits waiting in the moldering damp of the prison cell, he wants to know. He wants to know for sure if Jesus is the “One.” He wants to know if Jesus is the person that he projected coming, the Messiah, the Savior of Israel.
You see; he had the moment on the shore of the Jordan where he knew. He was sure at one point in his ministry. But you’ve got to also remember the Messiah that he was predicting. The gory, glorious warrior judge who was going to come and baptize them with fire and the Holy Spirit. The one who would not let the Roman oppressors continue to get away with their bad behavior – would he? John’s life is coming to an end and he wants to know just “Who Is this Jesus?”
Now, John’s disciples are visiting him in prison. They are worried, too, but about their own master. They are bringing him food and messages and taking his words out to those who follow him. They are ministering to and for him, essentially taking care of his last requests. Among them, John has one they aren’t expecting. He tells them to travel to where Jesus is, to get him aside and to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
John’s question is not one that arises out of faith, but out of doubt. He isn’t the certain John, the prophet they know, eyes blazing and voice filled with fire raging at the population about their mistakes and hypocrisy. He is a man on his virtual deathbed, wondering about the Messiah and saying, “Is it you, Jesus, or is there somebody else that’s really going to do the job?”
Whatever they think of his request, John’s disciples obey their master. They go to Jesus and ask him the question. But as usual, Jesus doesn’t give a straight answer. He doesn’t say “yes”; he doesn’t say “no.” He says, “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 good news is preached to the poor.”
These words are directly out of the book of Isaiah, a passage that is a prophecy of a transformed world and the return to the Zion, the Israel of old. At the time this prophecy was written, the people of Israel were in exile – they were all living in pain and separation from the land they hold most dear. They were all helpless and alone. Isaiah was telling them that there would come a time when things would be different. He is asking them to have faith because there would be a reason to rejoice. He is telling them of a future that is different. A future where the mark of God’s kingdom is that all of them will live in joy. And even the most helpless of all will have the greatest cause to praise God. Isaiah is saying, to use the words of a prophet that lived thousands of years after him, “I have a dream.” A dream that all will be healed and lie in joy. This is the way the world will be when God’s kingdom is on earth. Have faith, people. It will come.
In our story today, John the Baptist wants to know if Jesus is the real thing, and Jesus’ answer uses the words of this prophecy from Isaiah: “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.” He’s returning the question to John, asking, “What does this mean to you? Is Isaiah’s prophecy simply words in a book; are they only a dream, or are they real? And if they are, what does that make me?”
Jesus is saying that we know him by his actions, not by his words. It is not about saying he is the Son of God. That’s not what’s important at all. What is important is what he is doing: the fruit of his behavior. You can tell who he is, by what he does.
What about us? Can you tell who we are by what we do? There’s a relatively new novel out by the Nick Hornby called How To Be Good. The protagonist is Katie, a married woman with two children who is a doctor. She is a doctor because she always wanted to make a difference in the world, to help people, to “be good.” She knows that some of her colleagues think she is naïve or idealistic because of this goal, but it’s still a part of who she is, this desire to be a good person.
Katie is married to David, a man whose job is to write a column for the local newspaper titled “The Angriest Man in Holloway.” He is a selfish, angry, sarcastic bully and at the beginning of the book, all Katie wants is for him to be different. Then he meets a spiritual leader and changes. Really changes. All of a sudden, he is the good one in the family. And not good in the modern-day, politically-correct, organic-food-eating way, but in the manner of the gospels. He takes Katie out to the theatre (something in the past that she has loved and he has loved to hate) and actually acts decently about it. Then on the way home, just as she’s looking forward to the luxury of a cab ride from the center of London to their suburb of Holloway, he grabs her purse and gives the total eighty pounds in her pocketbook to a homeless boy on the street, holding out just enough to get the two of them home by subway. The next day, she comes home to the kids in an uproar, because he’s given away one of their computers to the battered women’s shelter, saying they don’t use it enough, they can share the one he’s left and that the shelter needs it more. Then the plans become even greater and wilder. David invites his spiritual leader to live with them, has a party to convince everyone in the neighborhood with a spare bedroom to take in a homeless person, and begins drawing up schemes for mass redistribution of wealth. On top of all that, he’s quit his job because he’s no longer angry; he’s kind, soft-spoken and earnest. He’s become a good person, a truly good one…
There is no doubt in my mind that every one of us here in this room thinks of him or her-self as a good person. Or at the very least, as someone who tries to be good. Who does his or her best. But is it good enough?
When John the Baptist asks Jesus, “Who are you?” Jesus says, “Look and see.” If people asked, “Who are you?” of any of us, what would the answer be? Would people know that you are a Christian because of anything other than a cultural guess? Would they recognize that you are a follower of Jesus the Christ. What if you walked around with a big sign across your chest or your back that said “Christian” – would Jesus be proud of you who bear his name – or not?
The first part of our Scripture passage today was about “who is Jesus.” The second part of our lesson is about John the Baptist. Who is he? As John’s disciples leave, Jesus starts asking the crowd about him. About what they expected when they went out to see John the Baptist. He’s reminding them through a subtle prodding that they weren’t going to hear a king in fancy clothes or a high and mighty nobleman; they weren’t going out to hear an aristocrat or a politician. They went out to hear a prophet – and Jesus tells them, that is indeed what they heard. Even more. They heard someone who was not only a prophet, but a great prophet, a prophet who was granted the message of foretelling the one to come. In this sort of backhanded way, as John’s disciples are leaving, they hear Jesus answer their question. Yes, John did come to announce the coming of the Messiah. Which must mean that Jesus is that Messiah. But this statement also leads Jesus to make one that is even more radical. He tells the people that as great as John the Baptist is, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is. The poor, the lame, the crippled, the maimed, the hungry, the homeless, the battered, the abused, the poverty-stricken, the war-torn, the sick, the blind are all more important than John. John has been sent to prepare the way, but Jesus is sent to fulfill it.
But he didn’t, did he? I mean, while he was on earth, the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed and so on, but that’s certainly not the case today. Or at least not unless you are wealthy or have the right insurance or live in the right country or have the right doctors or the right education and so on and so forth.
Which brings us back to “how to be good.” Because I think the really important subject of this morning’s Scripture lesson isn’t “Who is Jesus” or “Who is John the Baptist,” but is “Who are You?” The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians that the church is the body and Christ is the head. And in 1 Corinthians, we are told that the body has many members, of which all have equal importance. Clearly, we are meant to be Christ’s body, Christ’s arms and ears and eyes and legs, Christ’s heart and lungs and mind and spirit in the world today.
This is a crucial time in our celebration of Jesus the Christ’s story as our own. This is the time when we wait for him to come as a little babe and also as a full-fledged grown-up deliverer of the people. We are waiting for the celebration of the child in the manger, but we are also waiting for the day that the Isaiah passage speaks about, too. The day of the redeemed where no one goes astray, but all will return to the Lord, singing with everlasting joy and gladness.
Not only are we waiting for it, but I think Jesus calls us to participate in it. Jesus calls us to be a people of action, not simply of words. Jesus calls us to be his body in this broken world and to be harbingers of his love and justice and peace. Am I saying that we should all be like the character, David, in the book How To Be Good? Well, actually, no. If you read the book, David gets some things right, but in many ways, he causes more havoc than good. But certainly the sentiment, the desire, the longing to be good is desirable. And that longing translated then into action is even better. But it doesn’t mean you have to quit your job and turn your house into a homeless shelter. Unless, of course, you thoughtfully, prayerfully, faithfully discover that is God’s will for you.
But what I would ask you to do this Advent season, as you wait for God’s coming to earth in human form, is that you look at your own life, your own personal situation, whether you are retired or a parent with young children, whether you are doing well financially or struggling to make ends meet, whether you are physically in your prime or you have to be more careful about where you step and how you move, whatever stage you are in in life, God has a use for you still, or you wouldn’t be here.
Everything in our lives up to this point has brought us to exactly where we are today – to being in this sanctuary together at Sweet Hollow Presbyterian Church at this moment in time hearing these words, sitting next to the person in the pew with us, with certain others in front and behind. If you don’t know what you are called to do at this particular point in time, all you need to do is look and listen right where you are – it will probably be near. Maybe geographically near, maybe not, because neighborhoods are not always physical, but it will be near. Look and listen.
Peace Activist Fran Peavey was once asked where she thought people should start looking and she replied, “There are opportunities for service all the time. One time, while driving a cab, I picked up a woman in her nightgown. She had been walking in her sleep and she was lost. I helped her find her way home…wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you can serve there. It doesn’t have to be a big idea. It can be right where you are.”
Here at Sweet Hollow on this very day, there are opportunities for service in the immediate moment. You can come pick up an ornament off our More Than Mittens Tree and bring in a pair of gloves or a toothbrush and toothpaste or another item and bring it in to next week’s service. You can browse the UPW Christmas Boutique after worship today during coffee hour and buy a handcrafted item or homemade cookies, knowing that the money you spend will go to mission work in the near future. Or you can pick up something for the UPW’s Adopted Family for Christmas. If you don’t have extra money to spend, you can stay for the Christmas pageant rehearsal today and help with costumes or props – or directing traffic! Or come to a few rehearsals and sing in the choir for our Christmas Eve services, and maybe beyond. Or say “yes” when Alison Paalz or another member of the Nominating Committee call to ask you to serve as an Elder or a Deacon. Or you are welcome to give me a call, and we can get together and spend some time in discussion and prayer about where God is leading you at this particular time in your life.
For this is one thing I’m sure of – God is leading you. God is leading me. God is leading all of us to be the persons, the people God wants us to be. This is the third week of Advent. We are waiting. We are watching. We are holding our collective breath in anticipation. We want to know “how to be good.” We not only want to know how, we actually want to be good. All we need to do is to pay attention. To watch and to wait. To hold on prayerfully and with love. And the answer will come. “The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Amen.