josephholubsermons
December 18, 2011 - Advent 4
Matthew:2-11
The Power of Expectations
“When John heard in
prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples, and
said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for
another?’”
(Matthew 11:2)
I learned while living in Alaska that native Alaskans, and native
Americans in general, are story-tellers.
If you ask a native American holy person or shaman a spiritual or
philosophical question, they will often answer with a story
rather than a more western right-brained critique.
It is analogous to Jesus who
taught with aphorisms and parables.
I remember a time being at a pastors gathering, and the discussion was
centered on “the power of
expectations.” A
native American Lutheran pastor was a part of our group.
True to form, he contributed to the discussion by
telling a story.
A Pawnee boy came upon an eagle’s egg which had somehow fallen unbroken
from an eagle’s nest. Unable to
find the nest, the boy put the egg in the nest of a prairie chicken
where it was hatched by the brooding mother hen.
The fledgling eagle, with its
proverbial strong eyes, saw the world for the first time. Looking at the
other prairie chickens, he did what they did. He scratched at the earth,
pecked here and there for stray grains and husks, now and then rising in
a flutter a few feet above the earth and then descending again.
He accepted and imitated the
habits of the earthbound prairie chickens.
One day an eagle flew over the brood of prairie chickens. The now mature
eagle, who still thought he was a prairie chicken, looked up in awe as
the great bird soared through the skies.
“What is that?”
he gasped in astonishment! An
old prairie chicken replied,
“I have seen them before. That is the eagle, the proudest, strongest and
most magnificent of all the birds.
Don’t you ever
expect that you could be like that. You are like the rest of us, and we
are prairie chickens.”
So, shackled by this belief, the
eagle lived on thinking he was a prairie chicken.
Expectations
are powerful and exert enormous influence.
They shape our perceptions of realty, including
perceptions of self.
Expectations
sculpt how we see reality and engage reality.
Much of the time our expectations are deeply embedded
in the subconscious.
Many studies and experiments have been done on the power of expectations
in different fields. Take
the so-called placebo effect
where people are given a medication to treat a specific ailment.
They take the pill, not knowing it is nothing more than a sugar
pill, and a certain
percentage of people get better. It’s
a testimony to the power of expectations?
We all live with an abundance of expectations about everything.
We have expectations for ourselves, for each other and for the
world. In one series of
repeated studies done by Harvard University researchers, children were
randomly divided up into two groups.
There was little difference between the two groups of children in
terms of ability at the beginning of the term.
One group was given to a teacher who was told that the students
were high-achievers.
The other group was given to a teacher who was told that class
was composed of
under-achievers. By
the end of the term the class labeled the high- achievers was doing
better than average work, and the class labeled under-achievers was
doing less than average work.
The experiment was repeated numerous times in various places with
similar results in each situation.
We can even shape our own
reality based on our expectations.
Many of us remember the Y2K problem or Millennium Bug, as it was
called, as the clock counted down to Year 2000.
It was a world-wide computer issue rooted in the representation
of the year with two digits in computer operating systems. It was
expected that unless corrective actions were taken there would be
world-wide computer failures that could throw the world into chaos.
We all know that, relatively speaking, it turned out to be a
non-event. Debates have
raged between those who argue that the relative absence of major
computer incidents was the result of several years of corrective
preparation, while others argue the problem was over-stated in the first
place. No matter, the point
is that a powerful, almost universal, expectation caused changes in the
behavior and actions of many people.
I know people who
responded by storing enough food and water to last for months.
Expectations fulfilled or exceeded
can be a source of great satisfaction and happiness.
Think of times your children or others have exceeded your
expectations and how it made you feel – the joy it gave – the pride you
felt.
Contrarily,
expectations not met
can be a source of great disappointment, displeasure and
disillusionment. I
suspect we can all tell our stories about that!
Frank and Emma of Sun
City, Arizona had been married for 45 years.
A few days before Thanksgiving
Frank called his son in New York and said,
"Son, I hate to bring you this bad news, but your mother and I are
getting a divorce!"
Their son was shocked
and hysterical. He immediately
called his sister in Seattle and told her.
"Like heck they are getting a divorce," she said.
"You call and tell them not to
do a thing until we get there.
I'm headed for
the airport, and you need to do the same thing."
So the son called his father back and told him they were on
their way and to do nothing.
When Frank hung up the phone he turned to Emma and said,
"Well, they're coming for Thanksgiving, but what story are we going to
tell them for Christmas!"
The children obviously had the
expectation their
parents would never consider a divorce, and they were shocked at the
prospect. The parents also had
the expectation their
children should come for the holidays, and they stopped at nothing, even
deception, to get them there.
For me, that's what this story in Matthew is partly about.
John the Baptist is languishing in prison, and it sounds as if he
is beginning to have his
doubts about Jesus.
John sent his disciples to Jesus to ask,
“Are you really the one who is
to come, or shall we look for another?”
This a far cry from same John who not long before baptized
Jesus with the humble declaration,
“I need to be baptized by you,
and do you come to me?”
Whatever John’s
expectations for Jesus were, evidently Jesus was not living up to
them. Jesus didn’t
necessarily look like the messiah that even John expected.
But, you see, this was about more than merely John.
I believe Matthew tells this story (as does Luke in his gospel)
because in those days expectations for the messiah were various and
plentiful.
Matthew and Luke were written in the 9th decade of the first
century, after the Romans had destroyed the temple and Jerusalem and
killed thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands in the Jewish rebellion.
One popular
expectation of the messiah was that the messiah would be a
powerful, military and political figure who would over throw the Roman
oppressors with force and might and re-established the Davidic monarchy.
But that is not what happened and who Jesus turned out to be.
John’s question from prison represents a
composite voice of doubt
that was rising up among the early faith communities.
In fact, the gospels are
clear that Jesus superseded most popular messianic
expectations. Matthew and Luke’s
gospels, especially,
challenge their faith communities to let go of rigid and
violent messianic expectations that were blinding them, so that
they might embrace Jesus and his vision of the Kingdom of God;
his vision for life
and for what the world could be if compassion and social justice and
grace ruled. Matthew and Luke’s
gospels unravel
popular expectations about the messiah.
Matthew and Luke tell us that
the disciples, since they were a part of his inner circle,
expected they
would have special privileges
and have power over others.
But they were shocked
when Jesus taught them to serve one another and to take up
their cross and follow.
(Lk 9:46-48; 22:24-27; Matt 18:1-5)
Matthew and Luke tell us that
some expected a messiah who would tell them that their
neighbors were those who looked and believed like them. But they
were taken aback when
Jesus told them that a neighbor was anyone in need, anyone suffering as
a victim; and when they ministered to them they really were ministering
to him! (Luke
10:25-37; Matt 25:31-46)
Matthew and Luke tell us that
the Pharisees expected
a messiah who would congratulate them for being so righteous in
dedicating their lives to honoring religious law. But they were
shaken when Jesus
chastised them when they used
religious law to marginalize others and trump love and compassion.
(Luke 11:37-44; Matt 23:1-36)
Matthew and Luke tell us that the Jewish armed underground and
resistance movement
expected a messiah who would side with their cause to
forcibly and violently drive the Roman occupiers from the land. But they
were appalled when
Jesus took the swords out of their hands, and showed them another
way, employing the "weapon" of love for the enemy.
(Luke 6:27-28, 32-36; Matt 5:39-42)
Matthew and Luke tell us that
self-righteous people
expected a messiah who would assure them that the ritually
unclean and sick had gotten what they deserved, and their suffering was
the result of God’s judgment. But they were
offended by Jesus when
he freely embraced the unclean, expressed compassion for the sick and
told them this was God's
truest vision.
(Luke 5:17-26; Matt 9:1-8)
Matthew and Luke tell us that
many expected that the great temple would be the center
of all things in the new age of the arriving messiah. But they were
outraged when Jesus
told them the temple would be reduced to rubble and that the
primary residence of the divine was not in a building but in the
human heart and at the
heart of human building
inclusive community.
(Luke 21:5-6; 23:45)
Everyone expected that
when they took Jesus down from the cross and buried him, he would never
be seen or heard of again. But
here we are, 2 millennium later, testifying to his
living presence among
us that confirms and affirms the way of life he leads us into.
Astounding!
This story of John questioning and wondering
is a challenge to all of us to reflect on our personal
expectations for Jesus and the Divine, and to place our expectations
alongside the Jesus of the gospels that we truly get – not some made up
version of Jesus we invent to advance our agendas.
If it is true that expectations have the power to transform the
world and us, the gospel challenge is to allow the Jesus of the gospels
to reshape us and our expectations.
T.S. Eliot's 1949 play,
“The Cocktail Party”,
explores the empty lives of people living out the delusions of the good
life. These people spend their lives in pursuit of pleasure going from
relationship to relationship, happy hour to happy hour, therapist to
therapist. Then one young woman
from their social group, the mistress of one of the men, discovers the
fulfillment of the self-emptying life of Jesus, and she begins serving
others. She disappears from the social scene, and after several years
the word comes back that she has died in Africa where she had been
ministering to poor and oppressed peoples. Her friends sip their
martinis and murmur, "What a
waste!"
Was her life a waste?
According to the expectations
of her former social friends - yes!
But what about according to the
expectations of Jesus
and the Kingdom of God?