Written for the “Worship and the Arts for the Child in All of Us” portion of tomorrow’s church service.
Based on Matthew 14.
A Little Fish
I am a fish from the Sea of Galilee.
I am a small fish, ten inches long and a weight of only half a pound. I am the smallest in my school. My brothers and sisters are much larger than I am. Faster, too, even though we were all born at the very same time. I’m not fast at all, and I can’t always keep up with the other fish in my school. I am usually left straggling at the very back, unprotected and vulnerable to anything in the Sea that might hurt me.
My brothers and sisters tell me I’m useless. Too small to be any good.
All my life I thought they were right – that I’d never be worth anything.
Until today.
My family has lived in this Sea for a long time, for generations and generations.
It’s been a quiet life, mostly. For generations, we have shared this sea with the fishermen. They are good to us, only fishing for what they need to feed their own families. They never take more of us than they need. And that’s good, I guess. I understand it. Circle of life and all that.
Because I’m so slow, I always guessed I’d be a part of the Circle of Life sooner rather than later.
And I was, because today I was caught by a little boy.
I am slower than most fish, but I am usually fast enough to hide when I see a net coming my way, but today I was distracted.
I saw a man on a boat today. Not a fisherman – he didn’t have a net or a pole with him. That was strange, so I stopped following my brothers and sisters and watched him for awhile. He didn’t do anything – he wasn’t moving much at all. He was just sitting there, quietly watching the gentle waves as they rocked against his boat.
I saw him sit up quickly, and I looked to see what he was looking at – a large crowd had gathered on the shore. I watched as the man sighed, then smiled, and began to row towards the crowd.
As I watched him row away, I felt the net of the little boy circle around me.
Caught.
After the boy caught me, he wrapped me up in a piece of parchment and tucked me into his bag. After awhile, he took me down to where the crowd was, and I could hear a man talking. I could see, just barely from my place in the boy’s bag that the man was the same man I’d seen sitting so strangely quiet in the boat this morning.
There were thousands of people in the crowd, and they were hungry.
“We will feed them,” the man said. ‘With what?’ I wondered.
Some of the people with him began asking the people in the crowd if they had any food they could offer, and the little boy who caught me reached into his bag and handed me to them.
I’m so little, I thought. I can’t feed all these people. I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough.
The men who took me put me in a basket with another fish and five loaves of bread. I could tell by the way they looked at each other that they knew I wouldn’t be enough, too.
But they handed me to the man and he held us up, giving thanks for all that God had provided. While he gave thanks, I prayed that God would forgive me for not having enough to give.
The basket I was in with the other fish and the bread was passed around the crowd, and every time a new hand took the basket, I held my breath and waited to be used up. But I found that, even as each person took their fill, I still had more to give.
I still had so much more to give.
Even after the basket had been passed around to all five thousand people, there was still so much left of me still to give. Twelve baskets full were left! God had transformed me into something so much greater than I ever dreamed I could be just twenty-four hours ago.
I never thought I’d be worth much to anybody – I was so small I would have fed only the smallest child a meager meal. But God made me much more than that.
I fed five thousand people today.
Are You The One Who Is To Come, Or Shall We Look For Another?
A Sermon Preached by
Lauren Evans at
Six Mile Run Reformed Church
on December 12, 2010
Matthew 11: 2-11
Dank.
Cold.
Damp in the way that curls up inside you and chills you to the point that you are quite certain you’ve forgotten what warmth feels like.
John the Baptist sat in such a prison as he penned his message for Jesus, likely stripped of what little he had to his name, which, as scripture tells us, was hardly more than a robe of coarse camel hair… and possibly the remnants of locusts and honey left in his beard from his last breakfast as a free man.
Not the mental image one would conjure up when picturing the herald marking the coming of the Messiah. Likely not exactly what John’s mother Elizabeth had pictured when, though she had been barren all her life, she was told that she was to bear a son, a son that, according to Luke chapter 1, was supposed to bring with him “joy and gladness… for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.”1
Likely not exactly what John the Baptist himself had pictured for his life, either.
Which of us would consider having to spend the majority of our life as an ascetic, refraining from most of life’s comforts – soft clothing, a hot meal, the companionship and conversation of friends and family – to be an indicator that we are “great in the eyes of the Lord”? I think it is safe to assume that most of us, if we lacked such creature comforts, would assume that God’s blessing had taken a vacation, if not abandoned us entirely.
Before landing in jail (punishment received for speaking out against King Herod’s new wife, who happened also to be his sister-in-law), John the Baptist had, with a degree of joyful expectation, agreed to do whatever was required of the one who carved the path of the coming messiah. He preached, he promised, he baptized converts in the Jordan River, always pointing away from himself and towards the one who was still to come.
For John knew that the One Promised was sure to come, bringing salvation and joy to those who recognized and received him.
And yet…
John probably accepted the nastier parts of his job as necessary evils, worth putting up with because the payout promised to be incredible. But I suspect that there were none who would sing “Come Now Long Expected Jesus” with quite as much fervor as John the Baptist.
And from his cell in Herod’s jail, the desire for the promised savior to make his appearance and make everything better was probably stronger than ever. The Latin translation of John’s jail experience describes him as wrapped in vinculis, literally “in chains”. Captured and subdued, John the Baptizer couldn’t even continue with the job he had been given. There was no one to hear his preaching and no baptisms to be done in his prison cell.
He could take his ministry no further and the last he had seen of Jesus the Christ had been at his baptism some time before, at what felt like at this point, the distant past. He knew that Jesus had been up to something, had heard rumors of the miracles wrought from his hand and of his slowly growing following.
But it seemed to John that nothing that had been prophesied about Jesus in the Old Testament was coming to pass – the nations had not all united under the name of the Lord and the Israelites were still under the yoke of foreign law. The lion had not yet laid down with the lamb. He knew Jesus was told to be the Messiah the earth was aching for, but the world appeared unchanged to John, and he was aware that his own time on earth was rapidly running short.
Because he was one that had gained a reputation for speaking out against immoral practices, even those committed by people of great power and influence, he knew that just as easily as fetters could be clapped around his ankles, an axe-blade could be dropped upon his neck.2 Surely the one who had had lived his life in misery to prepare the way of the Lord would live to see the promises of his reign fulfilled! If Jesus was the Messiah, as John had announced, then why didn’t he do something? Why had Jesus not gotten to the business of establishing his kingdom?3
And so John the Baptist sends his message to Jesus. “Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
‘I’ve been waiting an awfully long time,’ John seems to be saying. ‘Are you gonna do this thing, or what?’
Surely most of us are sympathetic to John the Baptist’s exasperation. After all, waiting for Jesus to come and work his wonders isn’t exactly new to us, either. The scriptures promise us that God has plans for us, plans that are for our good and not for our ill, to give us a future and a hope.4 But when we have spent the last sixteen months wandering in the harsh wilderness of joblessness, or are starting on our third year at the bottom of the transplant list, or have spent countless evenings on our knees praying for a loved one bound by chains of addiction, we may begin to wonder if we have been right to put our trust in God, or if we might not be better off looking for another, who might get done the things we expect of them.
We might wish that we had messengers of our own to send, reminding God that there’s still work to be done and not much time left in which to do it.
Advent is a time that reminds us that, while we wait in anticipation of the coming Savior, that waiting period is not always filled with joyful anticipation. Though we might believe firmly that Jesus Christ is Savior of the World, the one who redeems us and restores joy and peace to our brokenness, though we might be certain, as John the Baptist was certain, we are as likely as he is to wonder if Jesus is really the one to come or if, perhaps, we should be looking elsewhere for our help.
How blessed we are, then, that our God is not disheartened when we give in to our frustrations and voice our doubts! For Jesus did not respond to John the Baptist’s message with disappointment or anger, but by lovingly sending his followers to point out that God’s work was not yet finished but was being done!
John was stuck in prison and could not see beyond its damp and confining walls, but the work of Christ had already begun. Healing had begun, miraculous healings, of both body and spirit. The blind could see, the lame could walk and declared blessed were the poor and the meek, for theirs was the kingdom of God. Jesus’ response to John the Baptist’s tired question was, “Take heart, my beloved! I am at work, and my work is not yet done.”
Though he could not see for himself the miracles being performed by Christ, as a prophet, John the Baptist knew that the stories of Jesus’ works as reported to him by his disciples were signs of the coming Messiah foretold by John’s predecessors, the prophets of old.
“At that time the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll,” says Isaiah, “and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness. The downtrodden will again rejoice in the Lord; the poor among mankind will take delight in the sovereign king of Israel.”5
“Then blind eyes will open, deaf ears will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, the mute tongue will shout for joy; for water will flow in the desert.”6
The things Jesus told John’s disciples to report to him were proof that Jesus was the Messiah John had promised, baptized, and introduced publically.7
Much of John’s frustration (understandable to us, for we have shared in it ourselves!) came from the expectation, that we also frequently share in, that God must work in the way that we anticipate, on a schedule that we name, to the end result that we desire. John the Baptist challenged Jesus in the light of his expectations – and his expectations – this is important! – his expectations weren’t bad ones to have! He expected the Messiah to come and be all that the scriptures had foretold, and he expected it to happen before his life was over. John’s question didn’t show a lack of faith on his part, but an honest and sincere desire for the Kingdom of God to arrive in all its terrible majesty.
Though perhaps we are impatient for its full and powerful arrival, we celebrate Advent together in part as a reminder that the healing work of Christ has long begun, for as it says later in Isaiah,
“[God’s people] shall return to the Lord, and he will show mercy to them, for he will freely forgive them. Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds… the promise that I make… is realized as I desire and is fulfilled as I intend.”8
And so, in that anticipation that is sometimes a heavy weight to bear, we celebrate this third week of Advent as the Week of Joy. The joy that the angel promised would be named by John the Baptist and claimed by Christ Jesus is a very real, world-upturning joy. It is the joy of a God who chose to walk incarnate upon the earth and draw us close to God’s side. It is the joy of a God who, through the life and death of Christ on the cross, rejoices with his reclaimed creation. It is the joy of a God who fulfills his promises and unwraps the chains of guilt and shame from around our weary shoulders. It is why, as we gather together in worship of this God, we stand together as the people of God and JOYFULLY proclaim,
“Hallelujah, Amen!”
—
1. Luke 1: 14-15
2. Waiting in Chains: Advent and John the Baptist, 2.
3. Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Jews, 2.
4. Jeremiah 29:11
5. Isaiah 29:18-19
6. Isaiah 35:4-6
7. Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Jews, 4.
8. Isaiah 55:7-11
An exercise in two parts.
Home. Noun.
the place where one lives; the place where one was born or reared; a place thought of as home; a household and its affairs.
Written June 23, 2009: Ontario, CA
Home. Noun.
An old oak tree in a bed of flat stones – one low branch perfect for sitting. Finding that you know all the inside jokes. Ten-year-old spots of black paint on bedroom carpet. The familiar curve of a bathtub. The constant hum of the freeway. The dog-eared pages of a book whose binding has all but worn away. A library to whom you owe two books sixteen years overdue. Being slightly more at ease. Being slightly less at ease. An empty lot with a decade-old sign declaring the future location of a church. Stepping over sleeping brothers to get at fresh eggs and pork roll on Christmas morning. Being unable to get away with anything. Being unable to be anyone new.
Written November 30, 2009: Princeton, NJ
Home. Noun.
A comfy bed at times not wide enough, at times not warm enough. The constant tapped warning of a crosswalk. Leaves crunching in abundance under your feet. Old books on a new bookshelf. A freezer that refuses to actually freeze anything. Sleeping ten feet from where a personal hero preached his very first sermon. Warm smiles greeting you from an ancient doorway. New faces who tease you about the same old things. Great debates held over trays of crappy food. Walking everywhere. Wanting to walk everywhere. The opportunity to be someone new. Discovering that you don’t know how to be.
—
I want to explain to you what this feels like, sitting in this window seat just shy of two hundred years old as rain like hail pours down onto grass and pavement and trees and splashes me through the old windowsill that I have carelessly and carefully left open.
I am wrapped in a blanket, cold and damp and warm. And happy. For the first time in a month I am.
Happy.
Here.
There is hard thunder rattling through trees far older than even this building I’m nestled in.
There is glee in me. As I sit. As I stare. As I watch and listen as heavy rain falls harder, shouting, then whisper quiet.
Indecisive.
I keep getting surprised by this rain. Blindsided. Unaware until it runs down my cheeks and my shoulders and off my nose how heavy-laden it is.
It is beautiful; breathtaking. Breath-transforming as its fat raindrops take light from my lamp and explode in bright, glitttering color on the asphalt below.
I love this rain and its weighty footfalls.
I am lighter, somehow.
And today I aced my Greek quiz.
—
Filed under: Writing
Love. Noun, verb.
a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; intense personal attachment or affection; strong enthusiasm or liking.
Love. Noun, verb.
Skipping class to buy him calamine lotion. A globe hidden in the back of her truck. Finding out what long distance calls cost after a four-hour conversation. A game of “Baby, if you love me, smile”. Fake crushes on his older brother. Matching freckles. A black and white photograph printed on canvas. Abbreviated goodbyes. A stolen kiss in a movie theater. Stolen fries. Promising he likes her daring haircut; brushing hair out of her eyes – “It’s short.” Pushing a marimba through locked double doors at midnight. Holding the chair steady so she doesn’t fall. Waking from a nightmare into his arms. Playing her Bob Dylan in the emergency room. Writing jokes on his theology notes. Holding her hand as she throws up and kissing her goodnight later anyway. The extra long hug. Chumbawumba. A beat up truck.
—
