From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit

Providence, Rhode Island – January 25, 2009

“Getting Jesus Wrong” (Matthew 3:3-11)

Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

One of the surprising things in the Bible is how almost everybody got Jesus wrong, especially those closest to him. In The Gospel of Mark (1:21-28), the only one’s to get it right were the demons. The disciples never got it. And still don’t. Why is it so hard to get Jesus right; so easy to misunderstand?

One that’s always mystified me is how his Mamma misread him. 12 years after Christmas you’d think she’d remember. But Jesus was an adolescent. Mary lit into him for scaring them by his negligence. And he stood up to her: “Come one Mom, didn’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?” His Father? His father’s a carpenter. How could she miss that?

Later on in the Galilean village of Cana when he turned the water to wine, he rebuked her for not getting it, with a cryptic claim: “My hour is not yet come.” Hint. Hint. What did he mean by his “hour?” We know. She didn’t. After the angels, shepherds, Magi, and Herod, I find that astounding.

But nobody got Jesus wrong, more than John the Baptist. Who initially introduced Jesus as “The Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sin.” Whose sandals he was not worthy to untie. Those were the early days, before Jesus did anything; when he was a blank slate. Crowds were excited about a new Messiah on the scene, like Moses or Elijah. John assumed Jesus was “the one” to make everything wrong, right. Imagine trying to carry the weight of that on your shoulders. Whew! The dreams we reserve for our: our coaches, our preachers, our presidents.

But mostly John thought Jesus would be like he predicted and continue what John started; and especially do it the same way John did, who was a somber, tee-totaler, fire and brimstone prophet. But John got Jesus all wrong! Who turned out to be the opposite: a free spirit, party-animal, full of grace and truth, who blessed people that didn’t deserve it. How could they miss it so badly? Expectations, no doubt. Wishful thinking overriding their good sense, perhaps. The prophet Isaiah said of God, “My ways are not your ways” (Ch 55). John was the forerunner. And once Jesus showed up, his role was ... to step aside: “He must increase but I must decrease.” I don’t know anybody who does that well. John figured the one to come after him would “give ‘em hell,” with "a winnowing fork!" But Jesus gave ‘em just the opposite: love, mercy, acceptance, healing, affirmation of sinners, not judgment upon them. And he backed up his leadership-style with his life.

So strong were John’s doubts that he sent followers to Jesus asking a sad question, wracked with apprehension, and the poignant suspicion that he might’ve make a mistake, "Are you the one who is to come? When you feel like your messiah’s let you down, all that’s left is to go “looking for another one.” “Are you the Guy ... or not?” Ever notice how few direct answers Jesus gave to his questioners? Pilate wanted to know if he was “king of the Jews.” Jesus said, “You say that I am. My kingdom is not of this world.”

When John sent his team to check out Jesus’ credentials, no doubt they preferred a simple “yes” or “no.” Just say the word, one way or another, and we’ll take it back to John, who’s in a bad way, by the way. There’s something demeaningly defensive about Jesus stooping to their request: “Absolutely, I’m the One. You have my word on it.” Nah, Jesus was bigger than that. He clicked off a list that didn’t have a thing to do with “separating the wheat from the chaff.” Stuff about the blind, the lame, the sick, the deaf, the poor, and the dead being raised.”

It’s the old conflict over methods, isn’t it? John did it his way. Jesus didn’t do it like John did. He just wasn’t acting like the messiah’s supposed to act. Rather than raising an army, he called a bunch of fishermen, with a tax collector and zealot stirred in for good measure. That wasn’t what they had in mind.

Jesus left us no Christian technique. There are no handy “buttons to push” like a cabbage-slicer salesman that “works,” if you just do it a certain way. Jesus confounded John because he had no techniques, nor did he try to discover who he was by using somebody else’s, even John’s. “Go tell John what you see”...not because he used a “successful technique” but the lifestyle and heartbeat and passion of One who didn’t give a hoot about technique. As far as I can tell Jesus didn’t have any techniques, other than “the sermon on the mount.” He was too busy being himself. He did care about people who were locked into imprisoning ideas and circumstances.

That’s why we don’t achieve Christlikeness by following Jesus’ techniques, but by letting his Spirit live through us, and our own lifestyle and techniques, and without an instruction book, even if it’s the Bible. Unrealistic expectations are killers of the human spirit. And so are different methods. When somebody doesn’t do things the way we like, it threatens us. It’s the plague of expecting everybody else to “like what I like.” Do what I do. Think like I think. Talk like I talk.

John had the misfortune of being good at something. So good that it’s bad. Caring is a good thing. But if we care too much about something, that we can’t let it go, caring becomes controlling -- a bad thing. John’s struggle came from being too much of an expert; knowing too much; opinionated about how things ought to be done...his way mostly. People like that have a hard time in life, because they stay mad a lot. I run into it all the time, especially in churches. In a previous church near DC, we had a lot of nurses in the congregation. I recall once having to be admitted for some surgical procedure. They asked, “Which hospital?” “Prince George’s General.” “O you don’t wanta go there!” Any old hospital’s fine with me, but to the experts, only one was good enough. The rest of us didn’t know any better. One of the good things about “a lack of knowledge,” an unpopular notion no doubt on “College Hill.” Sometimes we can know too much, when we think we know it all.

But Jesus wasn’t like that at all. And that’s why John got him wrong. John goes “Bring it on!” “Sock it to ‘em!” As it turned out, Jesus was more interested in healing than torching; in raising the dead than wasting the wicked. It’s understandable isn’t it, how John misread Jesus; or at least how he could dare to ask for the clarification he seeks?

If a stalwart like the vaunted Baptist could get Jesus wrong, how can we not -- only more so? In what ways are we getting Jesus wrong? Do we have the courage to take our doubts to Jesus or investigate how Jesus doesn’t match-up, point‑for‑point with our theological expectations.

I guarantee you there are churches, synagogues, and mosques with people in ‘em, who long for the incineration of those with their version of wickedness that John anticipated, and they may be as eager for it as John was. What is all the uproar over gay marriage if not John revived? Or the resentment toward immigrants? The discrimination against muslims. Heck some even feel that way about Southerners!

We keep getting Jesus wrong because it galls us to think of God loving those we dislike. When it came to some believers' certainty about other people's sin and God's judgment on them, Jesus said, "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but overlook the log in your eye?"

On the other hand, others are way too polite and “politically correct” to sound much like John the Baptist when they encounter imperfection. It’s not that they think the Messiah ought to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. For them, it’s being burned too often by false messiahs. So, they don't expect much of anything to change with our Messiahs anymore. Some realize that they don’t make a Messiah who can fix the messes they’ve made. Rather than over-expect, they under-expect. Like ol’ Nathaniel smirked, “Can anything good (a messiah) come out of Nazareth.

Compared to John’s boldness, Jesus is a softie. He wasn’t incensed at John’s questioning his methods. He doesn’t defend himself. Nor does he attack his cousin or attempt to justify his methods. He just says to John's messengers, "Tell him what you see and hear.”

In place of the unrealistic expectations, Jesus gave them a good dose of reality, whether it fit the bill as expected was beside the point. It is what it is, not what everybody wanted it to be. Jesus was great precisely because he could let God be God. And others be themselves. Instead of being blinded by our hopes, preferring our illusions to reality, which is why every Messiah’s first mission is to get people to quit looking for one! It’s an impossible task. Because no sooner does our Messiah let us down, than we’ll go off searching for another one, and then another, who’ll give us what we want; and do things the way we think they ought to be done. But “this” messiah would go about it God’s way, which was nobody’s way. He needed no military, no cash, no luxury digs, no status, no reputation. That’s our way. God’s way is to open the eyes of the blind, raise the dead, and offer the poor a future with some hope in it, to make nobody’s somebody’s.

One of the hardest things to get somebody to do is change their habits. It’s nigh onto impossible. Especially when we keep doing the same things, expecting things to change. I went to see Gran Torino last week, directed by Clint Eastwood. You’ve seen the previews enough to know it’s about an old man, “set in his ways!” I’m not gonna tell ya’ll anymore about it, but you will be surprised.

But it did remind me of Jesus’ story about a “good Samaritan” who was bad news. Most think of the story as good news. But it was bad news for “the guy who fell among thieves,” because the one who cared for him was a despised Samaritan! Ooooh! How inconvenient! To have an enemy treat you humanely, breaks the mold. Acts out of character. Samaritans have no dealings with Jews. Yet Jesus makes a Samaritan the hero, who rescues an injured Jew. That’s when the good Samaritan is bad news. Because it showed how the Jews got the Samaritans wrong. We’re always getting somebody or other wrong, aren’t we?

What if folks got us wrong? If John’s team were to check out our credentials in Providence, “Are you his disciples?” How do we respond? “Look what’s going on and decide for yourself?” See me at home. Watch me on the job. Or where my priorities lie and what I think is important. Is there healing where I am? Does anybody laugh around you? Does somebody hurt less or more because I’m there? Am I a peacemaker or a conflict-bringer? Do I get off berating somebody I don’t like or upgrading them? Are people closer to God because I passed by?

"Ah 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." Could this be the Messiah? And if it is, like John, are you disappointed?

Pastoral Prayer (1/25/09)

Gracious God, our Father, beneath whose watchful eye and within whose merciful patience, the story of our years is told, center us in Thy presence, and prepare us for divine mystery: for inviting us and challenging us, lifting us and confronting us, correcting us and saving us, deliver us in this hour from all that separates us from all things good, even if it means we must change – as we strive to “see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, and follow Thee more nearly.”

Encourage the wounded and grieving; bring relief to the ill, for whom the road to health is long and hard; be close to those for whom all hope of recovery is gone. Comfort these. But challenge those allowing a habitual way of doing things contribute to the chaos they face. Humble those too proud to admit their need of a church family. Open the eyes of those, too busy working for temporal things that they never give a thought to eternity; those to smug to pray.

Break into the brokenness of our needs, and wants that masquerade as needs; and the wisdom to know one from the other. Make this church a channel of Thy love and forgiveness; where people can gain a fresh start. Grant to this body a doubt-scattering confidence in Jesus. Reveal Thy presence in the ways we treat one another and work together for the common good. Bring Thy healing through our prayers. Work Thy grace through our outstretched hands.

Remind us in this hour of worship, that our prayers are empty, unless they’re inspired by Thee; our hearts are restless, till they find their rest in Thee; and our hopes are groundless, until they are anchored in Thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.