“Running Out of Hope?”

Isaiah 43:19-21; Matthew 11:1-11

When I was a sophomore in high school, I played my last season of organized baseball. I had been playing baseball for most of my life, starting at the age of 7, first with my friends, aka sandlot baseball, in the park by our neighborhood. Then I started playing in Little League and finally Pony-Colt baseball. I still had this dream of playing someday as a first baseman for the Oakland A’s, who used to be a baseball team in the Bay Area. Sigh. As a 15-year-old, I still had hope that that dream would become a reality.

So, a group of other teens and I gathered at a ball field that Spring of 1978 and waited for our coaches to show up. Eventually, a gold Chevy Impala lowrider pulled up to the fence by our field. Loud music was coming from the car, and it seemed a bit smoky inside. Two guys emerged from the vehicle with long hair, dark sunglasses, and a few tattoos on their arms. I thought to myself, “Are these our coaches, or hopefully, should we look for someone else?”  Alas, they looked at us and said, “We are your coaches this year.”  I stuck around for a few practices, but their coaching style was not what I expected. I told my parents about the coaches and my unease at playing for the team. My Dad, who played city league A ball back in the 1940s and knew baseball, came out for a practice to watch and was not impressed. After practice was over, I asked my dad if I could just quit before the season started. Surprisingly, he said yes. My hope of becoming a baseball star died that Spring, as the team I signed up with was nothing like what I expected.

I share that story because I think I know what John the Baptist was thinking when John sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah? Or should we look for someone else?” Jesus was nothing like John expected. John doubts, as the Messiah he envisioned was one of judgment. Consider how he described the coming Messiah to the crowds who gathered to be baptized by John in Mathew, chapter 3:11-12. “11 I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

John was a prophet with an “in your face” attitude, and I think he envisioned a Messiah who would be similar. Consider that John went toe to toe with those in power, calling those in power in the temple a brood of vipers, publicly confronting King Herod, saying it was not lawful in scripture for him to have sex with his brother’s wife. He was right about that, but it is good to be the king, and Herod had John thrown into prison. That was John’s style, and perhaps he expected Jesus to be a more confrontational, in-your-face Messiah. What is revealed in Matthew, chapters 4-10, is of a Messiah who teaches through sermon and parable, who heals the sick, calms the waves, and lifts the impoverished. John was waiting for a Messiah he could hang his hope upon, and Jesus was nothing like what he expected.

Rev Dr. Boyung Lee says the following about John. “By the time we meet John the Baptist in Matthew 11, he is no longer the bold prophet in the wilderness, crying out, 'Prepare the way of the Lord.” He is a prisoner—held under Herod’s authority, cut off from the movement he helped ignite. The firebrand voice has been silenced. John, the prophet who baptized Jesus and had declared him the Lamb of God, is now unsure. In the dim light of his cell, with execution on the horizon, hope flickers low. He does not ask for a miracle. He asks whether his whole life—his ministry, message, and risk—meant anything.”

At times, I have asked myself the same question about my faith in the Messiah. I have worked for more than 40 years to help bring about God’s justice and make the world more “on earth as it is in heaven.” At times, I look around at the world and still see the injustice, the intolerance, the hatred, the poverty, and wonder if my actions in faith have made any difference. Doubt creeps in as the impact of my faith appears small. That is what hope can sound like when it is running thin.

How did Jesus respond to Jon’s disciples? He lists what he has done as Messiah. “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard. 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.”  Jesus hasn’t pulled Herod from the throne, busted John out of prison, or made every Roman citizen treat one another with mercy and justice. He points to the witness of an unfolding kindom and glimpses of what that kindom will look like one day. Jesus doesn’t give John certainty but invites him to perceive God at work through him in an unexpected way. The Roman Empire still rules. Herod still sits upon the throne. John remains in prison. Yet Jesus proclaims that God is at work through him, that faithful actions make a difference, that God’s dream of a peaceable world is unfolding.

Perceiving God at work despite what we see around us can be difficult, especially in certain circumstances of our lives. Consider the people of Israel, having lived in exile for more than 70 years, far from their homeland, stuck in Babylon. They have no hope for a future, no hope to return to the homeland they ache for. Despite their predicament, Isaiah proclaims that God says, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.²⁰ The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,²¹     the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.” Despite all that is going on, despite all that the exiled Israelites see around them, God is still at work. Babylon is not an end, but an opportunity for the people to perceive that God has not abandoned them.

Does John perceive God is at work in Jesus? Although scripture doesn’t tell us, we assume that John’s disciples return to tell John what Jesus proclaimed, which leads us to the painting “Hope Like a Dancer,” by Rev. Lauren Wright Pitman, depicting John in prison. Pitman describes her painting as follows. “In this image, John sits in prison, letting the disciples’ testimony settle in…I decided to image this good news through the dancing light of a lantern on John’s prison cell. I chose dancing figures because dancing feels like a primal response to the radical healing taking place outside the prison walls. As these six dancers illuminate the cell, I imagine John, even if for a moment, breaking into a bit of laughter at the magnitude of Jesus’ ministry.”

Did John perceive that God was doing a new thing through Jesus the Messiah? Did he perceive it? I hope so. I hope, amid that dark prison cell, the description of what Jesus was doing gave John hope. What about for us? Do we, like John, wonder if Jesus is the one? Where is the evidence that some significant transformation is underway? The world appears to be pretty much as it was before Jesus came to the earth. Idolatry, injustice, warfare, exploitation, scarcity, and violence continue. Can we find hope in the world today, even though Herod is still in power, the empire is still in control, and our community hospital is gutted? Despite those things, can we still perceive that God is at work, doing something new, or… should we look for someone else?

God is doing something new. I see those new glimpses of the kindom in our churches’ ministries, when people are fed on Thanksgiving Day in Calvin Hall, when someone comes in for a gas card from our deacon fund and gets gas in their car so they can make some money and deliver meals through DoorDash. I see those glimpses when someone who is working on getting their life back needs a safe place to park, so they can sleep and find a place to work. I see those glimpses when someone from Jackson County Fuel or OHRA calls us, asking for help paying toward someone’s utility costs and keeping their heat on. I see those glimpses of God doing a new thing when people from our church volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, helping folks without adequate shelter have homes to thrive in. I see God doing something new through our Deacons as they collect gift donations for OHRA residents who are trying to reclaim their lives and break the cycle of poverty. I perceive God bringing hope through our live broadcast and worship services, as we teach the teachings of Jesus.

Rev Pitman concludes the statement about her painting of John by saying, “As we all know too well, God’s work isn’t completed in Jesus’ time. We are still woefully short of realizing the fullness of God’s desire for all creation, and the work is ours to see through. Until then, let us keep our eyes peeled for the glimmers of hope dancing all around us and work towards a day when all can join in that dance of wholeness.” Do not lose hope. We, too, can see those glimpses, can perceive those images of hope in a God who is at work in our world, who will one day fully establish that kindom.

Rev. Sarah Speed writes about doubt and hope in her poem "God in the Kitchen."

“I called home my first semester of college. I told my mom I was fine, but I was homesick.

 She must have heard the truth in my voice. The ache ate at me.

It was a long, slow song, a million tiny ants slurping the juice from a peach.

I was tender and bruised, in the doldrums of it all. But she could hear all of that.

So three states away, she preheated the oven. Three states away, she tossed blueberries in a thin layer of flour.

Three states away, she dusted a layer of streusel over the soft peaks of a dozen warm muffins.

And three days later,

I unboxed a package from home— a dozen blueberry muffins, a love letter with my name on it, a reminder that I was not alone. If you’re running out of hope, count to three. God is in the kitchen. She’s just waiting for the yeast to rise.”

Alleluia. Amen.