Disillusioned

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

August 7, 2016

Disillusioned

Selected Texts

“Sunrise found Jesus and John the Baptist

sitting above the Jordan

in the hollow of a…rock.

…[John’s] face was severe and decisive;

…[Jesus’] face was tame and irresolute,

his eyes full of compassion.”

“‘Isn’t love enough?’ Jesus asked.

‘No!’ answered the Baptist angrily.

‘The tree is rotten.

God called…me and gave me the ax,

which I then placed at the roots of the tree….

Now…take the ax and strike!’”

This scene doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible;

it flowed from an author’s imagination

to his pen and onto paper.

But it feels like it should have been included,

included somewhere in one of the gospels,

telling us more about Jesus and John together.

Jesus and John were, after all,

related through their mothers,

perhaps first cousins, we’re not sure.

They were about six months apart in age,

both of them filled with the Holy Spirit,

yet so different in temperament,

demeanor,

so different in how they went about

the work God had called them to do.

John, the one God had called

to prepare the way,

to make straight the path for the Messiah.

John, so colorful, wild,

in his camel’s fur,

his diet of locusts and wild honey,

and, more than anything else,

his sense of outrage, fury.

John, knee deep in the mud

of the Jordan River,

eyes and hair as though aflame,

spitting out his anger

to those waiting along the banks,

waiting with such eager expectation,

waiting to be baptized:

“You brood of vipers!

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bear fruits worthy of repentance….

Even now, the ax is lying at

the root of the trees;

every tree therefore

that does not bear good fruit

is cut down and thrown into the fire…

[The Messiah’s] winnowing fork is in his hand

and he will clear the threshing floor

and will gather his wheat into the granary;

but the chaff he will burn

with unquenchable fire.”

(Luke 3; Matthew 3)

For John it was obvious:

“The tree is rotten.”

And so he was adamant with Jesus:

“God … gave me the ax,

which I then placed at the roots of the tree.

Now…[you] take the ax and strike!’”

John, feeling he’d done all he could,

all God had called him to do.

He’d prepared the way,

the way for the Messiah.

Now it was up to the Messiah

to take it from there,

finish the job:

winnow,

clear,

chop,

burn.

Jesus looked at John

in the dawn’s brightening light,

John looking so thin, so worn,

almost frail,

his olive skin sunburned

scoured rough by the winds.

Softly Jesus said to John,

“‘If I were fire, I would burn;

if I were a woodcutter, I would strike.

But I am heart, and I love.’”

John was quick with his response,

“‘I am heart also;

that’s why I cannot endure injustice,

shamefulness,

or infamy.

How can you love the unjust,

the infamous,

and the shameless?

Strike!…

“…How can you wipe out falsehood,

infamy and injustice from the world

if you do not eradicate the liars,

the unjust, the wicked?

The earth must be cleansed!

Don’t pity it!

It must be cleansed,

made ready for the planting of a new seed.

…We watch the heavens,

expecting a thunderbolt –

and you give us a white dove….’”

John, looking at the one

in whom he had put his hope,

his life,

looking at Jesus with disappointment,

frustration;

feeling defeated by the world,

and betrayed.

This scene comes from the mind of the author

Nikos Kazantzakis

in his book The Last Temptation of Christ.

It is so plausible;

it helps us to understand why the gospels tell us

that John, after his arrest by Herod,

felt compelled to ask Jesus,

“Are you the one who is to come,

or are we to wait for another?”

(Matthew 11:3)

As though John had all but given up on Jesus,

that Jesus had let John down

one time too many.

John, eager for the Messiah

to usher in a new world,

a world clean and holy,

pure,

purged of evil;

and yet there was Jesus

eating with sinners and prostitutes,

responding to John’s question

in a way that only added to John’s pain:

“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 poor have good news brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who take no offense at me.”

(Matthew 11:4-6)

Jesus left John dismayed,

disappointed,

defeated,

Why wasn’t he doing more?

“If you are the One I’ve been waiting for,”

he finally says to Jesus,

“you have not come in the form

I imagined you would.”

(The Last Temptation of Christ)

Jesus left John disillusioned.

Disillusioned.

John, having created an image in his mind

of who the Messiah would be,

and what the Messiah would do,

found his illusion shattered.

We all have our illusions,

illusions we build in our minds

of the Jesus we want in our lives,

the Jesus we want in our world.

We, like John, want a world rid of evil

a world rid of injustice and unrighteousness,

and we like John can find ourselves

feeling disappointed

when all we hear our Lord say to us is:

“the blind receive their sight,

the lame walk,

lepers are cleansed,

the deaf hear,

the dead are raised,

and the poor have good news brought to them.”

“That’s all well and good,” we respond,

“but what about evil,

what about war,

what about poverty,

what about injustice,

what about unrighteousness?

How can you allow such things?

Where’s your ax?

Your winnowing fork?”

But Jesus is no action hero,

Jesus is love.        

And with love in his voice

Jesus turns the question right back at us:

How can we allow such things,

we who call ourselves disciples of Christ.

We are called to build a world of peace,

a world of justice,

a world of righteousness,

with our Lord teaching us, guiding us;

no axes, no fires, no winnowing forks,

just grace and love as our only tools,

tools that can be frustratingly slow

in their effect perhaps,

but tools that are unmatched in power.

And when we, like John find ourselves

exhausted, frustrated, spent,

our Lord is there,

inviting us to come to his Table

to be renewed, refreshed.

This Table is no illusion.

It is our Lord’s Table.

Here we can find renewal,

respite,

community.

Here we can be fed, nourished,

our deepest thirst quenched.

all so we can continue to follow,

continue to serve

so we can build the foundation

of God’s kingdom,

So come,

come to this Table,

come and be fed

by the one who is heart,

the one who is love.

AMEN  

This sermon was inspired by

“The Gift of Disillusionment”

by Barbara Brown Taylor