"What Are Our Expectations of the Messiah?"

SERMON for First Sunday of Advent, Nov 29-30, 1997

by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Presiding Bishop, United Catholic Church

Isaiah 61: 1-11

Psalm 72

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24

John 1: 1-18

When I was a small child, maybe 5 or 6, my folks took me to a movie. When they told me we were going to see a Ginger Rogers movie, I got all excited. "Oh, boy, oh boy," I exclaimed. "We’re going to go see a Ginger Rogers movie!" I was really looking forward to it. I could hardly wait. When we got to the theater, I looked at the posters and became puzzled. "Where’s Ginger Rogers?" I asked. "Right there, that’s her." "Her?? ... but he’s a cowboy." "No dear," they told me, "Roy Rogers is the cowboy. Ginger Rogers is a dancer."

Well, when the awful truth hit me, I was mortified. The disappointment only lasted a moment, but the embarrassment has lasted a lifetime. Not only had I made a mistake ( a bright little kid like me), but worse ... I had shown excitement over going to a movie about . . . . a girl! "Oh, how I hope nobody I know saw me. How can I ever show my face again?" It was the most embarrassing moment of my life! Actually, the movie was probably pretty good, although I could never let on that I enjoyed it. Eventually, I learned to appreciate Ginger Rogers. But she sure wasn’t what I expected heading for that theater.

I’m sure each of you has had experiences when you’ve been profoundly disappointed by someone or something you had been waiting for and looking forward to with anticipation. Anyone have one they’d like to share?

With many of these disappointments we face in life, somebody just plain let us down. It’s like opening a bottle of vintage Cabernet Sauvignon and finding it has turned to vinegar. But that’s not the way it was with my Rogers movie fiasco. There was nothing wrong with the movie, or with Ginger Rogers. The problem was with my false expectations.

And that’s the way it was two thousand years ago. The people of Israel were expecting a Messiah. Their prophets had been predicting one for centuries. A thousand years earlier, they had had a united kingdom under King David. For eighty years under David and his son Solomon, prosperity and security reigned. Boy, those were the days!

But within a couple hundred years, the kingdom split, then each half was conquered. The people of Israel alternated between being exiles and captives in their own land. By the time the parents of Jesus came along, the whole place was a Roman colony suffering under a brutal military occupation. Nothing remained of their once proud kingdom except for memories preserved in their sacred writings, and yearnings in their hearts.

Yet the people clung to their belief that soon a Messiah would come to save them. He would be a mighty warrior, and would drive out the occupiers and restore the Davidic kingdom. And of his kingdom, there would be no end. By the time Jesus was conceived, Messianic fever was rampant in the land.

The Old Testament reading this morning is a very special one. It is one of many predicting the coming of a Messiah. But it is more than that. It is the reading from Isaiah which Jesus chose to read about himself as he began his public ministry. You remember; it was in Nazareth, his home town, at the Sabbath morning temple service. They offered him the scroll to read. And these are the words he proclaimed:

"The spirit of God is on me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from God." (which means everyone's debts are forgiven them)

Then he told them that this passage was being fulfilled that very day in their hearing -- that he was the messiah, the anointed one of God.

You know what happened next. They said, "Hey, wait a minute. This is Joseph's son, the carpenter. He's not even a rabbi, much less the messiah." And they chased him out of the temple, and tried to kill him. (You can read the whole thing in Luke chapter four.)

Now Jesus didn't pick this passage at random. He selected it very carefully to do two things: (1) tell people he was the messiah, and (2) let them know what kind of messiah he would be. Liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, a clean slate to debtors. In other words, he was going to be a messiah for the poor, the downtrodden, the outcast, the marginalized, the single mothers, the welfare queens, the illegal immigrants, the junkies, the prostitutes, and the criminals. (The only person he ever canonized was a thief who died on the cross next to his.)

Well, this was not at all what they expected. They didn’t want a gentle teacher who taught about God, surrounded himself with sinners and collaborators, and allowed himself to be arrested, tortured, and crucified without even putting up a fight! Where was their warrior king? (Last week, on the Feast of Christ the King, we saw that Jesus was indeed a king, a greater king than the Jews could ever had hoped for. Yet they were not only disappointed, they were outraged.)

There was nothing wrong with Jesus the Messiah. The problem was in their false expectations. But can we blame them? I can relate to their confusion. I’m sure you can too. And so did Jesus: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

The dividing line came when some of the people recognized that they had been wrong in their expectations, and learned to accept and appreciate Jesus. Others just could not give up their preconceived notions of what their Messiah was going to be like.

Today, we have the advantage of being able to read the gospels. We know what Jesus did. His words are recorded for us. We know what Jesus was like. We also have the testimony of witnesses to his resurrection. We know Who Jesus is.

As we await his second coming, we should pretty much know what to expect (if not when). But do we really? Or do we harbor false expectations, as did the people of Israel two thousand years ago? When Jesus returns, will we recognize him?

Jesus, by quoting that particular passage from Isaiah, promised to be a liberator Messiah — but not a political and military liberator like they expected. When Jesus actually followed through with his own brand of "liberation theology", ministering to the poor, the outcast, the hated, even the heretic Samaritans, he was attacked by his townsmen, condemned by the authorities, and crucified by the hierarchy. His followers were fed to the lions. How is it that now the church he founded is all too often the church of the affluent, the respectable, the self-righteous, and the intolerant? What happened? Where did we go wrong?

My feeling is that we probably went wrong in Rome, about 1700 years ago, when Constantine made Christianity the favored religion of the empire. Suddenly, our outlaw, outspoken, outlandish, outrageous, outnumbered, outsider, out-and-out outcast, but outstanding outfit was ... in! Out went the outreach, the output, and the outpouring of the spirit. We had been outflanked, outmaneuvered and outright done in. The church had outgrown the outmoded, outdated simple faith of the apostles. Where was the outcry? The outrage?

The early church had been a joyous band of followers of Jesus singing his praises, serving each other, and awaiting his imminent return. But by the third century it was clear that they had misunderstood the timing of the second coming. So the hierarchy settled in for the long haul and got organized. They modeled the church on the imperial court of Rome. And it’s been getting more and more imperial for two millennia.

Every once in a while, God sends us a prophet to bring the church back from hypocrisy and legalism and "respectability:" St. Francis, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Phil Berrigan.

What we're doing here today is just one more attempt to recover the vision of Messiah held out by Isaiah and Jesus, and to restore the church of the Book of Acts and the catacombs.

The Jews two thousand years ago had false expectations of a military messiah. The early Christians had false expectations of an imminent return. What are our false expectations?

Are we looking for a mogul messiah, a pinstripe Jesus who will guarantee our financial success if we join the club?

Or maybe we expect a middle-class messiah who will share our family values, call for tax cuts, and support reductions in welfare.

Perhaps we have no expectations at all, and don’t really believe Jesus is ever coming back.

That would be a mistake. If we are to avoid false expectations, we have to pay attention to all the gospels. We have to remember the simple wandering teacher, the gentle Messiah pictured in Matthew. And at the same time, we must remember the majestic Messiah portrayed by John — the eternal Word, the only Begotten of Yahweh, God of God who became flesh and lived among us. And, of course, as we prepare to celebrate Christmas, we should remember the innocent babe in the manger described by Luke.

Finally, following the words of Paul, we should remember to look for Jesus in each other, especially in the poor, the needy, the widow, the outcast. For until that unknown day when he comes in glory, that is where we can find him. The Messiah we should expect is eating at the Daily Bread, standing in the unemployment line, sleeping under a freeway overpass, or languishing in a nursing home.

If those are our expectations, we will never be disappointed.

As we leave here today, we do so as captives who have been liberated, as blind who now see, as oppressed who are free at last, and as debtors who have been forgiven. Thanks be to God!

Let us pray.

Dear God, we thank you for sending us your son to be our Messiah. We thank you that He was not the warrior king everyone expected, but the suffering servant and gentle Messiah that Isaiah foretold. We thank you that you accept us, no matter who we are; that you forgive us, no matter what we have done. We ask that you forgive us our false expectations. Too often we act as if you promised us a rose garden instead of a crown of thorns. When we seem to prefer the sword to the cross, correct us gently Lord. Keep us ever mindful that you are the real Messiah in our lives, that you have saved us, that you have restored the kingdom, and that it is ours forever. Joy to the world! Amen.

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