Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: John 1:6-9, 19-27
Like a lot of little boys on their way to becoming bigger boys, there was a time in my life when I was into autographs. Any autographs. But especially baseball autographs. To this day, I have Babe Ruth’s…..by itself….on a ball….addressed to me. I never met The Babe. But I know someone who did. It was my Great Aunt Edna. The meeting occurred in the twilight of both their lives, whereupon she was able to get “The Babe” to sign one for “the kid.” Which you can still read today. And which might be worth a small fortune if I hadn’t once needed a baseball for an extremely important game of catch. It took place with my son….ever so many years ago.
I spent a lot of time at Briggs Stadium when I was a kid. Sometimes, following an afternoon game, we kids would hang out near the players’ parking lot with programs and pencils in hand. And those of us who waited long enough were generally rewarded. Players would take their own sweet time showering and dressing. But if and when they wanted their cars, they had to pass by us.
There was only one problem. Showered and dressed, they never looked the same. Uniform….gone. Number on back of shirt….gone. Glove (identifying position)….gone. So it became a guessing game as to who was who (especially since the players came from the locker room interspersed with reporters from the newspapers and brothers-in-law from Poughkeepsie.
So we would whisper among ourselves:
Does that look like Kell?
Do you think that’s Kaline?
Anybody ever seen Harvey Kuenn?
But there was always one kid who was embarrassingly brash (bordering on uncouth), who would approach a would-be ballplayer and ask: “Hey mister, are you anybody important?”
Well, how do you answer a question like that: “Are you anybody important?” They asked it of John the Baptist, don’t you know. They had heard big things about him. And some had even heard angry things from him. Once he started preaching….down in that desert-like area where the river called “Jordan” empties in the sea called “Dead”….people had been traveling great distances to hear him. Lots of people. People rooted in the faith. People curious about the faith. People rebelling against the faith. The old and the young. The devout and the disheveled. Monastically-reclusive elders, dragging their prayer shawls behind them. Teenage catechism dropouts, riding camels….smoking Camels. As Fred Craddock observed a number of years ago, there were no small number of coffee hour or cocktail party conversations that began with one person asking the others: “Has anybody here heard John preach?”
Not that he was much to listen to or look at. He had but one suit….tattered. He had but one demeanor….crude. He had but one volume….loud. And he had but one message….“Repent” (turn it around….clean it up….get with the program). I mean, John was a wonderful curiosity piece. But not everybody who came to hear him, stayed to join him.
Priests and Levites came calling from Jerusalem, saying: “Who are you? Are you anybody important?”
Are you the Messiah? No!
Are you Elijah? No!
Are you the Prophet? No!
Are you Kell, Kaline or Harvey Kuenn? No!
“Well, if you are none of the above, why are you baptizing if you are a nobody?” To which John answered:
I am a voice, that’s who I am. I am the advance man. I am the warm-up act. I am the page….the herald….the shill (if you will). I am a verbal bulldozer come to cut a straightaway through the wilderness of the land (and the heart), down which the Lord might ride when the Lord comes….if and when the Lord chooses to come. Much more than that, I don’t really know. For it has not been given me to know. Except that when the Lord comes, we’ll all know who is the “somebody” and who is the “nobody”….because when he comes, I will not even be worthy so as to fall to my hands and knees and fiddle with his shoelaces.
They, of course, wanted to know who John was waiting for….bulldozing for….publicly and shamelessly shilling for. And John said: “Don’t know. Don’t know.” If you take time to read the entire Gospel, you will hear John say (two other times): “I, myself, did not know him.” Although John did leave himself an out, saying to those same priests and Levites: “Among you stands one who you do not know.” Meaning that the Lord could be the man on your right….or (even) the lady on your left.
John figured he would know him when he came. Which he did. I think we all do….know him when he comes, I mean. But if you remember the story correctly, John wasn’t one hundred percent sure. For when John ended up in prison, he sent emissaries to Jesus, asking:
Were you the right guy at the river?
Are you still the right guy now?
Should we look for somebody else?
To which Jesus said nothing except: “Check me out. Then go tell John what you see.” So they did. Then they carried their findings back. Which (presumably) allowed John to die happy…. albeit headless.
It must have been hard to be John….out in the wilderness….under orders….from God….to proclaim the one who was coming (even though he didn’t know the “one” by sight, or the “coming” by date). But he gave himself fully to the task. Because after God tapped him, nothing else had quite the attraction for him. Most of us are no good at waiting….unless we are waiting for something that will make such a difference in our lives that we can’t imagine not waiting.
I am not the world’s most patient person. In fact, I have been heard to utter that I wouldn’t stand in line for the Second Coming. Except that I would. And have. More often than you know. For far longer than you know.
Barbara Brown Taylor asks an interesting question. “Have you ever noticed that people tend to be shaped by whatever it is they are waiting for?” I mean, if you are waiting for a baby, it can consume your whole life. There are names to pick….nurseries to paint….breathing lessons to learn….prenatal kickings to feel. For nine long months you try to live your way into a bigger idea, even as you try to fit your way into bigger clothes. Why, it can take over your life….waiting for a baby, I mean.
And what of those who aren’t pregnant but are desperately trying to get that way? I have met a lot of those people, too. Lives become arranged around cycles, temperatures and charts. I once heard of two professionals….working in two buildings….looking at two watches….making two excuses….to leave two jobs in the middle of the day. Why? Surely I don’t need to draw you a picture.
What are you waiting for? And how is it shaping your life? I have heard rumors to the effect that people who can’t wait for their local video store to restock its sold-out supply of Playstations have taken to renting one from Blockbuster, telling the store it was stolen, and figuring they got a good deal in exchange for their security deposit. Which strikes me as awful. But which doesn’t strike me as odd, given that lots of us have muted the voice of our conscience to satisfy the immediacy of our desire.
I suppose that when I was a kid, waiting for wheels shaped my life.…waiting for girls shaped my life….waiting for independence shaped my life. The unholy trinity of “car, women and freedom” being my cry. All I know is that when you want something really badly, everything else gets rearranged around that goal.
Farmers know this….probably better than most of us. Once the seeds are sown, the seeds’ needs dictate the farmer’s days. Everything else takes a backseat. The crop is the thing. And as it gets closer and closer to the harvest, the crop is the only thing.
As was the case with Carolyn’s liver. Not the one she had….which had ceased working. But the one she didn’t have….which she prayed would soon be coming. I’ll never forget the day I saw her in Ann Arbor. There were tubes and wires connected to her everywhere. Which were, of course, temporary. What was not (thank God) temporary was the liver inside her….the brand-spanking new liver inside her. Which was in there working….producing bile….filtering wastes….generating coagulants….cleansing the blood. It was a transplanted liver, taken from a man in North Carolina and channeled through a hospital in Philadelphia.
She had been waiting for a liver for months….the last couple of weeks being a critical race against the clock. The only question was, who would die first….Carolyn or a suitable donor? She couldn’t do anything but wait and pray. Couldn’t plan. Couldn’t go. Couldn’t force anything. Couldn’t control anything. It had to come to her, don’t you see. And it was her utter lack of control over the timetable that was the hardest to deal with.
One night my phone rang at 3:00 in the morning. It was Carolyn, all excited. “They’ve got my liver,” she said. “They” turned out to be wrong. False alarm. But a few nights later she called at midnight. This time it was for real.
But back to John….waiting for the one who had come to mean life and death to him, every bit as much as an iced-down liver had come to mean life and death to Carolyn. So much so, that it shaped everything John did and every word John said.
John was waiting for Jesus, of course. But he was also waiting for the things he believed Jesus would represent, when and if he ever came. Things like swords being beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Things like lions and lambs dwelling together….oxen and asses feeding together….children and vipers playing together….and a veritable fruit basket full of people streaming up the mountain together. Or maybe he was looking for someone who would go the second mile….offer the second garment….turn the second cheek….or forgive the second time (or the seventh time, or the seventieth time, or multiples thereof….which doesn’t mean 490 but “until you stop counting”).
I don’t really know what John was looking for. But he seemed to be saying: “I’ll know it when I see it. Because I’ve seen enough that doesn’t look like it to make me wish for glaucoma.” And he did….know it when he saw it.
As have I. Seen it, I mean. Or, more to the point, seen him, I mean. Not all the time. But glimpses over time….enough to keep me tramping through time….wanting more….believing that there is more….believing I shall see more….looking toward the “more”….leaning toward the “more”….leading you toward the “more.”
I have an advantage over John. I believe I will be able to pick him out in a crowd. Because I am not unlike the skeptic who is alleged to have said: “I am not sure I have ever seen God. But, over the course of my lifetime, I have had the privilege of running into a few Jesuses.”
I suppose when you get done slicing and dicing it, Advent is about seeking and Christmas is about finding. Which works, sequentially. But which doesn’t always make sense, experientially. Because when you’ve lived as long as I have, things tend to get jumbled together. I’ve got 60 years of seekings and findings….and losings….and reseekings….and refindings.
Except, as I remember it, the surprise was on John, in that Jesus found him. I guess it’s like that, sometimes. To those who wait for it long enough….and who want it badly enough…. occasionally the good stuff falls in their laps.
I heard this story the other day and it sounded unbelievable. But the guy who told it swears to its truth. It seems that there was a lady of limited means who always wanted to take a luxury cruise. After considering her fantasy to be an impossible dream for many years, she scraped together enough shekels to book economy passage on a six-day tour of the Caribbean. For all I know, she had the room next to the boilers.
Figuring that the cost of food on the ship would be prohibitive, she packed several boxes of crackers, cereal and other snack-type foods into her luggage and proceeded to eat three meals a day in her room. On her last night aboard….after counting and recounting the contents of her pocketbook with care….she decided to splurge and take her last meal in the dining room. Expecting to be presented with the bill for such a sumptuous repast, she inquired with the waiter about its delay in coming. Taken aback by her request, he quickly regained his composure in time to say: “Surely madam understands that everything has already been taken care of. It’s all a part of the package.”
To which the world says….“Surprise.”
To which the church says….“Grace.”
And to which John may well have said….“I have been waiting for this all my life.”
