Prisoners of Expectations or Prisoners of Hope?

This sermon by the Rev. Gillian Barr was based on the lectionary texts for the day: Zechariah 9:9-12, Romans 7:15-25a, and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 .

Here is the audio recording:

Here is a rough transcript:

The Rev. Gillian R. Barr
Calvary Episcopal Church, Stonington CT
July 5, 2020
RCL Proper 9, Yr. A (Zech. 9:9-12; Rom. 7:15-25a; Mt. 11:16-19, 25-30)

This morning’s lessons circle around the theme of expectations, and unmet expectations, and the frustrations that can come from unmet expectations.

The passage in Zechariah and the passage in Matthew are both getting at folks’ expectations of how God is going to act to save people. And in Zechariah, in a passage more commonly associated with Palm Sunday, because it is one of the readings for Palm Sunday almost every year, it talks about the Messiah, the king coming, not on a big bold warhorse that conquers and demonstrates power and might, but instead on a humble donkey. The expectations of the people of Israel about how their liberation from exile in Babylon is going to happen need to be re-tuned: it's not going to be some massive military triumphant march from Babylon, and they're not going to have a big military reconquering of Jerusalem and the surrounding area. Instead it’s going to be much more humble. God’s actors, and God’s eventual Messiah, will be humble and will not focus on power and domination.

In the Gospel of Matthew today’s passage comes right after John the Baptist has been put in prison, and he and his disciples are rather discouraged. They did not expect his ministry as prophet of the Messiah to end him up in prison. So John sends his disciples to Jesus with questions.

John had proclaimed the Messiah in terms of judgment. If you think back to the readings we often have in Advent about John the Baptist, he often has a very stern message. Then, what he heard Jesus saying didn't match up with the very stern expectations he had, and he was wondering, “Have I gotten it wrong? Is this really the Messiah? Are you the One we are to wait for, or will there be another?”

And Jesus answers, “Look and see what I'm doing. The sick are healed and the dead are raised—I’m doing all the things the Messiah is supposed to be doing. “ And that scene between John’s disciples and Jesus comes right before today’s story.

So Jesus is continuing to address the questions among his hearers about whether he’s really the Messiah. And he's talking about how peoples’ expectations get in the way, and the image he gives here are children playing games. They're trying to sing a tune and trying to get everyone else to join in, but then the other people won’t join in. And then the groups flip and still no one is joining in, so you get this cacophony of competing tunes and songs, and no is cooperating. And people are complaining because things aren’t living up to their expectations.

I'm sure we can't possibly relate to any of that, in today's political situation where we have two sides arguing past each other and nobody listening to anybody and everybody being mad because their expectations aren't being met?!!!

That's the sort of situation Jesus was responding to. He’s saying, “John the Baptist was sober and restrained, and you said, ‘Oh he’s so sober and restrained that he must have a demon.’ So then I come and I am just the opposite, I’m very happy, I’m not restrained, and you say, ‘You’re too loose—you’re a glutton and a drunkard and you hang out with all the wrong people.’ So neither of us can get it right. So look at my deeds. Look at what I'm really doing, and it’s what the Messiah is supposed to be doing.”

Paul, in Romans, is talking about our expectations of what life is going to be like after we have accepted that Jesus is our Savior and that he has justified us before God. I think a lot of us at some point in our faith walk think “Well, ok, I've been baptized,” (or, if we’re from a more evangelical background, “I’ve prayed the Sinner’s Prayer, I’ve accepted Jesus into my heart). But I’m still struggling with sin! What's up with that? It's so hard! It shouldn’t be that way.”

Paul was saying, “No, it is still that way, even for me, for all of us even after we have realized what God has done for us in Christ.” Because we are not yet at the end of time, when God's kingdom has come in all of its fullness. While the forces of sin have been beaten down, they have not yet been totally eradicated, although we know they will be.

One commentary I read used the metaphor of the shingles virus. That once the zoster virus gets in your system you can beat it back, and it can go away for years. And then you get under stress and, BINGO!, It’s back again, and you are back in pain again, because the shingles virus has actually been living in your body all along.

Sin is like that. Sin is not simply an action, something you do wrong, it's not a list of “do not do this, this, or this.” Sin is a condition. It's a condition of not being focused on God. It’s a condition of being focused on ourselves—whether on our strengths, or on our weaknesses. And when we focus too much on ourselves, it puts distance between us and God. And sin, that tendency to focus on ourselves rather than God, is always there. It gets weaker over time as we grow more and more into the likeness of Christ . But it’s always there, like the shingles virus, and can pop back up, until we enter into the fullness of God’s presence.

I think that whole idea of expectations, of what are our expectations? and how they sometimes set us up for disappointment and failure, is the theme that struck me when I looked at all these lessons together.

At least in my life, I know that sometimes I’m so invested in the picture in my head of what life is going to look like at some particular time: ‘This is what to look like when I have my graduate degree.’ ‘This is what life is going to look like when I have my first full-time job.’ ‘This is what life will look like when I'm ordained.’ ‘When I get called as rector of a parish full-time.’ ‘This is what life is going to look like when I get married, (and until that mythical time happens, I don't have to feel like I have my life all together.)’

We can have all these expectations of what life is going to be like, and when they don't come in to pass, when the reality is different, then it can really throw us for a loop. And we can spend so much time trying to make our expectations into reality that we miss the actuality and the potential that are right in front of us.

Those of you who are married and have been married for a while and have made a positive marriage, I think have had this experience …. Whatever it what was you thought marriage was going to be like when you stood in front of each other and made your promises to each other, it has not been 100% like that. And you have needed to adjust your expectations of the other person, and of the experience of being married, over time, in order to keep it healthy and alive and keep your love and respect for each other.

Those of you who are parents: from the moment the child is born, even conceived, parenting exceeds and overwhelms your expectations, as to how wonderful and how frightening and how intimidating it can be, and how hard it is to think that you actually have the ability to raise this child.

We have these expectations in our heads, and then we get to the reality.

As we get to be middle-aged, we perhaps have ideas of what aging and retirement will look like. If we are lucky, they are playing out the way we thought, and we've got our health and enough income. But it could be that older age is not what we thought it would be.

And talk about dashed expectations—let’s look at 2020! No matter what we thought this year would be, none of us anticipated the coronavirus. And we didn’t anticipate murder hornets, though thankfully I haven’t encountered one of those yet. We may not have anticipated Black Lives Matter would come to center stage yet again. although we should have. We may not have anticipated much about this year.

And when I look at myself, and my ability to do things—simple things on my to-do list, or bigger things, habits I want to have in my life, I know I have expectations. “I'll work out every day, I'll eat healthy, and I will spend half an hour a day in centering prayer and say the Daily Office twice a day, and I’ll be fit and trim, and I'll meet Mr. Wonderful. “ And then we find out that a lot is outside of our control, beyond our capacity to do.

And that is what Paul is speaking to.

And I think it’s even more of a temptation to us in this post-Enlightenment era where we have so much invested in human progress and human capability and science and psychology. and the role the self and how the self matures, and the whole panoply of self-help books. We think we should just be able to will ourselves to do what we want to do, and be what we want to be. And we think we should be able to will our situation, whether it be micro-, in our home life, or macro-, in our national life. Paul is saying, it can't be done, it is not within our capabilities, it just won't work. We can make progress, and improve things-- I'm not saying we're totally helpless. But the big change from being totally focused on ourselves to being truly compassionate for others is a change bigger than what any of us can really implement, and we need God's help to do that.

And that rubs all of us independent self-reliant, modern Westerners the wrong way, most of the time.

Even I, who have been studying these things and theology since I was a teenager-- when I really stop to think about it, and say “I really can’t do this by myself, only God can do it”-- that is really hard to say and mean it. It’s easy to parrot it off in the liturgy, but it’s hard to really believe it. Not only to believe that I can’t do it, and that only God can do it, but then to really believe that God can do it and will do it, but maybe not on my timeframe.

So this week, hear Jesus when he says, “Take my yoke upon you, come unto me, and I will give you rest. I may not be the Messiah you expected; this situation may not be the situation you expected. Your inability to do x, or y, or z, may not be what you expected. But that's ok. Give it to me, give it to me, and then we can walk together towards a future that we can create together.”

It may not happen instantly, it may not fully happen, perhaps, until the end of time, but it can only happen in cooperation with a Power greater than ourselves, with God's power walking with us.

So this week, as we continue to think about our expectations of ourselves, of our country, of the pandemic, I invite you to be on the lookout for those subtle expectations we have. Where do I have perhaps an unspoken expectation of how I think things are supposed to be, that I'm letting get in the way of coming to terms with what actually is, and what can be?

What do I need to offer up to God, and let go of? And allow God to walk with me and help me see the possibilities of what can be, rather than being hung up on my own definition of what should be?

I think the coronavirus has provided a huge lesson in doing this, especially around how we “do church.” None of us expected to be doing church this way. But rather than get stuck on how fast can we get church back to how it was 12 months ago, let's continue the great job we’ve been doing so far, of being open to the ways we can be church now--ways that may be different, but are just as, or even more, full of faith and hope and love. And do likewise in all other aspects of our lives.

As my theme for today, really, I would take that phrase from the last verse we heard from Zechariah: “prisoners of hope.”

Prisoners of hope.

Let us not us be prisoners of expectations, but let us instead be prisoners of hope in God, in Christ. Amen.