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GOSPEL READING: MATTHEW 11:2-11
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
REFLECTION
Well, a fascinating, and very familiar passage, our Gospel reading for today, in which Jesus reassures John the Baptist – who by this time has been arrested by Herod and is languishing in prison – that he (Jesus) is indeed the Messiah; then right at the end of the passage, we get an amazing, rather mysterious, statement about the Kingdom: “ … yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (John, Jesus is referring to).” Kingdom—Joy: that’s the connection we’ll to see if we can make today. Let’s now go through the passage with a fine-toothed comb and see if we can do just that.
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“When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing … ”, Matthew begins. Yes, there’s no doubt in Matthew’s mind that Jesus is the Messiah, but he is obviously writing after the fact; the doubt is all in John the Baptist’s mind:
“…he [John] sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come [the Messiah], or are we to wait for another?”
Jesus responds, as we heard, by listing the things he has done to signal, verify, that he is the Messiah, signs of the Kingdom he, as Messiah, will usher in:
“ … the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
What wonders! So, “Yes, John”, Jesus is saying, “I definitely am ‘the one who is to come’ – no more proof needed!” We don’t know how John reacted to Jesus’ response, of course, whether he was actually reassured; in fact, we don’t hear anything more about John until the horrific story of his death, by beheading, in Chapter 14 of Matthew’s Gospel.
After Jesus sends his response off to John, he then addresses the gathered crowd – who presumably had heard that return message – affirming John as the true prophet of the Messiah (that is, of himself):
“A prophet?” Jesus asks rhetorically, “Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’”
But did you notice that, before he says this, Jesus refers, rather pointedly, to what presumably were many people’s misconceptions about John, and therefore, by implication, about the Messiah that he was the prophet of:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.”
No, Jesus is telling the people, John is the prophet of a Messiah, and a Kingdom, which is not at all like a normal worldly kingdom, with a mighty king in a royal palace wearing soft robes. A Kingdom, rather, as we know now, of repentance, of turning your life around and living in a new and better way.
Then Jesus makes that amazing final statement, without explaining it in any way:
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Yes, a Kingdom that we, now, through Jesus, can be heirs of, in a way that was somehow not really possible before that – before the coming of the Messiah, Jesus.
A wonderful Kingdom – no, not a worldly Kingdom with a mighty king, like everyone was hoping for at the time – that Jesus came to usher in. And here, in fact, is the joy connection, because it is through entering this Kingdom that true joy comes into our lives. Let me try to explain.
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Joy? Well, there’s Joy, and then there’s Joy. Usually when we think about joy, we think of the happiness we feel when something good happens in our lives, when we get something we want, when we achieve a goal we’ve been striving for, when we’re saved from something bad happening to us. This is, I have to say, basically a self-centred joy, a joy that is all about me – even when we’re happy for other people getting what they want, people we are connected to or identify with in some way. A joy that is essentially about me receiving what I want.
This is certainly the sort of joy the people in Jesus’ time, including the disciples, were looking to the Messiah to deliver: the joy that would come when he freed them from oppression by the Romans and restored their worldly fortunes in a big way, the joy of having a great King, a saviour, a Messiah, whom they could bask in the glory of.
Now, I definitely don’t want to knock any of this sort of joy, which is a natural, important part of human life. But such joy – joy that is a response to us receiving something we want, that we might even have yearned for, for a long time – is always fleeting, it’s here today and gone tomorrow. Our team finally wins the flag, but no sooner have we finished celebrating than we start worrying about next year. The rain finally comes after a prolonged dry spell, it’s such a wonderful relief, but then we start worrying about when the essential follow-up rain will come. “The Lord giveth”, Job philosophically says, “and the Lord taketh away” – seemingly! The truth is that joy that is predicated on us getting we want, and which we, very naturally, find ourselves trying to cling on to and keep going, will, just as naturally, slip through our fingers and dissipate, in that very attempt to cling onto it and keep it going!
Kingdom Joy – the Joy that comes when we, through faith, enter God’s Kingdom – is, however, a different thing altogether! This sort of Joy comes not through receiving something from God – like peace, salvation, happiness, success, whatever we might be looking for in life – rather through giving ourselves to others, to the world, to God. It’s a deep and abiding joy that comes when we, through faith, give ourselves away, let go of our self-centred grasping – our attempts to control our own life and make things happen, all the worry and angst that comes with that – and in doing so experience an amazing freedom, a peace and joy that nothing can take away, that doesn’t depend in anyway on what happens to us in life, good or bad.
This is the very different type of Kingdom that Jesus ushers in: as I said, a Kingdom, of repentance, of turning our lives around, living in a new more selfless, more joyful way. Repentance: the word that Jesus uses, when he speaks about it in the Gospels, is, in the Greek, metanoia. Meta-noia – translated into English as “repentance” – “conversion” would probably a better translation – a complete 180° turnaround in our way of thinking, acting, being in the world – a gradual transformation, over time, from our natural-born state of self-absorption, self-centredness, to a more and more selfless way of living – through faith in Jesus. Metanoia in each of us individually, Metanoia gradually in all humanity: that’s what God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven Jesus refers to in our Gospel passage for today, is, growing now, post-Jesus, all around us. Joy to the world – indeed!
Here’s a beautiful description of Metanoia occurring, the true joy, liberation it brings – in this case in the direst of circumstances – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian writer and chronicler of the Soviet era writing about his experience of this in the Gulag, the prison camp, out in the wilds of Kazakhstan, where he was imprisoned, on trumped up charges, for 8 years from 1945-53 (Gulag Archipelago, pp308-9):
And as soon as you have renounced that aim of “surviving at any price,” and gone where the calm and simple people go – then imprisonment begins to transform your former character in an astonishing way.
To transform it in a direction most unexpected to you.
And it would seem that in this situation feelings of malice, the disturbance of being oppressed, aimless hate, irritability, and nervousness ought to multiply. But you yourself do not notice how, with the impalpable flow of time, slavery nurtures in you the shoots of contradictory feelings.
Once upon a time you were sharply intolerant. You were constantly in a rush. And you were constantly short of time. And now you have time with interest. You are surfeited with it, with its months and its years, behind you and ahead of you – and a beneficial calming fluid pours through your blood vessels – patience.
You are ascending ……
Formerly you never forgave anyone. You judged people without mercy. And you praised people with equal lack of moderation. And now an understanding mildness has become the basis of your uncategorical judgments. You have come to realize your own weakness – and you can therefore understand the weakness of others. And be astonished at another’s strength. And wish to possess it yourself.
The stones rustle beneath our feet. We are ascending ….
A wonderful description of Metanoia occurring, gradually, in the great man’s life: letting go of self, giving ourself to others, to the world, the deep, abiding, calming, peace and joy that nothing, not even the direst of life circumstances, can take away.
Think about what the opposite of joy is: anxiety, fear, depression, despair. If anything could induce those responses in us, being locked up unjustly in a prison camp truly ought to! And is there not a veritable pandemic of anxiety and depression around the world at the moment, particularly amongst young people? Obsessively, unhealthily, we focus on ourselves, we become locked up inside ourselves, not a physical prison, but a virtual one – prisoners of self. The solution is the same – the road out of anxiety, depression, despair, to real joy and peace in our lives – letting go of our focus on self, through faith giving ourselves to others and to the world, undergoing the marvelous Metanoia Jesus offers, the amazing Kingdom we can be heirs of, which is growing now all around us.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven – I commend it to you today. Amen.
