December 14, 2022

Luke 7:19-23

A very happy Wednesday to you. Listen to this very first verse of today’s passage “John, summoning two of his disciples, sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or must we wait for someone else?”

We spoke about this at length this past Sunday. Actually on Sunday we read St. Matthew’s version of it. So two gospel writers repeat the same question verbatim. This tells us that there was some confusion in the early church between the followers of Jesus and the followers of St John. Remember, some of John’s disciples became Jesus’s disciples but certainly not all of them. What is the confusion? Jesus is clearly not acting like the Messiah John had foretold. He is keeping company with Tax collectors, prostitutes, he is eating and drinking a little too much and not as strict or conservative as he ought to be. This is a major disappointment. He is even friends with divorced people and among his disciples are people with a sailors mouth—— the fisherman.

Our Lord did not fit in the Messiah box at all. He was all over the place. And Holy Mother Church has been trying for thousands of years to put him back in the box. Sometimes he gets in and sometimes he shows who is boss. Did I ever share with you the greatest regret of the dying? It is this “I wish I lived a life true to myself and not the life others wished for me.” Jesus finds a way to give sight to the blind, to free the oppressed, to bring good news to the depressed but he does it in his own way. Are you looking for the Lord? Try going outside church. My novice master Fr. Julian Black found Jesus in the lives of the Bushmen in Botswana. The Basarwa (bushmen) taught him more about God than the writings of St. Augustine. I better stop before I get in too much trouble. But seriously, John was so disappointed with Jesus. Yet the kingdom came. “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”