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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."
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