Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Sometimes the cliché is true.
John’s disciples arrive with a bit of a theological question.
Words. So many words. Questions.
So Jesus, before he says any word in response to them, goes about healing diseases, illnesses, evil spirits, and blindness.
Just stop and think about that for a moment. Try and picture the scene - John’s disciples show up where Jesus is. We can certainly imagine his own disciples are there, too. And all the people seeking help. John’s disciples ask Jesus the question. And he doesn’t say anything. He just goes and heals a bunch of people.
A huge part of me doesn’t want to say anything else about these passages today. Just think about Jesus’ strategy, his intention, the meaning behind this very specific response to John’s question.
And then there’s Job. In chapter 30, he doesn’t receive an enacted answer like John’s disciples do. There is no visible response, no restoration, no interruption of suffering. It’s just the continuation of it. Job speaks, and God is silent. The contrast is striking. John’s disciples ask a question and are given a living answer. Job cries out and is met with absence. And yet, both scenes hold something true. Sometimes God answers in ways we can see and touch. And sometimes the silence remains.
The invitation, it seems, is not only to listen for words, but to learn how to recognize God’s presence - or even trust God in what may seem like absence - within the realities we are given.
Luke 7:18-29
John’s disciples informed him about all these things. John called two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord. They were to ask him, “Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for someone else?”
When they reached Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you. He asks, ‘Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for someone else?’”
Right then, Jesus healed many of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and he gave sight to a number of blind people. Then he replied to John’s disciples, “Go, report to John what you have seen and heard. Those who were blind are able to see. Those who were crippled now walk. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. And good news is preached to the poor. Happy is anyone who doesn’t stumble along the way because of me.”
After John’s messengers were gone, Jesus spoke to the crowds about John. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A stalk blowing in the wind? What did you go out to see? A man dressed up in refined clothes? Look, those who dress in fashionable clothes and live in luxury are in royal palaces. What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. He is the one of whom it’s written: Look, I’m sending my messenger before you, who will prepare your way before you. I tell you that no greater human being has ever been born than John. Yet whoever is least in God’s kingdom is greater than he.” Everyone who heard this, including the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice because they had been baptized by John.
Job 30
But now those younger than I mock me,
whose fathers I refused to put beside my sheepdogs.
Their strength, what’s it to me,
their energy having perished?
Stiff from want and hunger,
those who gnaw dry ground,
yesterday’s desolate waste,
who pluck off the leaves on a bush,
the root of the broom—
a shrub is their food.
People banish them from society,
shout at them as if to a thief;
so they live in scary ravines,
holes in the ground and rocks.
Among shrubs, they make sounds like donkeys;
they are huddled together under a bush,
children of fools and the nameless,
whipped out of the land.
And now I’m their song;
I’m their cliché!
They detest me, keep their distance,
don’t withhold spit from my face.
Because he loosened my bowstring and afflicted me,
they throw off restraint in my presence.
On the right, upstarts rise and target my feet,
build their siege ramps against me,
destroy my road, profit from my fall,
with no help.
They advance as if through a destroyed wall;
they roll along beneath the ruin.
Terrors crash upon me;
they sweep away my honor like wind;
my safety disappears like a cloud.
Now my life is poured out on me;
days of misery have seized me.
At night he bores my bones;
my gnawing pain won’t rest.
With great force he grasps my clothing;
it binds me like the neck of my shirt.
He hurls me into mud;
I’m a cliché, like dust and ashes.
I cry to you, and you don’t answer;
I stand up, but you just look at me.
You are cruel to me,
attack me with the strength of your hand.
You lift me to the wind and make me ride;
you melt me in its roar.
I know you will return me to death,
the house appointed for all the living.
Surely he won’t strike someone in ruins
if in distress he cries out to him,
if I didn’t weep for those who have a difficult day
or my soul grieve for the needy;
for I awaited good, but evil came;
I expected light, but gloom arrived.
My insides, churning, are never quiet;
days of affliction confront me.
I walk in the dark, lacking sunshine;
I rise in the assembly and cry out.
I have become a brother to jackals,
a companion to young ostriches.
My skin is charred;
my bones are scorched by the heat.
My lyre is for mourning,
my flute, a weeping sound.
Prayer
God,
Help me to trust when it seems like you’re absent. Or maybe, the thing I’m asking is to be able to not just trust that you’re there, but for your help in learning to shift my perspective or posture or whatever to feel and know that you are there.
That’s my prayer in light of these passages today.
Oh, and help me to live into Jesus’ example that sometimes often, actions are the only response that’s needed.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.