Matthew 11:2-11
December 12, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
I am old enough to hang our laundry on a clothesline growing up. From our back porch on the third floor flat, we had a clothesline on a pulley that went across the backyard to an utility pole. There were times when I accidentally drop the wet clothes from the third floor down to the ground below. Instead of going down three flights of stairs, I would get my fishing pole to hook the clothes back up. My sister-in-law was impressed over my ingenuity!
When I look out my office windows, I can see clothes hanging on clotheslines and hangers across the street. If you ever get the chance to climb on top of our church roof, rooftops after rooftops are filled with wet clothes hanging on clotheslines.
There’s a true story about a woman whose clothes dryer stopped working. She came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth repairing or replacing it. Instead, she began hanging her laundry on a clothesline, believing that this would spare her the cost of a new dryer, save a little money on her utility bill, and give her some exercise. She didn’t mind climbing three flights of stairs.
What happened was that her decision to string up a clothesline unleashed a political firestorm. Her friend found the practice revolting. Some thought she was anti-technology while others felt that hanging her laundry symbolized the plight of women around the world who were forced to do menial work.
This woman’s innocent practice to simplify her life became another way of challenging the conventional wisdom and cultural norms of our time. Our science leads us to believe that human progress can always make us happier and healthier. But for this woman, hanging out her laundry asks the question: “What choices should I make to live a life of meaning and significance?” Does living a meaningful life require a clothes dryer? It’s a question about what really matters in life, and it’s an important one to ask, especially as we look toward Christmas. We can say that this is a “clothesline question.”
There is so much more to the clothesline question than the issue of the appropriateness of technology in our lifestyle. We ask a clothesline question every time we wonder whether it makes sense to follow the crowd, whether we really have to keep up with the neighbors, whether we ought to conform to conventional wisdom, whether we have to give into peer pressure, whether we need to support the status quo. While we don’t all have to abandon our clothes dryers and string up clotheslines to utility poles, every one of us is challenged to discover for ourselves what makes for a good life, a life of significance and meaning.
John’s Question
In our Scriptures for today, we see that John the Baptist was imprisoned. His fierce preaching against Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great who allegedly married Herodias, wife of Philip at last caught up with John. Herodias was the half-niece of Herod and according to Jewish law, such union was prohibited. John’s repeated criticism of Herod got him arrested.
While he is locked up, John sends a message to Jesus, asking a clothesline question, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John is genuinely curious about what Jesus has been up to. He has been expecting the Messiah to scorch the earth with fiery judgment, gathering the good people to himself and burning the bad “with unquenchable fire.” That’s what we heard last Sunday. Remember, “Prepare the way of the Lord…even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees.” (Matt. 3:3 &10) John was asking clothesline question according to his understanding of what the Old Testament prophets said about God’s conquering armies.
Instead, John hears stories of Jesus’ work of compassion. Jesus answers John by saying, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers 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.” (11:5-6)
As a prophet who was announcing the coming of the new Messiah, John was asking Jesus, “Are you the one? Are you the one who will give the world meaning and significance or should we wait for another?” John was saying to Jesus, “Everyone is looking for a victorious Messiah that would finally overthrow Herod and what are you doing about it, Jesus?” That was the conventional wisdom. But John, who usually questions the powerful Herod, ends us not knowing how to ask a new clothesline question.
John’s whole ministry had been pointing to Jesus, saying that he was the one. Now John seems to be unsure. He asks Jesus, “Are you the one or are we to wait for another?”
Are You the Messiah?
In this Advent season, we are waiting for the Messiah again, expecting the advent of Christ. When Christ comes and becomes a reality in our world, sometimes he is not the messiah whom we expected. Instead Christ comes to us, rearranging our conceptions of God, our expectations for the way a messiah ought to act.
We heard John’s predictions for Jesus’ ministry last week. John predicted a Messiah who would come and separate the true from the false, the good from the bad. But in Jesus, there is a Messiah who heals, who works among the poor, who preaches good news, and promises eternal life.
Like John, we ask this same clothesline question for ourselves. We ask Jesus, “Are you the one whom we have been waiting?” We want our lives to have the meaning and significance that we have not experienced before.
The significance of Baptism is that Chris Cheng asked the clothesline question, “Are you the one, Jesus?” and he received the answer, “Yes, indeed, I am the Christ, the Messiah, your Savior.” The conventional wisdom is to go on with life and not be bothered with ever asking this question. We have all of life’s conveniences that take our dirty clothes that are cleaned in the washer and are all fluffed up in our clothes dryer. Why would anyone wish to ask such a question since it leads to wet clothes that need to be hung out on a clothesline? We want our clothes dryer!
Are you ready to ask the clothesline question for yourself today?
Clothesline Christ
As we know, John the Baptist’s preaching against hypocrisy and corruption eventually led him with his head on a plate. Ultimately, John’s convictions led him to asking the clothesline question.
Jesus reaches the end of his earthly ministry when he is nailed to the cross, unjustly convicted for blasphemy and sedition. His entire life and ministry questioned what were the true meaning and significance of life.
The woman in our story was ridiculed for making an unpopular decision to string up a clothesline.
What are we willing to do to profess that Jesus is the one whom we have been waiting for? What might we do that would be contrary to the conventional wisdom of our time for the sake of Christ?
In this season of Christmas, we can see that Jesus is the Clothesline Christ. The Clothesline Christ ties our homes and communities together from one back porch and utility pole to another back porch and utility pole until all of our unfamiliar neighbors become friends.
The Clothesline Christ speaks about a Savior who doesn’t wear soft robes in royal palaces but comes into the world as a babe wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in a manger because there was no place for him in the inn.
The Clothesline Christ teaches us that during this holiday season, we don’t need to find happiness in the things we buy or the parties we attend, but rather we can find true happiness by staying home with family and friends. Do we truly need to spend so much money on presents for each other at Christmas, or can we skip the gifts and simply be present to each other during this holy time of the year?
The Clothesline Christ symbolizes how we as clothespins can hang out our dirty laundry for the forgiving Father God to see and to make clean and fresh again.
I have a Christmas gift for each of you today. When you leave the sanctuary this morning, the ushers will give you a clothespin.
On Friday, I went looking for clothespins and found them at OSH. I had two packages of clothespins in my hand and Bill, the store manager noticed them. He said, “That’s a lot of clothespins. We don’t have too many people buying clothespins these days. What are you going to do with them?” Bill, the store manager was asking a clothesline question.
I asked him if he really wanted to know. He reassured me that he really wanted to hear my story. So I first told him that I was a Baptist minister and my Sunday sermon was about this woman who gave up her clothes dryer and hung up a clothesline. The point of the story is when we ask new questions about the meaning and significance of life is when we may discover life’s true meaning can be found in Christ.
He shared with me that his mother-in-law is a little Chinese woman who grew up in Chinatown. His mother-in-law must have moved into the suburbs where every house had a clothes dryer. One year there was a power outage and she asked Bill her son-in-law to put up one of those clothesline umbrellas to hang out the laundry. She told Bill that the height can’t be above the fence line because of the association’s rules. Bill told me that his mother-in-law was very happy when she was able to reach up to hang her wet clothes on a clothesline. I told him that on this upcoming Third Sunday in Advent, he just heard a Christmas message.
He silently took the two packages of clothespins from my hand, led me to the checkout counter and told the cashier to charge me 50% off for them. I thank him and wished him, “Merry Christmas!” He looked back and smiled.
The clothespin is a symbol of your life and I pray that you might hang your life on the Clothesline Christ for he is coming to bring peace and goodwill among people, heal the sick, promise good news to the poor and to wash you clean for new life.
Let us pray.
Dear God, we seek your forgiveness when we think that we don’t need to change. Lead us to follow you in ways of faithfulness and humility according to your will. Challenge us to not be satisfied with only the conveniences of our modern world and neglect to see that in Christ, our Lord and Savior, we have meaning, significance, and purpose for living. We pray in the name of Christ, the coming Messiah. Amen.