Sermon: Hopeful stumps (Dec. 8, 2019)

Advent 2A

December 8, 2019

Isaiah 11:1-10

Matthew 3:1-12

INTRODUCTION

         This second Sunday in Advent we always encounter John the Baptist, Jesus’ eccentric cousin. He implores us to repent of our sinful ways, even as he points toward someone who is even more powerful than he is, who will baptize not with water, but with fire. Like last week, it’s not an especially warm and fuzzy seasonal message, but it is still one that we need to hear!

         But today I’m interested more in Isaiah. This text we’re about to hear about the peaceable kingdom is a famous one, often depicted in art, and with good reason. Isaiah’s poetry about a lamb and a wolf lying down together, and other predators and their prey dwelling together without conflict is indeed a lovely one. Before we get to that, though, I want to give you a little context for it, so you can get even more out of it.

         First of all, it will start with an image of a stump, and here’s why. At this point in history, the northern kingdom of Israel has likely already been destroyed, and immediately preceding this passage, Isaiah has told about how God will, by means of the Assyrian army, completely decimate Judah, the southern kingdom, as well. The image he uses for this is a forest which will be chopped down. Here is the last verse of chapter 10: “God will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon [in this case, a metaphor for the tree-like haughtiness of Zion’s leaders] with its majestic trees will fall.” Then directly after that, we’ll hear about what is to come of that stump that remains. Isaiah will call it “the stump of Jesse.” Anyone know who Jesse is? He is the father of the famous King David, the line from whom Israel was expecting a messiah, a savior, to come. But not much can grow from a stump, right? It is a hopeless image that says, “Here is something that was, but is no more. It is impossible for you to get your Davidic king, because only a stump remains of that line.” And yet, Isaiah has a different message – one of a new David, a leader on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests. Isaiah’s poem describes how a kingdom under that ruler would be. The Psalm, too, will describe what that king will be like.

         As you listen, consider how this message – both Isaiah’s and John the Baptist’s message of repentance – might apply to your life or to our world today. Isaiah is speaking to an 8^th century BC audience, and John to the 1^st century, but what about that message transcends time, and still finds relevance for us today?

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         God’s people Israel dearly wanted a king. They thought it would give them, as a nation, more legitimacy to have a king like all the other nations had. God was against it at first, trying several other ideas, but finally, God gave in. It started off okay – after King Saul came King David, who, despite being sinful and flawed also did a lot of good. But after that… it didn’t go so well. With few exceptions, bad king after bad king was raised up, each leading the people further and further astray. The people longed for another king like David, someone from David’s own lineage, who would reunite God’s people. Yet all they saw was more and more destruction, and the messianic, Davidic king they longed for (that is, a king who would be anointed with the Spirit) was looking less and less likely.

         Enter Isaiah. This part of Isaiah was written in the 8^th century BCE. At this point, the northern kingdom of Israel had likely already been destroyed by the Assyrian army, and it looked like Judah, the southern kingdom would be next. And here comes this prophet to make some sense out of what was happening. “God is using the Assyrians,” he explained, “to decimate this unfaithful people, until there is only a mere remnant remaining.” (You know, real cheery stuff.) He tells them this by means of a metaphor, comparing the proud of Jerusalem (all those bad kings) to a forest of trees that will be chopped down. “He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.” Merry Christmas, everyone! When you see the stump that is left after you cut down your tree this year, I hope you will recall this vivid and distinctively Advent image from the prophet Isaiah!

         I say that facetiously, but I actually really do hope that – because what comes next, the beautiful text we heard a moment ago, is one of the most hopeful in the Bible… but it is only hopeful if we first bring to mind that stump. To these people longing for a Davidic king to come and save them, Isaiah offers this image of a stump, a quintessential visual for death and hopelessness. And I do – when I cut down a Christmas tree, I do look at that stump with a sort of longing and sadness (in fact, Michael sometimes asks me to say a prayer for the tree before we start sawing!). Because although I have of course never experienced what the Israelites are experiencing – the bloody loss of a people and along with it a centuries-long hope for salvation – still, sometimes life can feel like that. It feels like that each time a marriage ends, or when we give away the clothes our children have outgrown, knowing we’ll never see them at that age again, or when we move out of a house with so many memories, or give up a driver’s license (and with it, our freedom), or retire, or have to give up a hobby. Any time something we have loved and valued, or a dream we’d hoped for, comes to an end, and we don’t yet know or understand what lies ahead… it can feel like that stump. Hope lost. No recognizable way forward.

         Isaiah doesn’t leave us there, though: “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” With that promise, what the Israelites hear is, “You will get that ruler you have longed for. That stump, all that death and destruction, is not the end of your hope – it is the means by which God is bringing about something new.” And, he goes on, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on [this ruler], the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” In other words, this ruler will be exactly what they have always longed for, what they have waited for. This ruler will not be swayed by appearances or rumors, but will give justice to the poor and just deserts to the tyrannical. Natural predators and their prey will dwell peacefully together, without fear of violence. In his beautiful poem, Isaiah describes an image of peace between enemy nations that would have really resonated with 8^th century residents of Judah, who likely felt like sheep living amongst wolves.

         That’s what it said to the 8^th century BCE, but it resonates with us today, too, doesn’t it? As 21^st century Christians, we see the fulfillment of this prophecy most profoundly in Jesus: a godly ruler whose ministry is marked by the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, whose teachings urge us toward repentance, and forgiveness, and love of neighbor – toward all those things that do, finally, bring about peace in our hearts and in our world. That’s the big picture way to view it, but this image of hope speaks also to those day-to-day struggles we mentioned before, that feel like hopeless stumps in our lives, assuring us that all those things that threaten to destroy us (metaphorically and literally) will no longer be a threat.  

         Perhaps even more powerfully, this vision of hope and renewal can speak to us as a nation, as it spoke to the nation of God’s people all those years ago. Because you see, even though we believe that Jesus has fulfilled the hope that Isaiah describes, he doesn’t do so in a way that makes the prophecy obsolete. We still long for leadership that is wise, just, and dignified – just as Matthew’s world did, and the apostles Paul’s. We still long for administration at every level that can bring about peace and heal divisions and bring opposing parties together for one common, shared, purpose.

         But here’s the thing: we look to our elected and appointed leaders for this, but this responsibility does not only rest on their shoulders. The people of Israel longed for a ruler on whom rested the Spirit of the Lord – the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Does anyone recognize those words – not only from having just heard them in Isaiah, but from anywhere else? They are the words we pray over people when they are baptized, and then again in their confirmation. In other words, when we are baptized, and again when we are confirmed, we receive that very same Spirit that Isaiah promised a leader would have, the very same Spirit Jesus had.

You see, friends, because of what Christ has done for us, we have become the shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse. We have the capacity to bring hope to a weary world full of death and stumps. We are the means by which Jesus brings the peace and reconciliation that will lead to the healing of the world. It’s a big responsibility, one which can only be fulfilled by the power and the grace of God working through us, by that Spirit resting upon us. It starts with the repentance John preaches, with searching our own hearts for the ways they need to be purified with the Holy Spirit and with fire. It continues with practicing forgiveness for ourselves and others, and with finding ways to love our adversaries and pray for them. And it is all possible because of that little child who leads us, that grown man who hangs on a cross for us, the loving God who promises to be with us.

         We are going to fall short, of course. That’s where the grace of God comes in, to catch us when we fall: to confront us when we aren’t self-aware enough to repent, to encourage us when we aren’t yet strong enough to forgive, to empower us when we aren’t sure how to stand up for what is faithful, or to give us wisdom to figure out what is faithful in the first place. By God’s grace, we are that shoot, but God is the one who makes us to grow, bigger and stronger and more faithful each day, that we might fulfill our call. May we put our trust in that gracious gift.

         Let us pray… O Branch of Jesse, you have called us, by your Spirit, to the ministry of love and healing of this world. Save us from the depth of our own pain, and give us victory over the death and stumps that threaten to defeat us, so that we would be agents of hope and healing to a broken world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: When the unexpected hits (Dec 1, 2019)

Advent 1A

December 1, 2019

Matthew 24:36-44

INTRODUCTION          

         Happy New Year! Each Advent we begin a new lectionary cycle and a new liturgical year, as we turn our focus to preparing ourselves for Jesus’ coming. With the new lectionary cycle, that means we also start hearing from a new Gospel – where we’ve been hearing mostly from Luke the past year, now we will start hearing from Matthew.

         I’ll tell you more about Matthew’s Gospel on some future week, but this week, I’d like to focus on the themes of this first Sunday in Advent. Always on this first Sunday of the new church year, we get a lot of, “Pay attention, and look at this new thing that God is doing! Don’t miss it!” We’ll see that theme very strongly in both Paul’s letter to the Romans and in the Gospel reading. In Isaiah, we get a glimpse of what that new thing might mean for our broken world – it could be a world in which all people will gather on God’s holy mountain, and there will be no more weapons or war. The Psalm also reflects on this world of peace. And in all four readings, we’ll see bits of the persistent Advent themes we think about every year: we wait, we watch, we hope, even as we anticipate the light of God breaking into the darkness of our lives.

         This time of year is, for many, replete with warm fuzzies, and nice feelings. But this first Sunday in Advent is really more challenging than nice. So as you listen to these texts, here’s what I want you to do: just notice how they make you feel. Especially the Gospel – what feelings does it bring upon your heart? How do you think the original audience felt when they heard it? And be forewarned – I am going to follow up on this question in the sermon, so, in the words of Jesus, “Keep awake!” Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.  

            So? Tell me about your emotional response to these texts? …

            For me, this Gospel text makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable. I think part of this is cultural: this is one of the texts used to support the theory of the Rapture, the belief that when Jesus comes back, those who are the “real” Christians will be taken up to heaven, sort of in the way this text describes, and those who fell short of a Christian life will be left. The theory has been around for a couple hundred years or so, and the concept was made popular to the general public by the Left Behind book series. But the theory is, frankly, made up: a scare tactic used by fundamentalist Christian groups that lacks biblical support and has done more harm than good in the world. Still, fear is very powerful, and so even though I know that the Rapture is a misconstrued interpretation of Scripture, when I read this I think, “Yikes, creepy.”

            But I believe the anxiety I feel is more than some lingering fear of the possibility of the Rapture, because that possibility, truth be told, is not something that occupies my mind on any sort of regular basis… yet this text still makes me feel uncomfortable. And I think the reason for that is that it draws on a fear and anxiety that I do feel on a regular basis, and that is: the fear of the unexpected, or the fear for that for which I am unprepared.

            Oh sure, sometimes the unexpected can be a lot of fun. An unexpected gift, an unexpected promotion, or even a trip on which you decide just to fly by the seat of your pants and see what happens – these all provide a certain thrill. But those are all good unexpected things. The thrill does not transfer to bad news. No one gets a thrill out of an unexpected call from the doctor, or a phone call where your loved one’s voice trembles like it has been crying, or a surprise pink slip.

            Anxiety about the unexpected has even spawned a whole industry – that is, after all, why we buy insurance. Some years ago there was a commercial for an insurance company where it shows several accidents both small and large – a man squirting ketchup on his date, an A/C unit falling on a car below, a car door being blown away by passing traffic. The stuff that America’s Funniest Home Videos are made of, but none of it is very funny in the moment. The voiceover says, “Humans. We mean well, but we are imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. Sometimes the little things get us, and other times, the not so little. It’s amazing we’ve made it this far. …  At [our insurance company], we get that it’s tough out there, and our job is to make it less tough.” It’s an effective angle for an insurance company, because we all know that unexpected bad things happen all the time, and it does bring us some sense of calm to know that if we pay up front now, we won’t be alone, and maybe those unexpected things won’t be quite as devastating. It’s the best we can do to feel prepared.

            But life insurance, while it financially supports those who are left, doesn’t bring back our loved one. Health insurance makes illness more affordable, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for painful and extensive treatment, nor the enduring frustration of long-term side effects. And car insurance doesn’t prevent black ice or hydroplaning or distracted driving, and their potentially devastating results. Insurance may lessen the pain and brokenness of life, but it sure doesn’t eliminate it.

Still, we want to be prepared for things, as much as we can, right? That is, after all, why we start preparing for Christmas beginning the day after Halloween. People want an early start on all that cheer, after all. I wonder, though, while we are busy preparing for Christmas, if we forget to prepare also for Christ. We bustle about, making sure all the traditions happen, but then for many, even many Christians, December 25^th comes and goes, and when all is said and done it doesn’t really matter in our lives whether or not a babe was born that day in Bethlehem who would become the savior of the world, just as long as everyone got what they wanted under the tree, and Christmas dinner didn’t get burned, and goodies were made and distributed, and the family didn’t fight too much.

            It is easy to get swept up in preparations, and all their fun and festivity, and then to breathe a sigh of relief when it is over, but in all that, to forget why we are even doing it. And so maybe it is good, on this first Sunday in Advent, that we do have a text like today’s uncomfortable, anxiety-provoking one to remind us why it matters that Jesus was born. Because Christmas trees and beautiful bows and cookies and reindeer games can be a lot of fun, but they don’t have much ability to help us through the difficult and unexpected turns in life. The insurance commercial is right, those things will happen, but insurance will not help our spirits to cope with it.

But the promise of Jesus does. The promise of God-with-us, of a light shining in the darkness does. No, it doesn’t eliminate pain or protect us from an uncertain future, but it does assure us that we will not face that uncertain future alone. Whatever life throws our way, we can be sure that Jesus, Emmanuel, will be by our side, granting us courage through our struggles, remaining with us even through death, and drawing us into new life.

But sometimes it is hard to recognize all of that in the midst of our struggles, isn’t it? And so perhaps the part of this text that causes the most anxiety of all is that last line, in which Jesus implores us to be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. I know that this is supposed to be a text about the second coming, and Jesus is talking about when the Son of Man will return. But we sometimes feel that way in our day-to-day challenges, don’t we, like we don’t know when God will come, will make His presence known to us. Like we are waiting and waiting and God just doesn’t seem to make an appearance. It is a wonderful thing when we are faced with a crisis, and we can say with confidence all the way through the experience that we know and feel the presence of God, Emmanuel. But there are other times when that presence is harder to detect.

Hard to detect, maybe… but never absent. Because that promise that came to a stable in Bethlehem all those years ago, that promise of Emmanuel, God-with-us – it never goes away. Sometimes it is harder for us to see it, when we are overcome by sadness and blinded by tears. Sometimes it is harder for us to believe it, when the darkness presses in on us. But that is what this time we call Advent is all about: it is a time of watching, waiting, and hoping. We watch for God, seeking Christ in all things. We wait with patience, knowing that God promised to be present, and so God will make that presence known. And as we wait, we hope – lighting candles to fend off the darkness, lights that brighten the nights as they grow ever longer and darker, and remind us that we do not face the darkness alone. For this is the season we remember that the light of the world has come, and is leading us forth not in fear and anxiety, but in confidence, and courage, and hope.

Let us pray…  God of hope, there are so many things in life that we cannot expect, for which we are not prepared, in which we can so easily lose our way. Shine your light in our path as we wait and watch for your coming, so that we may know your presence always, and live in the hope of your promise. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.