A New Shoot of Life 12-4-22
A New Shoot of Life
Mt 3:1-12; Is 11:1-10
Mt 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Is 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
Prayer – Creator God, we once again receive you vision of a peaceable kingdom and a flourishing community. Help us to be full participants in and vessels of its realization – for it is in your hope and your vision of a new shoot of life that we pray – amen.
For all of its lyric beauty and familiarity, our passage from Isaiah this morning is both striking and odd. It’s striking because of the far-reaching results that we see sketched here on account of God’s sending forth a truly righteous leader from the stump of Jesse. It’s odd because it moves so nimbly between what you’d expect to be the main focus, namely equity for the poor, to something that is less expected but occupies far more space in these verses, namely the cozying up in the animal kingdom of predators and prey.
Perhaps another surprise found in our passage is that the new shoot of life will not use his eyes and ears to decide what constitutes justice. We all know justice is supposed to be blind, just picture the traditional image of Lady Justice blindfolded, but is she deaf too? How could any judge be able to do their job if no evidence could be seen or heard? Taken literally, this doesn’t make a lot of sense; until we understand that righteousness itself will be the standard for all, but starts with the needy and poor.
Remembering the context of Isaiah that the Israelites were in captives to the Babylonian empire; that their homeland had been destroyed and there was little sense of hope for any kind of life outside of captivity and slavery, Isaiah is offering a future promise. A future promise where justice and righteousness will come to those most in need – namely this small nation that was being held captive.
It was true in ancient days much as it is true today that the two groups who typically get little to no hearing are the needy and poor. They are the ones trampled upon by the rich and whose causes are seldom heard at the bar of justice. The rich can buy off judges or hire such a group of lawyers in $1000 suits as to make it nearly impossible for the needy to come anywhere close to having their cases considered. Of course, these are precisely the marginalized members of society for who God has the most concern in society. The poor, the orphaned, the widowed and the strangers from other lands were supposed to receive so many extra breaks that justice would take care of itself. That, however, then as now, did not generally happen. The context of judgment in the prophetic books like Isaiah make it clear that Israel’s number one failing was precisely in its treatment of those on the margins of life.
The new shoot of life of whom Isaiah speaks will have such a firm hold of righteousness that he won’t need to see or hear details of any given case – all that will need to happen is that the poor and needy will be brought forward, will be brought into the presence of that standard that just is righteousness, and then it will be plain to anyone with eyes to see what needs to happen, the poor and needy must be taken care of. It’s a no-brainer. Once you see a poor person standing next to the shoot of life, the measuring rod of righteousness, what needs to happen next will be as obvious as the nose on our faces. No one will doubt that something must be done and no one will question even what needs to be done. As someone once said, when it comes to taking care of the basic needs of our neighbors, the Bible’s instruction aren’t exactly rocket science.
We live in an age when the sheer number of opinion makers, idea shapers, and talking heads in the media can make most of every problem one could think sound so complicated and fraught with socio-political perils that it really is an open question whether anything can be done to solve our problems of poverty, the economy, racism and injustice. No matter what anyone says, there is always another ‘expert’ waiting in the wings to come on camera to say, ‘Well not so fast – it’s not as simple as all that and my party won’t go along with thus and so in any event so . . .’
If only we could see the true standard of righteousness. If only we could feel the hot, burning stare of the One who embodies righteousness. If only we could stack up our supposedly insurmountable problems before the bard of that kind of sacred justice. It we could see more clearly, we might see not only that we need to do better, but what needs doing is not nearly as complex as some would have us believe.
What follows next, however, is very curious because there is in the text no direct connection made between the presence of this new shoot of life and the shalom that descends on the non-human creation. There is direct action hinted at in terms of how the poor and needy are handled but this notion about wolves and lambs and leopards seems to just flow naturally as a result of the presence of a great Righteousness descending on the earth. When all is made well, it really will be all that will be made well. What we sketched here in the animal kingdom – and the lack of any form of harm throughout God’s holy mountain – is to be our cue for how we treat each other in the human realm as well.
Walter Brueggemann calls this vision ‘the impossible possibility of the new creation,’ a time that we can actually look forward to – a detoxified world, where all of creation feels safe, not just the strong, the armed, those in power exerting their influence. A ‘detoxified’ world – striking words when held up next to the nightly news reports about pollution, violence and climate disasters, or even the state of our political discourse. Can you imagine such an advent world? Isaiah can.
I can’t help but wonder during this time of Advent what this transformation may look like, this great ‘making right of everything?’ Isaiah is making the point that this shoot will have what is perhaps the most important characteristic a civil servant can possess – the recognition that he or she is not God, and that the One to whom one must give account never ceases to defend the widow and the orphan. So, ironically it is this deeply humble, up-ending leader is so great that the natural order of wolves and leopards stop terrorizing the weak. Could it be possible that humility will prove stronger than the military might of any empire? We think of Jesus, who wasted no energy on the Roman Empire, but kept his attention on the sick, the marginalized, and the broken, and exerted his divine power on their behalf.
As we enter this season of Advent, I can honestly say that I yearn for such a transformation. My heart yearns for shalom, for peace and wholeness for ALL of God’s people, for ALL of creation. This image of a peaceable kingdom disturbs the order of things and doesn’t sit well with the domesticated Jesus who consoles us individually but has little to say about the way we’ve ordered society, where the strong prey on the weak and are richly rewarded for doing so. That little sweet baby Jesus is going to ask hard questions as he inaugurates the reign of God and the unfolding promises of God. I would suggest that the questions that this Jesus might ask us as individuals as well as the church may be pretty uncomfortable.
I can’t help but wonder as I read these words of peace and wholeness, and as we hear these words how they became so ‘abnormal.’ I wonder if we could possibly come to perceive these words of peace and unity and healing as normal and our societal discord and suffering that surround us be the real abnormalities of life that we have come to expect and even tolerate as just how things are.
The words of wolves and lambs and leopards sharing a common peace are powerful in this season of Advent when we are wrestling with more than one arena of life with what is the meaning of normal – in politics, in the environment, in the economy, and we face the challenge of protecting the most vulnerable, those who are voiceless. Nation after nation faces division and unrest even after new leaders are put in power, and we face a new year feeling especially unsure of what is ahead.
This new normal we seem to accept as we hear about the death toll of yet another school shooting, the human interest stories of those who live and those who died while our political leaders offer ‘thoughts and prayers’, yet not one word of hope about doing anything meaningful to prevent such carnage in the future. The new normal continues to mean a gauntlet of security measures just to board a plane, press releases about the latest toxic toy, lawsuits over miracle drugs gone awry, and statistics about opiate addiction ruining town after town. I wonder if this Advent season may remind us of the song of promises and the image of peace and wholeness and no more of what we see day after day.
Isaiah is offering us an image of a shoot of life, a child leading us through humility, vulnerability and gentleness. Instead of romanticizing this divine child, we might recognize with hope the upside-down, unexpected ways of the reign of God, when the mighty, the violent, and the worldly wise are, surprisingly, eclipsed by the emergence of peace and justice and healing. Dare we hope that this Advent may bring light into our global and societal darkness, where this is so much to worry about on a daily basis? Yet we must remember that God claims the last word of hope and of peace. That is what Advent is all about - thanks be to God – amen.