Advent 2B, Dec. 7, 2014
Prepare the Way of the Lord
Like may of you, my Facebook feed these days is full, with NOT a lot of “Good News”, not of celebrations and Christmas trees strung with lights and glittery ornaments which is typical for the season, but rather with stories one after the other of brokenness, of hatred, of death, of brutality, angst, fear, and more death.
On Friday morning I was flipping through my feed on my phone and came across the post of one of my friends… he is a graduate of Duke Divinity School, a younger white male, a new father to two twin baby boys, a husband and a non-profit employee who lives in New York City. He wrote the following,
“Last night I marched in Chicago. After an hour of marching, we became boxed in by the police at an intersection. At this point, the police force threatened to arrest us. “I have to go to work tomorrow, i’m not from Chicago,” and other excuses entered my head about why I should take that as my cue to head out. But then a voice from the crowd shouted, “They (the police) think we care if we get arrested? They are killing us.” And so I stayed. We did not get arrested. We continued to march. In that moment of that voice crying out, I realized that the discomfort I felt at the prospect of getting arrested was my own admission of my white privilege. My discomfort was caused by my own choice to enter the march and disrupt the status quo, one which benefits me greatly. Why wouldn’t I feel discomfort about trying to help usher in a reality that is different than the one that benefits me? But the reality for those without privilege is that they do not have the choice to exit the oppression they experience for the sake of the status quo. There is no discomfort at the prospect of getting arrested for those oppressed, because that is their daily reality. And so I marched.”
I know this is not the exact narrative running through each of our heads, that there is a different version that plays from beginning to end in each of our minds as we read the headlines, as we think about entering the march ourselves (whether literally, or in some other version of ourselves), as we hear and watch and listen and read and sit quietly, or scream and yell, or cry or find ourselves bewildered and paralyzed by what we do not yet fully understand- or know what to do with. I know that the word “privilege” for many of us means something much too similar and for others of us it means quite the opposite. I also know that what divides cannot unite and that what unites most surely cannot divide.
I can’t imagine a more timely pair of scripture passages to encounter this season of Advent, more prophetic voices to hear than these two dessert prophets who cried out in the streets, who have been crying out and cry out even still… I hope we can truly hear and feel and experience the words/emotions/power and righteous anger - from this famous prophet, Isaiah. As you listen allow a word or a phrase or an image to really penetrate your thoughts, open your minds to what this ancient message has to say to those of us here - still trying to prepare the way.
As we read, I will include various commentary from Kristin Wendland of Princeton Theoligical for greater understanding into this this pre and post exilic community:
“Prior to Isaiah chapter 40 the “good” news spoken in God’s name is a difficult word of judgment. The people have rebelled against God. The people have lived at the expense of their neighbors, putting their own desires above the needs of others, and In 587 BCE Jerusalem fell to Babylon, and a portion of Jerusalem’s population went into exile.”
From chapter 40 of Isaiah and moving forward, this word of judgment is in the past. Now, circa 540 BCE, on the other side of this experience, a new word comes to the people of Judah -- a word of comfort and hope for a new future. Hear now these words of holy scripture:
Isaiah 40:1-11 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
3A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
While not everyone living in Jerusalem went into exile, a good number of people did. This passage heralds their return. The most direct route between Babylon and Judea, through the Syrian Desert, is poetically described in verse 3 as a way in the wilderness and a highway in the desert. It is unlikely, however, that any exiles returning from Babylon would have actually made the dangerous trek through the waterless wilderness.
Rather, the poetic description functions to recall another journey through an inhospitable wilderness. This news of a metaphoric highway in the desert heralds a second Exodus,
6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. 8The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.
The punctuation here suggests a conversation between a Holy messenger of sorts, and “I”. This divine messenger issues a command to Cry Out, but “I” is uncertain of what she should be crying aloud?! She is exasperated at the notion that she might call anything to these people who are like flowers that fade and grass that withers… but this divine attendant, makes the claim that God is wholly other, and that the constancy of the people whether like grass or not is less important than that of God.
9Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
The place in the Old Testament in which Zion is personified most consistently is in the first two chapters of the book of Lamentations. In Lamentations 1-2 Daughter Zion cries out against the destruction wrought her. She speaks words of accusation against her human enemies and even God. The refrain that comes again and again is, “There is no one to comfort her” (Lamentations 1:2, 9, 16, 17, 21). At the end of her speeches -- and even the end of the book of Lamentations -- Daughter Zion receives no response to her cry.
The response to Zion’s laments comes, rather, in other biblical books. The response comes in verses such as Isaiah 40:1 “Comfort, O comfort my people.” The response comes in verses such as Isaiah 40:9 in which the words for Jerusalem to speak are not those of lament but of good news. She is no longer told to wail but to raise her voice without fear. The message given is confident and hopeful, “Here is your God!” Here is a God who comes to feed the flock, to gather the lambs, to lead the mother sheep -- to bring comfort. Here is God in whom one may have hope.
I know I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the lack of response to what seems like a vicious and endless cycle of hatred, of oppression of racism, and I like many of you am angry. I, like the daughter Zion have spoken many a word of accusation against the human enemies that line our streets with guns, that bullet the bodies of our babies and fathers that fall too easily to the ground, that turn a deaf ear to the injustices towards the less than privileged faces of beloved people, people whom God called “hers”, not “ours” to do with what we may, but her children, God said, Comfort, O Comfort My People… it has been too long, too much life has been lost, too many bullets have passed this way, too much judgement, too much hatred and too much ignorance, pride and self righteousness. Oh, that our privilege might fall to the ground, that captivity might encroach upon the unfettered territories of complacent hearts, unexamined egos and ill-defined self worth… that this highway be lifted up not only in the dessert, not only in lieu of the waterless dry land that does not nourish, but where life comes to wither and fade, but that justice comes to the places most beautiful, where the illusion of abundance is rich and where growth is steady and the patriarchy lush and where fields of fortune are ripe for the taking… that a highway might violate all that grows here in vain, that justice might trample upon privilege and crush those who perpetuate this god forsaken system we call “white, policy, law…privilege”.
I know when we hear these words, sit uncomfortably with these metaphors of hope for justice for all, read these words from the author of Mark’s gospel, “The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man,” and hear the prophet crying out in the dessert “prepare the way of the Lord”, and find a connection much to easily to this metaphorical dessert highway that we can only scarcely imagine as much in our reality that has become a desolate wasteland, a broken order with discriminate value placed upon lives as in a board game with pawns and players that move at our disposal… we find ourselves wanting to just start over, I know I do, to turn the page and see a new beginning or better yet an alternate ending to what has unfolded in these last days.
But I tell you, If anyone was tired of being the messenger, if anyone was ready to give up and let the people be- who they were going to be… it was this prophet called Isaiah whom God called to basically preach to a wall, to a people committed to killing each other, burning and slaying, lying and beating, eating and devouring everything in sight.
Sometimes I think the only thing we know is “war”… our history tells us that in order for big changes to occur, for there to be a real “new beginning” people have to die, and lots of people… new leadership has to take over, new faces and voices have to lead… blood has to be shed. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but how long O Lord, will this war continue? I hope and pray we’re not waiting until we finally see that the missiles of racism and the guns of hypocrisy are merely stones lining the battle field…and that what we are really saying is that Selma, and Birmingham, Atlanta, Ferguson, Orlando, New York, Chicago, Durham… are just part of history, and we are going to just sit by and let things unfold as they are meant to?
God said, “cry out!” Do you have the courage to march, to prepare the way, my friends? Or are you still stuck in the conversation, asking “of what shall I cry?” Are you busy making excuses about why you cannot and will not raise your voice that others might hear, that justice might roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream? Those people- they’re grass, you say… they won’t listen…I can’t make them change…so why bother?
Well, you’re right, you can’t… but thank God we serve a Holy incarnate God, a baby soon to be born in a manger… who is ready to be the Good News, again, and again…in and through us.
But God said, the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord stands forever. Thanks be to God. Amen and Amen.
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