(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
8For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
10I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
This is another familiar passage for this season. It’s part of the Year B Lectionary but, again, I’m “filling in”. It speaks of hope. (You’ll remember that it also appears in Luke 4:18-21, which is sort of Jesus’ first sermon, if you will.) In both passages, God has sown God’s own Spirit into the one who speaks, breathed God’s breath into the one who will carry out God’s will. And, here, standing amid the ruins of what was once a thriving Jerusalem, the prophet depicts the perfect Reign of God, the time when all of Creation will be renewed and fulfilled. It is the hope for the future even in the midst of the smoldering ashes of what is now. And within that hope is also a call to remember—remember who and whose you are, remember what you had, that we might work to build it again. And the prophet acknowledges and affirms an individual call from God, a call to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty, to witness, and to comfort. Well, that’s good…because we need someone to fix this mess, right?
But notice that in verse 3, the pronoun changes. No longer is the prophet affirming an individual’s call. The calling is now to the plural “they”. It’s not just the “me” that is the prophet; it is the “they” that is everyone. The prophet is not called to “fix” things; the prophet is called to proclaim that all are called to this work of transformation and to call on us to remember who and whose we are. In other words, all that work that you think needs to be done? Remember who you are. Remember that vision God calls you toward.
(OK…TRIGGER WARNING…) I try very hard on this platform to NOT get political (I have another platform where I intentionally get blatantly political and that will suffice). But I may be going up to the line here. Honestly, I’m scared. I’m scared that our society and our world are being slowly and intentionally taken over by different degrees of authoritarianism. We Americans seem to somehow be content with handing over the reins to a newfound authoritarian oligarchy. I have read too much history and traveled too many places to naively think that this will end well if we don’t turn a corner. I’m scared that while we’re waiting for things to change, we’ve forgotten who we are. We’ve forgotten what we’re called to do and called to be. So, how do we build up and raise up and repair? How do we listen to the prophet’s words? How do we become instruments of change, instruments of God’s vision for what the world could be?
In 1998, I visited Russia. (During the worst heatwave they ever remembered! I learned to drink straight frozen vodka at lunch because it felt like ice going through my body and it was lovely.) Anyway, that was during the height of something different happening in Russia. Gorbachev had introduced Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) in the mid-1980’s, the Communist regime Soviet Union had officially fallen in 1991 and there was a new life. People were excited. They knew they had it rough. In fact, they had had it rough for centuries. (“Doctor Zhivago” is not completely fiction.) But there was hope. Things were changing.
I visited Russia again in 2008. I stayed for three weeks. (Ironically, during the record-breaking snowfall and below-zero temperatures. What is it with me?) It was very different than it had been ten years before. I stayed in a “luxury” apartment that rattled with the train down below, had peeling paint and cracking walls, no electricity that would withstand a curling iron, strange-colored water coming out of the hydrants, and was, oh my, so incredibly cold. But truly, it WAS luxury. I visited apartments of members of our sister church. There were 15 people living in about 400 square feet. The walls were covered in faded newspaper in an attempt to insulate it. And food was scarce. And much of it was rotting. Perestroika was beginning to fade. When I attended our sister church, I sat there (in a language that I only knew about ten words and how to read three words in Cyrillic) in an “illegal” church service because of the building in which it was held. I remember thinking, “you know, this could end badly for me!” But the point was that the society, the economy, and the newfound freedom and openness were failing. They knew it was failing. Rather than the feeling of hope and promise that I had observed ten years before, I had a sense that they were just trying to exist, just trying to go around all the issues without tripping on them. They were just trying to avoid poking the bear, so to speak, and live their lives as best they could. They were existing.
I don’t want that for us. I want to listen to the prophet. While we wait on the world to change, we cannot ignore if it is going backwards. We HAVE to remember who and whose we are. We are the ones that are called to become the new shoots sprouting to life. We are the ones that are called to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty, to bring justice, to witness, and to comfort.
See, God calls people to transform the world. And we are “they”. We are the ones that are called to stand in the ruins, to step through the smoldering ashes, to take the remnants of destruction and hate and despair and to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and to comfort all who mourn. And as the earth brings forth shoots, as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. Newness will arise from destruction or smoldering ashes or misspent interpretations. God calls us to something new. Remember that. Do not be content to just exist. God calls us to something more. You can’t wait on the world to change without remembering who and whose you are.
The reality of Advent isn’t that we are waiting for the birth of the Christ Child. The Christ Child is here and is waiting for us to come. He is crying out to us from the border. He is calling to us from the voices of the poor. He is shouting out to us from prison. He is waiting for us to live out our faith. He is waiting for us to seek justice. He is waiting for us to pursue peace. Let us go, for He is waiting. (Susan Henry-Crowe)
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Dancing to God 