St. Paul's Cathedral, Munster, Germany, 1946
Comfort, Comfort My People
Second Sunday of Advent (Year B)
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2,
8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8
Homily delivered at the Trinity Parish Church
Homily delivered at the Trinity Parish Church
Ashland, Oregon
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP,
Ph.D.
10th December 2017: 8:00 am Said and 10:00 am Sung Mass
10th December 2017: 8:00 am Said and 10:00 am Sung Mass
In
587 BCE, a great catastrophe befell the people of the kingdom of Judah.
One of the world’s first trans-national Empires, Babylon, after, as they saw
things, a decade of dealing patiently with the fanatic and ultra-nationalistic
people of Judah, came down hard. After killing all insurgent combatants, they
deported the entire ruling class of the nation, letting them off with their
lives but transporting them en masse
to Mesopotamia far from their homeland where they might stir up more trouble. They
deposed and blinded the king they had put on the throne of Judah only ten years
before. They placed another puppet, this
time non-royal and hopefully more compliant, in the role of governor of the now
newly-named province of Judah. They burned Jerusalem and leveled
to its foundation the center of its obstinate, uncompromising national religion,
the Temple of Yahweh. No stone was left standing on another stone.
This
disaster was overwhelming and unfathomable. Yahweh had promised to
protect his people and the line of the kings descended from David. But now
all that was gone. The Hebrew way of worship had ceased; the Temple was a
mere memory. Almost all families had lost members; many were wiped out
entirely. The nation simply no longer existed. God had broken the
covenant with his people. Indeed, they were no more even a people.
And he was no more their God. How could one understand these events any
other way?
Among
the exiles in Babylon was a prophet who wrote in the tradition of Isaiah, and
whose oracles have been preserved in the latter part of that book. In the
midst of that national disaster, he wrote:
Nahumu,
nahamu 'ommi,
“comfort, comfort my people.”
The
Hebrew is a soft, lilting, lullaby. It is a plural command: “you all go
out and comfort them, comfort them, for they are still my people. I am still
their God.”
The
words are achingly beautiful and full of love. “Speak tenderly to
Jerusalem, and call out to her. She has served her time in prison;
her penalty is paid. Her suffering is so great that it cannot be the mere
punishment for past sins—it is at least twice as worse as that.”
This
prophet then sings three separate oracles, different voices of comfort.
The
first proclaims that as low as things have gotten, Yahweh is about to perform
the ultimate turning of the tables. He
will wondrously bring about the impossible by returning the exiles from Babylon
to Judah and removing any obstacles in their way. He will level the mountain and canyon filled
desert where Jordan, Syria, and western Iraq currently lie, and put in its
place a smooth highway speeding the exiles’ return. And this will be a
sign of God’s love not just for his people, but for all of humanity:
A
voice cries out:
‘In
the wilderness prepare Yahweh’s road,
make
straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every
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.
Then
Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed,
and
all people shall see it together,
for
the mouth of Yahweh has said it.’
A
second oracle takes up the theme:
‘All
people are grass,
their
constancy is like the flower of the field.
The
grass withers, the flower fades,
when
the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely
people are grass.
The
grass withers, the flower fades;
but
the word of our God will stand forever.’
Note
that Second Isaiah’s message is NOT: “The national disaster was God’s just
punishment on us and now he will restore us to our former state. We will
be his people and he will be our God, and all our enemies will now get their
just deserts and it will be a great thing to be a Jew.”
Rather,
Second Isaiah’s message is: “Our suffering was beyond anything just. It
is a mystery, just as God is a mystery. But our suffering is part of what
it means to be human. All of humanity suffers. We are grass.
We are impermanent. But God’s promise remains, and that for all
people.”
It
has always struck me as odd that Second Isaiah here thinks that a voice of
joyful news would cry out, “All people are grass. They wither in a day,
and fade.” What good news is there in such a saying?
Accepting
our common humanity and our facing square-on our limitations is actually a very
liberating thing. It is the start of all authentic spiritual growth and
health. It is aporeia, the
thing that makes Socrates a wise man and the sophists around him foolish—he at
least knows and accepts that he is ignorant while they go about in
self-delusion. It is what Buddhists call accepting impermanence and giving
up desire, abandoning the expectations that enslave us, and the start of the
process of enlightenment. It is the start of what Muhammad called Islam,
“submission” to God. It is what the wisdom tradition in the Hebrew
scripture calls the “beginning of all wisdom,” “awe or fear of the Lord.”
For those following Twelve-Step spirituality, it is the First Step, “we
admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable.”
It is what Jesus is describing when he says we must first lose our lives in
order to find them.
Acceptance
of our condition as imperfect, limited, and impermanent people living in an
imperfect and sometimes horrifying world is needed to break down the barriers
between us and other people. It is at the heart of the process of
repentance, of regretting and turning from our misdoings, and working amendment
of life.
I
think that is why St. Mark in today’s Gospel says that John the Baptist’s
preaching of repentance was the “Beginning of the Joyful Proclamation” of Jesus
Christ. Mark sees John as the “messenger sent before the Lord’s Day,”
borrowing from Malachi, and as, borrowing from today’s reading from Second
Isaiah, the voice crying “in wilderness prepare the way.” John, as
dour and unsparing as we usually like to think him, is still a bringer of Good
News, because he urges us to accept that we are helpless and hopeless, and this
universally so, since all people for him needed his baptism, regardless of
their heritage, religion, or family background.
But
acceptance is only the start. In order to find the hope and help we lack,
we need to turn our lives over to this God who breaks down barriers, smoothes
down the barriers and fills up the gaps, makes the rough places plain,
recreates the broken nation, and raises the dead to life.
The
third oracle in today’s Isaiah passage fairly sings in joy of what it means
when we recognize God’s hand in these loving acts of restoring the
exiles. Second Isaiah personifies the City about to be rebuilt by the
returning exiles, Jerusalem built high on Mount Zion, itself as a herald of
joyful news, the joyful news of God’s love:
Get
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!"
See,
Yahweh God comes with might,
and
his arm rules for him;
his
reward is with him,
and
his recompense before him.
He
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.
Note
how this changes the commonplace used by the Hebrew prophets, the coming day
when Yahweh will reward the righteous and punish evil-doers. No longer is
this a day that burns. No longer is it a great day of military
conquest. It is a day of gentle love. It is a day that God as a
loving shepherd feeds his flock, and carries the little lambs tenderly in his
arms. “Here is your God,” he says, implicitly saying “and not in those
images of blood and fire.” For Second Isaiah, God is a loving shepherd,
not a warrior or executioner.
The
season of Advent is a season of preparation and waiting. We await and
prepare for the in-breaking of God, for the coming of Christ, whether once long
ago in Bethlehem, now in our hearts, or at the end of time in
glory.
As
we prepare, let us remember Second Isaiah’s message: we are all grass, and
quickly fade. But God loves us. The coming of God to set things
right is a moment of comfort, a moment of joyful news, that must
be for all. It is a moment when God as a mother sings lullabies to us,
her children, and when God, as a gentle shepherd, carries us in love, his
lambs.
Sisters
and brothers: many of us are hurting: some go about angry and upset with the
hardness of our lives and the bitterness of events in this last year, this annus horribilis. We sometimes are hard on others, and on
ourselves. But listen here to God’s
word: Take comfort, my people, and give
comfort. Accept this life, bitter and
sweet, but all the sweeter because it is so short. I am still your God, and will surely save
you. I will surely save you. Get to that
high and holy mountain, and look down on the glorious impossible as I smooth
your paths and quicken your pace, bring the dead to life, and gather up the
wounded and lost in my arms. Comfort,
comfort, my people.
In
the name of God, Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment