The first thing we need to understand about the ancient Biblical prophets is that they were not like Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon – or even Sybill Trelawney in the Harry Potter series. Above all, they were not predictors of events far into the future.
As far as we can tell, though they used some divination tools like astrology, they did not spend the vast majority of their time staring into crystal balls or reading death threats on the palms of your hands in a darkened classroom like one might find at Hogwarts.
The role of prophets, both the major ones like Jeremiah and Isaiah (whom we read this morning), and the so-called minor ones like Amos and Hosea was far more nuanced and multi-faceted.
Among other responsibilities arising out of their call from God, Biblical prophets provided political and even military advice to kings and rulers. Should they go to war? Should they negotiate a treaty? Such advice was sometimes straightforward and other times was presented in wonderfully vivid imagery such as Jeremiah described in going down to the potter’s house to watch him work at his wheel.
Ancient prophets also provided warnings when Israel strayed from their God, Yahweh, (which became a familiar circumstance), and so a prophet might articulate a reversal in expectations, weaving together poetic and fiery words and vivid images of the destruction of Zion should behaviors not change.
Biblical prophets also provided tremendous comfort to the Jewish people in times of enormous upheaval and distress. They planted seeds of hope as they spoke of lions bedding down with lambs, rough places becoming smooth, and water gushing from the deserts and flowers blooming in the sand and heat.
Above all, in one way or another, Biblical prophets reminded primarily Jewish leaders time and time again of the ancient and abiding covenant God had long ago established with them. This covenant, of course, describes God’s relationship with Israel and the terms by which Israel fulfills its responsibility to be a holy people. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
The task of keeping up their side of the covenant was never an easy one for the Israelites. They were constantly falling short – from the first time they danced around with that golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses was in the clouds and thunder picking up the Ten Commandments to all the ways they doubted the goodness and abiding love of God and all the times they figured it would be a lot easier to go it alone and do it their way. Yet, though a mystery as to why, God never gave up on them. God always keeps God’s side of the bargain. And that surely is the foundation of a theology of grace, amazing grace.
Our passage this morning is a part of an ancient document emerging from a time nearly 600 years before Christ. Scholars date it about the time of the Edict of Cyrus, approximately 539 B.C.E.
Now here is your history lesson for the morning – and it is important for understanding the meaning of our Scripture. The ancient Middle East was a world characterized by warring tribes and nations, and often the Israelites ended up as pawns.
For example, Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Kingdom of Judah and used a common tactic to ensure submission. He deported or exiled the Israelites to backwater Babylon. However, when the Persian Empire overran Babylon some 70 years later, Cyrus, the Persian emperor, granted the Israelites the right to return to their homeland.
This Babylonian Exile was the second significant exile in Jewish history, the first one being the years spent in slavery in Egypt. This time around they were deported in two waves, first the rulers, priests, and elites followed later by the common masses.
In short, they were forced from their homeland, and, more importantly, their temple where God resided was in ruins. Consequently, their concept of worship was in shambles, and their way of life was destroyed.
In a cosmic sense, they had ended up in the Babylonian backwaters in the first place because God just got fed up with their endless shenanigans over keeping up their end of the covenant. But now, as they are about to go back home, Isaiah speaks and reminds them that this all-important covenant with God has been salvaged once again by God’s grace.
Come home, God says. All who are thirsty for me, come and drink clear and cool water even in a land that has no water. All who hunger for me, come and eat, even if you have nothing to give in return.
God is making a lasting covenant commitment to you, Isaiah says, the same one that God made with David: sure, solid, enduring love…Come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. (from “The Message).
As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey, writes, “We know that a prophet speaks sternly to the people when they need it, but also knows how to speak tenderly, to convey God's great love and mercy… And this prophet knows that the people are hungry for a message of hope, a message that promises an end to their captivity and a different way of life, back home, where they can be who they are called to be, and faithful to the God who has made an everlasting covenant with them.”
When the prophet asks the community, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?” he is really asking, “Why are you wasting your industry, your wealth and your life’s work in a place which will never be your home?”
If you are thirsty, if you are hungry, all you have to do is return to the place God has set aside for you and there…God will sustain you…Trust in God and in God’s plan for your lives, instead of pinning your hopes on your own designs.
The covenant has been restored, O people of Israel. The covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone. So, come home, now. Come home.
Such beautiful words – but the loveliest part of hearing Isaiah speak them today is that these words of welcome were not whispered once in a moment of ancient time – said and forgotten. The words are meant for us as well.
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes reminds us "Originally addressed to those who have been torn from their homeland and forced to live in exile in Babylon, this "word" (of Isaiah) is still alive and active for any exile who longs for home, for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." And I would say that includes each one of us.
Come home. The ancient covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone – and as Christians, we believe that through Jesus, God has extended that covenant – that special relationship - to us Gentiles. We have a new relationship with God – a new covenant - because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
INVITATION TO COMMUNION
Come back to God and to the source of what will really satisfy your souls. Come all you who have settled so comfortably into a routine and worldview that keeps you so busy and distracted that you have lost touch with your deepest selves, made in the image of God. Come share in the feast because your spirits are thirsty, starving, and homesick, even if you can not name those feelings on your own. (Kate Huey)
Come all of you who may not be immediately aware of how you have wandered away from God – how life has lost its meaning in pursuit of a promotion or raise, how you have gotten buried under the demands of economic and social status. (Daniel Debevoise)
No one goes hungry at the table of life. Taste, oh taste and see. Take nourishment in the covenant and in the promises of a God whose love will not fail us.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Luke 13:31-35 "Trash Talking"
The fox went out on a chilly night,
He prayed for the moon to give him light,
For he'd many a mile to go that night,
Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o,
He'd many a mile to go that night,
Before he reached the town-o.
He ran ‘til he came to a great big pen,
Where the ducks and the geese were put therein,
"A couple of you will grease my chin,
Before I leave this town-o, town-o, town-o,
A couple of you will grease my chin,
Before I leave this town-o."
Many years ago, Joe and I would read the story of that old fox or sometimes sing the folk song to Heather, Paddy, and Tim, and that is the first connection I made when earlier in the week I read our Scripture passage.
I thought of Herod - like that old fox –out to get what he wanted:
Then old Mother Flipper-Flopper jumped out of bed,
Out of the window she cocked her head,
Crying, "John, John! The gray goose is gone,
And the fox is on the town-o, town-o, town-o!"
Crying, "John, John! The gray goose is gone,
And the fox is on the town-o!"
He grabbed the gray goose by the neck,
Throwed a duck across his back,
He didn't mind their quack, quack, quack,
And their legs a-dangling down-o, down-o, down-o,
He didn't mind their quack, quack, quack,
And their legs a-dangling down-o.
Then the fox and his wife without any strife,
Cut up the goose with a fork and knife,
They never had such a supper in their life,
And the little ones chewed on the bones-o, bones-o, bones-o,
They never had such a supper in their life,
And the little ones chewed on the bones-o.
Herod Antipas was not someone to be trifled with. He might have been a puppet ruler of Judea, under the thumb of Rome, but he was the king. He tightly held the reins of power in and around Galilee. There were no two ways about it.
It was this Herod who had executed John the Baptist over a disagreement about the nature of divorce and had presented John’s head with a flourish on a silver platter one night at dinner at the request of his lovely wife, Herodias.
It was the father of this Herod who had ordered all the littlest children in Bethlehem slaughtered when he got wind of a newborn king in the area.
It was this Herod who, at his father’s death, mass murdered men, women, and children in the nearby city of Sepphoris in order to quell a Jewish urban revolt. No – King Herod Antipas was no one to be trifled with.
The Pharisees realized that, and some of them even told Jesus to put a cork on the message he was sending out and tone down the healings and exorcisms he was doing left and right. Did he not understand that he was drawing way too much attention to himself – and that was not good?
"Run for your life!” They urged. “Herod is on the hunt. He is out to kill you!" They seemed close to a veritable panic. After all, the last thing anyone wanted was some sort of peasant uprising.
This Jesus – no matter who he thought he was – just should not be talking about the last being first, and the first being last. As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey reminds us, “Did he not understand that none of it sounded like good news to those who thought they were comfortably (if tenuously) ensconced in the places of prestige and power?”
Oh, that Jesus! He was a bad boy. Maybe he was naïve about just who and what he was dealing with. Maybe he was too young to know just how close he was walking the line. Maybe he was merely cocky, or maybe he was inspired by something that even those most devoted to the Torah could not understand. Because, you see, rather than heeding the well-meaning and sensible advice of the more politically savvy Pharisees, instead, Jesus trash talks the king!
“Oh, that old dragon breath! He is nothing more than a horse’s ‘you know what’. Tell the old fox that I have no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I am busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I will be wrapping things up. Anyway, everyone knows that it is not proper for a prophet to come to a bad end outside Jerusalem. Bring it on, Herod, bring it on.”
Clearly, Herod’s threats did not seem to jeopardize Jesus’ sense of mission in the least. The king’s intimidation did not even affect its timetable, which was defined by someone greater than this two bit puppet ruler.
Who is this man, Jesus? Who is this trash talking upstart rabbi who says what he means and means what he says, who refuses to listen to anyone or anything except the voice that speaks from his heart?
Who is this man who heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, causes cripples to throw away their crutches, and sends demons off with a roar and a groan?
Who is this man who willingly sets out on a journey of conflict and tension that will eventually take him to Jerusalem, the seat of religious and regional political power? And that, for the Gospel writer of Luke, is terribly important.
As Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, comments “Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant. When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis. When Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles.” It is hardly rocket science to know that when Jesus stirs things up in the Holy City, there can not possibly be a good end for Him.
United Church of Canada pastor, James Love, puts it this way: Jesus “is moving out from his ministry on the margins of the empire in Galilee and moving towards the center of power, Jerusalem; the big city; the place where the Great Temple stands; but also the centre of Roman regional control…Jesus (seems) to know that…when centers of power have the truth proclaimed in them and to them, they often respond with violence…He seems to know (too) that (his) Good News will cause the powerful to feel threatened.
Who is this man who intuitively understands that Herod’s words are nothing when they stand in the face of the power of the Word of God?
Jesus is a mystery. He is the Great Mystery. One moment we think we know him as the macho trash talking young rabbi, but in the very next verse in Luke’s Gospel, we see someone completely different. It is almost as if we glimpse the raw essence of his soul. Maybe without even thinking, he shares a metaphor for his ministry and his purpose that is so achingly beautiful, so gentle, and, above all, so daringly feminine.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.” (KJV)
Jesus likens himself not to a lion, for he is not – and never will be - the King of the jungle. Neither is he swift like the cheetah nor strong like the ox or the bull. He is so much less – and yet so much more. He is like a barnyard chicken, a mother hen.
Jesus will cry out again for Jerusalem as he sits upon a donkey on the hill outside the city before his triumphant entry on Palm Sunday. That time just seeing the Holy City laid out before him will reduce him to tears.
But for now, it is only a heartfelt lament – almost like a love song. You see, if Jesus had his way, he would gather together all of his people in Jerusalem – all the peasants and the shopkeepers and the scribes and the elders and the Pharisees – and one day even Judas – all of them. He would gather them like a mother hen and protect them under fragile wings.
It is like Barbara Brown Taylor noted. “If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world --wings spread, breast exposed -- but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”
Once there was a firefighter who came upon an eagle’s nest after a devastating forest fire had ravaged the landscape. The eagle, of course, was dead – charred and stiff now – lying upon her nest. The firefighter kicked the bird away, and all of a sudden peeping filled the air. The chicks had all survived the terrible fire because the mother had spread her wings and lay on top of them. She had given her own life to save them.
Jesus seems to know that his days of trash talking are numbered. He will never be the kind of ruler that anyone expects – or maybe even wants. In his book, the last will always be first, the gentle will inherit, and the peacemakers will end up on top.
And in the end, he will be little more than a chicken – no fangs, no talons, no massive and imposing physical presence. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes so poignantly, all the chicken has is “her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first.
Which (the fox) does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her -- wings spread, breast exposed -- without a single chick beneath her feathers. It breaks her heart, but it does not change a thing. If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
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