B Advent OL 1
Isaiah 40:1-11, 27-31
November 30, 2014
The American
Movie Classics Channel, AMC, rates “The Shawshank Redemption”, the second
greatest movie of all time. The
Hollywood Reporter rates it fourth. The Internet Movie Database says that it
may be the most watched movie of all time.
I think it is watched over and over again because the story resonates
with us. We have heard it before. I believe the “Shawshank Redemption” tells
one of the most important Biblical stories we always hear around the Advent and
Christmas seasons. I believe “The
Shawshank Redemption” tells, on an individual level, the communal and national
story of the Biblical Exile. “The
Shawshank Redemption” asks the question, when all is hopeless, “Is hope a good
thing?” And in the midst of
hopelessness, do we get busy living or get busy dying?
Is hope a good thing? This is one of the profound questions of the
whole Judeo-Christian story, and it must be carefully asked. For we must hear that our story does not
value hope. Hope implies that there is
yet to be something scraped or culled from the way things are and how the
systems and structures grind and push against one another. The Judeo-Christian story values a hope
against hope. Hope is not even on the
horizon. Hope cannot be seen evident or
known in the way the world presently works.
It is midnight. And there is
nothing that would tell us that the night will recede. To hope now in the way of the world is not
only foolish but asking a leopard to change its spots, asking the very thing
that cranks out death day after day to somehow offer or choose life and mercy. El Salvadoran theologian Jon Sobrino writes, “Christian
hope is not a hopeful optimism which looks beyond
injustice, oppression, and death; it is a hope against injustice, oppression, and death.”[1]
This is the context or matrix of
Exile. And it is the context of the world
in First Century Rome, the matrix in which Jesus of Nazareth and Gospel authors
find themselves. It is why Gospel
authors borrow so heavily from the book of Isaiah to tell the story of
Jesus. They are saying that this time
resembles another time of hopelessness and midnight. Both times go to the character of God to say
that something, not found in the world, rooted in the deep character of God,
must be conjured.
For the faithful, the people who have been regularly
practicing fasting and prayer are at work with God at midnight. In prayer, these people are in solidarity
with those crushed by the practices of the world. They build community with the crushed. In fasting, the faithful do not find their energy
and sustenance from the way of the world but from an entirely different energy
and life force—pre-existent, ancient, deeper.
The faithful do not hope . . . in the way of the world. In fact, they are not even sure in what to
hope. So, at midnight, the faithful pray
and fast, fast and pray.
The Babylonian Exile is reminiscent of
Elie Wiesel’s, The Trial of God, a
recount of something Wiesel witnessed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. In
the play, God, as defendant, is placed on trial. And God is found guilty of crimes against
creation and humankind. After what
Wiesel describes as “an infinity of silence”, the Talmudic scholar in the play
looks at the sky and says, “It is time for evening prayers.” It is midnight with no hope of dawn. God seems strikingly absent, a faint
rumor. Psalm 42, rooted in the Exile,
states, “My tears have been my food day and night,” as people jeer and mock
asking, “Where is your God?” And Psalm
22, the iconic psalm put on the lips of Jesus asks, “My God, my God, why have
you abandoned me?” All we have left is
our spiritual practice rooted in the character of a God who seems to be
non-existent. And our work begins.
The Scripture read today has an
important context. Biblical prophets
like Jeremiah and Isaiah had told the Jewish people that they were being sent
into Exile because their nation, particularly their wealthy kings and priests, had
forgotten the Law which built their community, forgotten the lives of the
economically poor, and forgotten their distinct, humble identity apart from all
other nations—nations full of arrogance and violence.
That
kings and priests failed the Jewish people, that a set apart royal priesthood
was corrupt and co-opted, is no surprise to the Biblical reader. Jewish story and mythology has always had an
uneasy relationship with the idea of a king.
Way back when, the people barked and complained that they needed a king
to be one among many nations. The Jewish
people were cautioned. God was their
Sovereign. Why did they need
another? Though God relented, and agreed
to a king, the prophet Samuel told them that this king would continue to break
covenant Law by taking and taking and taking from the community resources. “Why,” God asked, “would you need a king when
I am your Mother and King? Why would you
want to be like any other nation? Am . .
. I . . . not . . . your . . . king?”
In
the ancient Near East, a common image emerged to described a king who was not
corrupted or co-opted, who remained tender and full of mercy. This kind of king established justice in the
nation and built community. The image or
metaphor is even found in Babylonian architecture. The great Babylonian law-giver and king,
Hammurabi was referred to as “the devout, god-fearing prince, to cause justice
to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong
might not oppress the weak, to rise like the sun . . . and to light
up the land . . . Hammurabi, the shepherd . . . the savior of
his people from distress, who establishes in security their portion in the
midst of Babylon; the shepherd of the people . . .”[2]
That
meaning became an important part of Jewish mythology as the Biblical story
tells us that King David ascended to the throne from life as a shepherd
boy. Ah, story says, who better to care
for the national welfare than someone who has had to slay many a predator with
sling and stone to protect his own flock for so many years? David becomes the prototypical
Shepherd-King.
Hebrew
Scripture scholar, Thomas A. Golding writes that “the ideal king was the
shepherd of his god’s people. He
promoted justice within the flock while at the same protecting it from
predators without. The needs of sheep
are primarily physical. The primary
roles of a shepherd with [their] sheep were guiding, providing food and water,
protecting and delivering, gathering scattered or lost sheep, and giving health
and security.”[3] Again, the Shepherd-King was one who
delivered on justice, included all, and protected the most vulnerable. The prophet Jeremiah imagined these kinds of
kings coming out of the Exile, God promising the people an alternative to the
kings which led them into the Exile, “I will also raise up shepherds over them
and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be
terrified, nor will any be missing!”[4]
But remember
this uneasy relationship Judaism has with its kings. That finds full voice in the Scripture verse read
for us. At the end of the passage,
rather than any human on the throne, God is on the throne as Jewish Shepherd
and King, “Like a shepherd God will tend the flock. In God’s arms, God will gather the lambs and
carry them in Her bosom; God will gently lead the nursing female sheep.”[5] In other words, God as Shepherd King will make
sure that the most vulnerable are protected and the most vulnerable are led. For
the kings and priests of humankind have failed to lead them.
Within our
tradition such seeds are sewn. We are
all created in the image of God with no implicit sanction or approval of Divine
right monarchy. In the baptisms of these
four children today, we stated very clearly that as people created in the image
of God we are all Children of God. In
releasing and delivering the Children of Israel from the clutches of Pharaoh,
God declares that the Children of Israel all shall be a people set apart—a priestly
kingdom, a royal priesthood.[6] That is what we welcomed Rihanna, Elijah,
Kingston, and Sacred into with their baptism today. We welcomed them into the activity of the
priestly kingdom, the royal priesthood, the activity of the Shepherd King.
Much as their award winning family has done, through the
baptism of these children, we state publicly as a community on behalf of the Christian church universal that we now
promise to protect the most vulnerable of our flock from predators. We make sure that we care for the material
bases of their lives: food and water,
protecting and delivering them, gathering them when they are scattered or lost,
giving health and security to them. We
do these things as the followers of the Good Shepherd—gathering the sheep and
carrying them close to us, leading the most vulnerable, the ones that continue
need our hands to walk out into the traffic of an arrogant and violent
world.
Today is the First Sunday of Advent, a day when we
remember that no matter how much the night sky seems to be without light, no
matter how scary or dangerous the world might be for our children, with global
climate change, a world filled with war and violence, and caught up in the
values of materialism, we will devote ourselves to the spiritual practices of
the Good Shepherd. Even when it is midnight, we will fast and pray, pray and
fast. Transformation . . . dawn is
coming. And as people of faith we know
that Sacred, Elijah, Rihanna, and Kingston, through the work we begin here
today, might be the people who welcome that glorious new day. This is our hope . . . against hope.
The
Shawshank Redemption ends with Red, the criminal who spent 40 years in prison
for a crime he committed when he was young, the man who asked if hope was a
good thing, finally receiving parole. As
he leaves for a new life, a transformed life, he says,
For the second time in my life, I'm guilty of committing a crime.
Parole violation. Course, I doubt they're going to throw up any road blocks for
that. Not for an old crook like me. I find I'm so excited I can barely sit
still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man
can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is
uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and
shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I
hope.[7]
It is midnight. The work begins. Time to get busy living. Amen.
[1] Jon Sobrino, Christology
at the Crossroads, (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1978), p. 232.
[2] Thomas A. Golding, “The Imagery of Shepherding in
the Bible, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 163
(January-March 2006), p. 24, quoting Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, p. 165.
[3] Ibid, pp. 22, 23.
[5]
Isaiah 40:11
[6]
Exodus 19:6
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