Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
December 11, 2005 The Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 64: 1-4; 8-11
Just last week I was driving with one of our church members, and as we were driving along we drove past a couple of very large homes. He told me about an interview he had seen on television. A couple, a husband and wife, who had moved from a 6,000 square foot home to a 12,000 square foot home. They were talking about how much they liked it, but at one point the interviewer asked if they would make any changes. Both expressed their regret that some of the rooms – kitchen and dining room – weren’t just a little larger. 12,000 square feet – and they wanted just a little more room! These people were the poster children for conspicuous consumption. Wanting more… always wanting more and doing whatever it takes to get it. It is so easy to give in to the siren song of the consumer culture, especially, sadly, this time of year (except, of course, when it comes to more fishing equipment.)
I recall the time, it was Christmas, when those two long time adversaries, Linus and Lucy, were standing together holding hands. Charlie Brown walks up and can hardly believe what he is seeing – and hearing – as Lucy smiles and says, “We are brother and sister and we love each other.” That is too much for Charlie Brown, who responds, “You are hypocrites, that’s what you are! Do you really think you can fool Santa Claus this way?” Lucy answers, “Why not? We’re a couple of sharp kids and he’s just an old man.” As brother and sister walk away, still smiling and holding hands, Charlie Brown leans against his favorite tree and laments, “I weep for our generation!” Lucy and Linus know all about wanting more.
But, curiously enough, so does Isaiah. One could argue that today’s text, one of which Jesus was obviously very fond, is all about wanting more. But even as we say that, we need to ask, just what is this ‘more’ that Isaiah wants?
I think of a beautiful moment in Alan Paton’s classic novel of South Africa, Cry the Beloved Country. An old South African pastor, Stephen Kumalo, has gone to Johannesburg to find his son Jonathan. Sadly, when he finds him, Jonathan is in jail for killing a white lawyer named Arthur Jarvis, a lawyer who was actually an advocate of black rights and had written a book about the urgency for justice in that hate-filled country. Kumalo then goes to the elder Jarvis, the lawyer’s father, to apologize for his son’s crime. Instead of refusing to see him or berating him for Jonathan's deed, Jarvis receives him kindly. He has been reading the manuscript of his son’s book and been moved by the young man’s vision of what this country needs, of what must be done. Learning that Kumalo’s little village church needs to be replaced, Jarvis vows to re-build it. He also promises to send great earthmoving equipment and build a dam for the village, so that the people can have a year-round supply of water.
The news of what is about to be done sends a shock wave of hope throughout that small village. There will be water for irrigation. Perhaps they can raise cattle. Could this mean there will be food and milk for the children? Might there be laughter and singing and dancing again? Says Paton, “Nothing has happened; yet it is as if it has. Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.”
I believe that Alan Paton captures the spirit of the “more” spoken of by Isaiah. “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; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor….. ”Nothing has come yet, something is here already.” This is the more of this text; this is the more of this Advent season.
I have to tell you that because of certain events in my life, this sermon changed during the week. It actually began with a harder, more political, maybe even an angrier edge to it. Because I was going to point out that Isaiah makes it clear that God’s anointed, God’s chosen one, clearly will identify with the poor, the weak, the sick, the oppressed, the lost and the lonely. The one for whom we wait will come and take his or her place among the least of these. And he will probably invite us to do the same.
So what does it mean then, in this season, as we read this text, as we await the coming of God’s chosen one, that Congress is completing a budget that gives even more tax breaks to the wealthiest among us while it cuts food stamps, health care, even foster care for the poorest among us. This is good news to the poor, Christmas 2005? I remember Marcus Borg telling us in June, “America has become a difficult, even frightening place to be poor.” And this remains an important point in this text. We can’t soft peddle it. It truly challenges both our personal and our national priorities. But this week as I worked with it, I also began to understand that it doesn’t only challenge us. It’s not only about out there. I realized that it is also about in here – this is a text that is including us.
This is the second time in Advent that we have found ourselves in late Isaiah. Recall that these are words addressed to a people returning from bitter exile, only to find their homeland – and their Temple – in ruins. They are afflicted, oppressed, brokenhearted, mourning. In short, your average December congregation. We know what it feels like when hope shrinks, when words of new life turn to ashes in our mouths, when the future seems pointless. I almost walked away from this sermon this week. This was one of the few times in my ministry when, for a couple of days, I really had no energy or interest in Sunday worship. I was worried about my father and his heart surgery, which we thought he was going to have last Friday. I spent time with Brenda Sears as she was dying from lung cancer and then met with her family and planned her memorial service. Betty learned she was going to have to have a biopsy, and then Bethany called. We were waiting for an update on her pregnancy, “How’s it going?”, only to learn that her doctor could no longer find a heartbeat and her pregnancy was over. I just went upstairs in our home, read this text again, and stared for the longest time at a blank computer screen. And frankly, I just didn’t care.
But, thanks be to God, the words of the prophet, this promise of more, continued to work on me. “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….” And it dawned on me that I was there, I was in that text…the prophet was talking to me! “Gene Nelson, why are your hopes so small? Why have you given up hoping for more? Why is your truth so tame? Why are your expectations of God so small? It’s Advent, and even if you can’t see it, even if you refuse to believe it, something is here already. Don’t be afraid to hunger and thirst for more.”
Words of Emily Dickinson come to mind:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul.
And sings the tune without words,
And never stops at all.
Isn’t this what Isaiah is saying? Now isn’t the time to stop hoping, to stop yearning. United Methodist Bishop, William Willimon writes, “Isaiah speaks of a world beyond present arrangements, a world where there is good news, liberty, comfort, garlands instead of ashes…This is Bible talk about the more beyond the now. It is daring, poetic, political speech, speech pushed to the boundaries in description of what God is breaking open among us…Isaiah’s words refuse to abide within the confines of the rationality of the dominant society, refuse to be limited by common sense…When we come to church and are exposed to such speech, we are beckoned out beyond the world of predictability into another world of risk and gift, in which divine intervention enables new life to subvert tamed expectations, to evoke fresh faith.”
Too often, I suppose, what we do here on Sunday morning is basically figure out a way to adjust to what is seen and known rather than to dare to probe for something more. It becomes a place, too often, for affirming comfortable certitudes, no matter how unsatisfactory they have become. “Just tell us what we already know.”
But, says a colleague, sometimes…sometimes, “On a cold Sunday in December, we allow ourselves to peek over the horizon, stand on tiptoes with Isaiah, and there is more than we dared to expect. Somebody goes home from church newly discontent with present arrangements. Somebody gets ready for more than just another Christmas. Advent becomes adventure. And we dare to wish for ourselves more, more for our world, more for others, and if you listen, you can hear Isaiah laughing…And the Prince of Darkness knows that he has lost a little of his territory to its true Lord, and the Lord’s newly reclaimed territory, is us.”