St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church
Second Sunday after Advent
Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
Psalm 72
Story
Everybody has a story. Everybody has roots. The story each of us could tell about ourselves, had their roots which were set down long before any of us were born. Some parts of our story come from the free will of our choices in life, or from our environmental circumstances. Come parts of our story come from the control we have to shape our lives, and some parts of our story evolved through no control or fault of our own.
Once inside our story, living it, we dream about how our story got to be the story it is, or how the story might end, if circumstances were different or if the tide had turned soon enough. No matter how each chapter of our story ends, we cannot leave the chapter behind. It has shaped us in the past and will continue to shape us with its influence on our future decisions. Its threads attach themselves to the threads of new stories, unique to each of us, which are still evolving……in, around and because of us.
Our roots go deep. During our bible study this week, the prophet Isaiah, got us talking a bit about our roots and how meaningful they are in our lives, how they shape us and take their part in shaping our story. It has been that way from the beginning.
Isaiah prophesied that “a shoot shall come out of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Isaiah then goes on to tell about all that will take place when the root of Jesse actually becomes flesh and blood among us. How concepts like righteousness, love, peaceful diversity, no more territorial infighting, no destruction of the environment will overcome all the messes we make in the world. How the whole earth will sit up and take notice of the difference it makes in living out our story according to God’s agenda. That when we get to simply be who we are, instead of trying to fix messes that we all feel guilty for creating so that…. the real “you” can recognize yourself for you are, instead of hoping you are who you are supposed to be in the eyes of everyone else, or who the world wants you to be and that your story is acceptable in the judgment of the world.
Isaiah’s words are calling out to the people who have come through their own experience of that. The people are living out their own stories in the midst of an evolving story on the world stage. The people of Isaiah’s time were living between invasions beyond their control. First the Assyrians and just over a hundred years later, the Babylonians and exile. Isaiah calls out a message of combined judgement and hope. There will be a new day, a new story, a different story, wherein the people will be gathered in from all the places they have been displaced and they will experience God and become part of God’s peaceful story.
As we look at our lifetime story and all the chapters and subplots that play their part in it, we can find those moments of displacement, of exile of feeling lost and falling victim to the control of others. Some of us may feel it more or less than others, depending on our age or our race, our culture, gender or gender preferences, where we live or who we live with, or what the degree of our world experience may be. Regardless of our situation, our stories have some common threads… our common search for fulfillment and self-worth…our desire for love and acceptance and our hope and longing for freedom and peace.
Isaiah speaks to the wisdom of the one who will come out of the roots of the past, the one who holds the wisdom and insight of God. The One who brings all that we week, desire and hope for…….who knows our roots and therefore, our stories. He speaks of the one who comes out of the stump called Jesse.
Who is Jesse? Who is it that holds the root and the source of all God’s blessings to come? In the Book of Ruth, we hear about Jesse’s father Obed. There’s quite an eye-brow raising story there. If you like a good read with some interesting family drama, just look at the 4th Chapter of Ruth. You’ll find an interesting genealogy there, too, that names Obed as the father of Jesse, who is the father of David.
You can follow the story to the First Book of Samuel who has his own story to tell about how he was called by God to find a new king for Israel. He was led to Jesse and all Jesse’s sons to look them over for potential kingship, as they were paraded before him. But none of the sons he met seemed to fit what God was having him look for. So, Samuel asked Jesse if he, by chance, had any other sons. And you probably know the way this story goes. Sure enough, there was the youngest son out taking care of the sheep, oblivious to the contest going on up at the farmhouse. Jesse was reluctant to send for him and bring him up out of the fields. But Samuel said he wouldn’t leave until he’d met and seen the youngest son. So, the youngest was sent for, and wouldn’t you know, God wasted no time letting Samuel know that this was the one. His name was David. And you probably know the rest of that story, too.
Matthew seems to want to corroborate all of the above, just so that we can be sure of it all. And, in a similar way, Luke lists more names than you’d want to hear me recite right now, but right in the middle of them all are Obed, Jesse and David. You can see for yourself in the 3rd Chapter of the Gospel of Luke. But Matthew goes one better. He starts out his Gospel with the genealogy that befits a detail man like a tax collector, and Matthew, keeping all things fair and equal, even includes the women that had a part in it all. Like Ruth, and Bathsheba. That’s a good story for you, if you like a little murder, mayhem, or sex in the city sort of story. Regardless for that part of her story, however, as part of a far greater story, Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon, son of David…and through his genealogy, Matthew makes his way from there to Mary the unmarried mother and Joseph, parents of Jesus.
Are you getting some interesting links here?
So out of a whole lot of people and their stories comes Jesse, who produces David, and through those roots and continuing strands of DNA, comes Jesus. He comes embodying all the love that started creation, itself.
Which begs the question: Are we really understanding the meaning behind John’s call to the wilderness? I think John was a whole lot smarter than people give him credit for. He knew the prophesies and he knew the times he was living in. Talk about judgment. They judged him, and we judge him, even now, even when we know his story, because he wears camel hair and eats locusts. We rarely stop to consider that maybe that’s all there was to eat or to wear, or that the people would recognize that kind of living that was once part of their story, when they walked through the wilderness.
Who are we to judge? What does it look like for us to be judged by what people see or hear about us? Like the Pharisees and Sadducees of John’s time. Maybe we are missing John’s point. How do we fashion our lives in order to be judged by those who hold the power to judge us favorably or not? How have we created our reputation in order that we will be judged well? What do we have to do to meet the requirements of being judged well in the life we live in? By our husband, wife or partner, our son or daughter, work colleagues, our boss, the neighbors. How meek or poor are our egos, our need for attention and the rest? To what degree and how do these needs control us and therefore, the way our story is unfolding?
John knew his Isaiah and knew the source of the one coming
after him. He will be the one who…..
“ shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor…” (Isa.11:1)
Don’t get him wrong. John wasn’t saying the Kingdom
of Heaven was going to be a bed of roses. He wasn’t yelling to
people to “repent” for nothing. In fact, if you didn’t, then you
would get the proverbial axe from God just like you would
from any other big boss if you didn’t shape up. He was warning
them to get straight with God now and get baptized so that you
could show the world and God that you mean what you say
about living humbly and in awe of God.
Then, just as John predicted, Jesus arrived at the place at the River
Jordan where John was baptizing people. And, after some wrangling
about who was going to baptize who, Jesus won the argument and out
into the Jordan they went, and again, you know the rest of the story.
Except for one little detail that we often forget about John. At some
point later in his story, John had to wonder if Jesus was what he
thought Jesus really was…the Son of God. Jesus’ story line was so
different than his. He was intent on teaching about God as the tough
judge, meting out tough justice.
Jesus, on the other hand, was teaching about God’s love and mercy,
God’s forgiveness and generosity.
John’s whole message is about shaping up before God shapes you up
in God’s way, which isn’t pretty. Jesus, on the other hand, said that it
was God who would save you anyway, no matter what your seedy
story might be. You could be a purist like John and act as a role
model for poverty, eating bugs and honey in the wilderness, or you
could eat with the best and worst of them in town with Jesus.
No wonder it was a little confusing for John. But then, that is a whole
other story for another day. The fact is, John wasn’t afraid of anyone,
not the religious authorities or Herod or any of that messed up family.
So he proclaimed like Isaiah and like all the human prophets
throughout history who sound the warning about what is to come if
people don’t trade in their personal greed, and pick up a little more
awe of God.
To repent is to take a good look at the way your story is unfolding an
if it is evolving in the wrong direction away from God, then you need
to get hold of it and turn it around so that it brings you back into
relationship with God and God’s vision for your life and for the life of
all God’s creation.
At the end of today’s story, all God wants is peace that springs from
people who get that our stories will have far happier endings if we
check ourselves now and then. And, when we find ourselves straying,
we correct course.
Perhaps John was more aligned with Isaiah than he sounded today.
Perhaps his message has an underlying message of promise and hope
because of the One who is to come after him. Maybe John is simply
suggesting in a way that the people of his time would understand, that
Jesus will redefine how we see ourselves and how we see others.
How we judge ourselves and how we judge others. To aspire to live
in awe of God, to work for God’s dream of peace and follow Jesus in
the Way of Love is to repent of a life that does the opposite and lives
only to please the vipers of the world.
There would be much more to come of John’s story after that amazing
day in the wilderness with all those people who had their own stories
evolving and breaking apart all around them, from the religious
authorities to the merely curious. And there would be much more to
come of the story of the One who came to be baptized, who would
baptize from then one with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And we all
know where that story would lead.
But, just like all the Prophets who appear to sound warnings to
humankind’s straying ways, Isaiah knew these stories long before they
inhabited the humans who walked the earth that day, as well as the
rest of us, still venturing out into our own version of the wilderness.
We’re still hoping to find someone there, yelling at us that the One
who has a story that holds all the stories of creation, is near.
The thing is, God is already here. God is already a part of our story.
The Ancient prophecies were always based on truth and they were
proved to be true, indeed.
We know the story that is unfolding before our eyes and ears, just as it has for over 2,000 years, just as it was predicted almost a thousand years before that. Just as it was predicted at the beginning of time.
As John’s Gospel reminds us, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” (John 1:1) That was the beginning of the greatest story ever told.
What is your story? Not the story we all see and hear about. But, the story that only God knows. Perhaps your answer will reveal to you the truth about who you really are and what might be your motivation as you enter into the next chapter of your life.
End
Written to the Glory of God
E J. R. Culver+
December 8, 2019