Isaiah 35:1-10
Last
year, as we were making the transition from the big church to our little church
here, Alice noticed that a
volunteer petunia had begun to grow in a crack of pavement; just where the
concrete met the brick wall of the big church. It was a small blossom, but it
was sturdy. We took pictures of it, and Alice
made the comparison that it was a metaphor for our own situation. We were small
like that flower, but we were going to bloom where we were planted – or where
we landed as the case may be. We shared that picture and that metaphor in the
church newsletter. We hoped that it would inspire all of us to have faith and
keep going.
It
was an inspiring flower, because it bloomed and bloomed and bloomed. It got
bigger and fuller. The weather remained warm and there was rain, so it had no
reason to stop growing. I don’t remember how long that petunia grew in that
break in the concrete, but it was a good while – much longer than we expected.
As the weather changed, it finally withered and died. As tenacious as that
little flower was, it wasn’t sustainable without the right soil for its roots.
But
what was it doing there in the first place? I can imagine how the flower got
started in that inhospitable environment – the wind or a bird scattered the
seed of the petunias that were planted. A seed must have found a tiny patch of
dirt to grab hold of, and then we know the rest. But seeing that beautiful
flower flourishing in a crevice of pavement was a wondrous but strange sight.
It seemed to have no business there, but there it was in spite of itself.
I
think the same could be said of this passage in Isaiah. Barbara Lundblad Taylor
asked the question, “What is it doing here?”
Taken on its own, this
passage in Isaiah is an example of beautiful and compelling language. It is
poetry at its most masterful. The imagery and the visceral response the words evoke
are both beautiful and amazing.
“The
wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and
blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and
singing…. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the
desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of
water.”
That
is powerful. But hear these other powerful words from the mouth of the prophet:
“For
the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion ’s
cause. And the streams of Edom
shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become
burning pitch. Nigh and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up
forever.”
That
is Isaiah, chapter 34: 8-10; the chapter just before the one we read today. The
chapter after ours tells of King Sennacherib’s capture of the people of Judah .
He challenges them, demanding that they submit to him. So these eloquent words
of promise – of creation being reordered to reflect the fullness of God’s
glory; words that tell of the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking,
the speechless singing – are prefaced and followed by words of judgment, vengeance,
capture and forceful submission.
What
is this passage, this chapter of beauty and promise, of expectations upended,
of miraculous reordering, doing here; stuck between prophecies and stories that
convey the exact opposite? Some of the scholarship of this passage claims that
it is in the wrong place in the text. It belongs to Second Isaiah – which is
considered to start at chapter 40 and contains words of new hope after the
exile of God’s people has finally come to an end. It must have been moved by
some scribe. Lundblad Taylor wrote,
“Some things even
our best scholarship cannot explain. The Spirit hovered over the text and over
the scribes: ‘Put it here,’ breathed the Spirit, ‘before anyone is ready.
Interrupt the narrative of despair.’”
Interrupt the
narrative of despair. Isn’t that what we desperately need right now? Isn’t that
what every generation has needed? An interruption in the narrative of despair.
Isn’t that what we are preparing for during this season of Advent? An
interruption in the despair that seems to not only loom around us, but also
seems to be growing exponentially. How is God interrupting us right now? How is
God speaking words of hope, whether we are ready for them or not, whether we
are capable of recognizing them or not?
How is God’s interruption
turning upside down our expectations of God and of the world? How is God’s
interruption like a blooming desert, like streams rushing through arid land,
like waters flowing recklessly out of a sparse and thirsty wilderness?
These words of
Isaiah are an interruption in the narrative of despair; they are “a word out of
place.” Marian Wright Edelman, who is the founder of the Children’s Defense
Fund, speaks about pushing for just causes whether the world is ready for those
causes or not. She names Sojourner Truth as her role model, and after a defeat
of a bill that would have served to protect the children she advocates for, she
contemplated the following story about Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth
was a slave. She couldn’t read. She couldn’t write. Yet her speeches against
slavery are some of the most articulate and eloquent words I have ever read.
She was determined to push for the end of slavery, an evil and unjust
institution that went against all that was good and right and true. Truth gave
a particularly passionate anti-slavery speech in Ohio .
After the speech, a man came up to her and said, “Old woman, do you think that
your talk about slavery does any good? Do you suppose people care what you say?
Why, I don’t care any more for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea.”
Truth answered
him, “Perhaps not, but, the Lord willing, I’ll keep you scratching.”
I’ll keep you
scratching.
A word out of
place.
An interruption in
the narrative of despair.
Perhaps this is
what faith is all about. It is not just that we believe in what we can’t see.
It is not just that we put our hope in doctrine or creed. Perhaps faith is even
more than how William Sloane Coffin said, defining it as “Trust without
reservation.” Perhaps faith is remembering how God has interrupted our own
narratives of despair. Perhaps faith is not just clinging to those memories,
but pinning our hope to our belief that there are more interruptions to come.
Perhaps faith is trusting that God’s greatest interruption – the incarnation of
the Word, the birth of a baby into the world – was not just an interruption
that happened once, long ago and far away, but is an interruption that
continues to occur. It is an ongoing, constant, ever present word out of place.
Isn’t our being
here, in this little place, unsure of our future but believing that there is
more to come, that our ministry is not yet finished, an interruption in the
larger narrative of despair over church decline? Is not the gospel, with its
reordering of what is just, what is righteous, what matters and what doesn’t,
an interruption in the narrative of despair? Doesn’t Mary’s song in response to
the angel’s news about who God called her to be and who she was called to
become ring with God’s glorious interruption? In the midst of the mundane, we
are interrupted by words of a blooming desert, of flowing water, of
expectations upended, of what was dead becoming alive, of what was old becoming
new. A flower can grow in a parking lot and monochrome deserts can bloom with
color. God’s word out of place is the foundation of our faith. God’s
interruption of hope and promise is the center of the gospel, the reminder that
the kingdom is here among us.
A flower can grow
in a parking lot and a desert can bloom with color.
Thanks be to God! Let
all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.
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