[Advent 2: Peace] building peace by building relationships, and vulnerability

From the stump of Jesse a shoot will come out, and from Jesse's roots will grow a branch:
upon which the spirit of the God--the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of God--shall rest;
whose delight will be in the fear of God;
who shall not judge by sight alone, nor decide only by hearing;
but who will judge the poor with righteousness, and decide with equity for the meek of the Earth;
whose mouth's rod shall strike the Earth, and whose lips' breath will kill the wicked;
whose waist shall be belted with righteousness, and whose loins belted with faithfulness.

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

On that day as a signal to the peoples shall stand the root of Jesse, of whom all the nations inquire, and whose dwelling shall be glorious.

Isaiah 11:1-10 (NRSV, alt. -- many thanks to Cole and Ruth Ellen)

This text is familiar from the Advent/Christmas cycle of texts every year, but its very familiarity means it can be hard to actually hear what it's saying.

Danielle Shroyer (you may remember her from last week, Advent 1, commenting about Revelation) wrote: " 'Tis the season to dream big dreams and hope big hopes. But the hardest question remains: Why is the earth not yet filled with the knowledge of the Lord?"

My immediate thought was that this invocation of "the earth being full of the knowledge of the Lord" seemed kind of random. Yes, it's the penultimate sentence of the entire passage and I had skipped right over it.

Before I even read the comments, I answered her question: "Because we [the Church] haven't lived out Christlike lives."

There was some discussion in the comments about the tension between abdicating responsibility and burning ourselves out, and Wesley Welborn said:

Let me offer a different way of phrasing one of your statements. Rather than saying, "If I get the idea that I can make things right by trying harder and fixing things, then it will always end in (disappointment?)" how about, "If we allow Christ to work through us to complete God's vision for creation, it will certainly end in victory." If we are trying to build God's kingdom on our own, it will certainly end in disappointment. If the church is guided and empowered by the Spirit of Christ, God's purposes cannot be thwarted. It has and will take a very long time, in part because the church has often been unfaithful to its calling. Why doesn't Christ just do it without us? Perhaps, in part, because a purpose of building the Kingdom of God on earth is to give us the opportunity to mature into the image of Christ as we take on the responsibility of kingdom-building. I think this is the sacrificial cross Christ has called us to take up.

Isaiah says that on this branch of Jesse will rest the spirit of God -- the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of God. Are there ways we can cultivate an attentiveness to that spirit, stay still long enough to let it rest on us for a moment?

In reflecting on the various pieces of this text and on the numerous commentaries I've read, what has most struck me has been vulnerability.

The Meditation in our bulletin this Sunday was:

"The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness." - Pope Francis

This is from Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation entitled Evangelii Gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel") -- paragraph 88, specifically; part of the section entitled "Yes to the new relationships brought by Christ."

I think he is overly dismissive of relationships mediated by the Internet/electronics, but I do appreciate his emphasis on social gospel and on being in full relationship with people, with all the messiness and challenge that entails.

He writes (emphasis mine):

88. The Christian ideal will always be a summons to overcome suspicion, habitual mistrust, fear of losing our privacy, all the defensive attitudes which today's world imposes on us. Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel. For just as some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without the cross, they also want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.

The Isaian prophecy about the wolf and the lamb etc. is about all of Creation living together in harmony, none hurting or destroying any. While we can't rewire carnivore biology, we can build relationships with those around us. We can reach out to those we have hurt, those we fear we might hurt or disappoint, those we fear might hurt or disappoint us, and even sometimes those who have hurt us (caveat: sometimes in this fallen world it's not safe to do so -- just as we likely wouldn't bring a bear onto our cattle farm, sometimes we need to maintain a safe distance from people who are toxic to us).

Are there ways we can move out of our comfort zone, to be in fuller relationship with those around us, to bind up what is broken and build the world of God's longing?

Commenting on the Isaiah text, Melissa Bane Sevier writes:

All sides must have permission to hope. The weak need to be able to hope they will not be consumed by the powerful. The strong—and perhaps this is the more difficult type of hope—the strong need to be able to hope they do not need to consume another in order to prosper.

Isaiah told his people that they needed to give themselves permission to dream of peace, permission to hope for a better time.

It's easy to talk about this text as it relates to the weak, but many of us are in the position of the "strong" -- reluctant to give up our power, our wealth. What do we fear God might ask us to give up if we really said, "God, your will not mine be done"? What predatory urges, what grasping for security, is God asking us to let go of so that others can dwell amongst us?

One of the lines from this Isaiah text which most obviously connects it to the Nativity story is, "And a little child shall lead them."

Patheos blogger Sarah Over the Moon wrote:

White supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy (as bell hooks calls it) wants us to worship a cisgender, adult man who reflects the "right" class and who holds institutional power. It wants us to worship this image so that when we encounter cisgender, adult men from the "right" class who hold institutional power in the world, we will be less likely to question their right to rule.

The image of God as a baby born to a poor family, from the "wrong" part of town, can challenge that.

[...]

I believe in a God who is in solidarity with the oppressed, and I believe that God With Us is first and foremost God With The Oppressed. And the embodiment of God according to the Christian narrative begins in a baby.

"Take care that you do not despise these little ones..."

Many of us have grown up with strong theologies of Jesus as Lord -- Jesus who, triumphant over death, sits at the right hand of the Father and will return with a flaming sword to judge and destroy. But Jesus consistently rejected traditional earthly forms of power. To insist that Jesus operate according to our models of how power works, I would argue, in fact rejects Jesus' sovereignty -- saying we know better how to be God, how to be Savior.

As Sarah suggests, Jesus reminds us that institutional power. Chapter 2 of Matthew's Gospel has the Magi coming to King Herod in Jerusalem -- a seat of institutional power -- and Herod's response to this birth of a ruler who is to fulfill Micah 5:2 is to slaughter all the infants in and around Bethlehem. In case the import of this genocide fails to touch us, Matthew echoes the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more" (Jeremiah 31:15). We don't even need to get to the persecution of the grown-up Jesus for it to be clear that institutional power and God rarely sit comfortably together.

In her sermon on Sunday, Molly commented on the image of all the animals living together in vegetarian bliss -- that one of the oddities of the text is that it seems to suggest there was something wrong with how some of the animals were created in the first place. I suggested in my email that perhaps this hyperbolic scene isn't meant literally but is meant to suggest just how radically God will be transforming the entirety of Creation.

What vicious cycles do we need to break (and/or, what virtuous cycles do we need to start) to make space for God's transforming peace in our lives? Are there habits that seem as deeply-ingrained in us as a lion's appetite for meat?

Rachel C. Lewis has a piece on ThoughtCatalog called "Tell The People You Love That You Love Them" in which she writes:

I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love saying, "Kiss me harder," and "You're a good person," and, "You brighten my day." I live my life as straight-forward as possible.

Because one day, I might get hit by a bus.

[...]

Maybe it's weird. Maybe it's scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands.

But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate.

And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.

We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.

We never know when the bus is coming.

I think this kind of radical honesty heartens God -- we have a finite time on this earth (at least on this side of the Veil) and God wants us to live fully with all we have been given.

And I think it's not too bold to say that by being honest about our wants and needs, and being attentive and responsive to those of others, we can help build peace on earth.

I mostly think of "root" and "branch" when I think of this Isaiah passage, forgetting about the fact that it opens with "stump." Whatever we think is dead in our life, unable to bear fruit any longer -- God can grow something new. Whatever mistakes we have made, whatever we have done or failed to do, none of it is too big for God to repair. God calls us to be co-creators in this work, but we don't have to (in fact, cannot) do it alone.

What about you, Beloved?

What did this reading from Isaiah bring up for you? Does it call you into new cycles? Do you think I've overreached in my arguments about what this text might be saying? Have I not dug into pieces you would be more interested in, like what this six-fold spirit of God means or how a vegetarian diet might help build this Isaian vision?

You're invited to continue the conversation in the comments -- responding to any of the questions I've asked throughout this blogpost or raising questions of your own, or simply sharing some thoughts. (As always, you're welcome to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.)