I’m considering this holiday season to be a success. It’s Christmas Eve and I haven’t watched, or felt any pressure to watch, any Hallmark holiday movies; or anything similar. You know exactly what I’m talking about – those sappy Christmas spirit movies where there is some righteous cause that is in a crisis and in solving that crisis the main characters – a man and a woman, somehow both innocently but tragically single, fall in love and live happily ever after. It is always a triumph of good values and right priorities. As a result of those good values and right priorities they discover the truth and peace and love of the holidays. And of course the man and woman are played by actors who have perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect bodies, and stylish wardrobes.
All is calm. All is bright. Sleep in heavenly peace.
Bleh!
If that’s the way your Christmas is going, or if you have ever had a Christmas go that way… well, you have my congratulations. You’re a better person than me!
Almost certainly you are experiencing some version of stress right now. You’ve been cooking and cleaning and shopping and decorating for weeks. Not everything has gone smoothly and not everything has gotten done. Maybe in getting to this worship service everything went perfectly smoothly. Or more likely something went wrong: Someone was late or not ready. The thing you were going to wear got a mess on in just as you were about to leave. Someone grumbled who you had to force to come – or maybe you are one who felt forced to come. You figure the pastor better say something worth listening to or this whole affair is a complete waste of time.
Tensions are high. Tempers are short.
And while family Christmas traditions vary a lot, you probably have some version of these things going on too. There is all sorts of food to cook. Will it all be done well and at the right time? Christmas dinner will not be a calm peaceful time with everyone eager and ready and perfectly sitting down with quiet reverent joy in their hearts. At the Christmas dinner table you’ll have Uncle Fred spouting his conservative political views. And you’ll have Uncle George arguing from his liberal political views. Kids will be noisy and spill things. You’ll have Aunt Bertha show up with that horrible casserole that she makes each and every year. It’s disgusting but she wants everyone to praise her for how wonderful it is. When it is passed to you at the dinner table you stare down at the pan and you are making a careful quick calculation in your mind. You figure you have to take enough to show that you like it, but you don’t want to take too much because you know you’re going to have to choke it down while keeping a smile on your face.
Grown-ups will politely unwrap presents. Some of the stuff you get will be perfect, but some may not be what you want or you can use. You’ll put a brave face on. Someone may give you something quite expensive and suddenly the gift you’ve bought for them seems shamefully inadequate.
Kids will unwrap presents. They’ll probably be less polite about it than the grown-ups. It’ll all happen way too fast. Maybe the kids will be happy. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll get into fights.
The place will be a mess. There will be piles of dishes. There’s still tons of work to do. Not everyone is having fun. You’ll end the day feeling tired, broke, and unfulfilled.
Take that Hallmark! That’s the best we normal people can do.
Okay, I’m exaggerating. I hope your Christmas isn’t that bad. But I think you get the point. Silent night, holy night… not happening.
Or perhaps the opposite is true. If this is your first Christmas after the death of a loved one, or after a divorce, or if you’re filled with anxiety about work or something in your family, or if you’re depressed, or if you’re lonely… and all the world seems happy and bright, what are you to do? You may find yourself in a room full of happy people but you just want to cry inside. Nevertheless, you put on a happy face because you’re expected to. Or perhaps you find yourself all alone because for one reason or another you can’t travel to family, or family can’t travel to you. Maybe you didn’t get invited to anything. This is a dark and depressing season for many people. Suicide rates go up during the holiday season.
Here's good news. Hallmark’s got Christmas wrong. Way wrong!
Let’s look at the actual Christmas story. Joseph and Mary are on the move because of a census ordered by powerful people living far away. Mary is several months pregnant but she has to travel some 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem on dirty rough trails and roads. It is several day’s journey.
When they arrive there is no room for them. Biblical scholars point out that almost all Bible translations and cultures get the Christmas story wrong. The gospel does not actually say there was no room for them in the inn. It literally says there was no room for them in the guest room. Bethlehem was too small to have a commercial lodging establishment. Think about it for a minute. This census is requiring all sorts of people to travel. Joseph, along with his entire extended family is traveling back to their home in Bethlehem. The house is crowded. It is packed with people.
Peasant homes were often two stories. People lived on the upper floor. Animals were housed in the lower floor. And so when Joseph shows up with a woman ready to give birth, and then she goes into labor, what do they do? The guest room is already full. They send her downstairs with the animals.
And then there’s the birth itself. Joseph Mohr wrote the hymn Silent Night in the early 1800s. Apparently Joseph Mohr was never around when a woman gave birth. There is no silent night!
Pain, probably yelling, mess, confusion, blood, gore. All is not calm. All is not bright. All is not silent. This is a mess!
I’d like Hallmark to make a real Christmas story sometime. They won’t because people won’t like it and they won’t watch it.
But that is actually getting to the truth of Christmas!
Do not try to have everything perfect at Christmas. Do not think that if you plan far enough ahead and organize properly that you might, you just might, get it all right enough to have a sweet gentle fulfilling experience this season. …that you might actually accomplish the real meaning of Christmas.
The Bible doesn’t ask that. God doesn’t expect it.
Here’s the truth. Jesus was born into a mess. That’s all there is to it. Tired, haggard parents; an animal stable; noise, pain, confusion, fear, instability… the list could go on and on.
We humans did not roll out the red carpet for the arrival of our Savior. God came into the messiness of regular human life. And with no fanfare or dramatic pause, God revealed a new world order.
There is hope for the hopeless. There is value for the rejected. There is justice for the suffering. There is healing for the shamed. There is hope for the vast majority of people who have messed up this Christmas and who do not have their lives perfectly together.
Later in the service we will read the opening lines of John’s gospel by candlelight. You know the words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it…. And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”
“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…” Are you a “being”? Are you here? Yes you are. You have come into being through Jesus. He knows you. He cares about you. He has saved you so that you can live a life of wholeness. That’s true even if you don’t have: perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect body, and a stylish wardrobe.
God doesn’t care one bit how your holiday plans are coming together. God doesn’t care if tomorrow is a wonderful perfect day for you, or if tomorrow is a day of chaos and pain and heartache and anger and dashed hopes and everything else. Jesus was not born into a Hallmark movie. Jesus was born into a noisy gory mess. In other words, Jesus was born into reality.
I made fun of Silent Night a few minutes ago. I probably ought to redeem it before I wrap up here. Silent Night written in haste in a bit of a crisis on Christmas Eve 1818. The organ at St. Nikolaus Church in Obendorf, Germany was suddenly not playable. Assistant pastor Joseph Mohr and organist Franz Gruber hastily threw the song together in the afternoon for the choir to sing that evening accompanied by guitar.
I roll my eyes at the first two verses of Silent Night. It’s sweet but it isn’t real. But those first two verses have a purpose. They set up the last verse. The third verse is where the truth and the power is to be found. We’ll sing its truth soon.
God does bring about a new world order. It is a world order of redeeming grace. It is a world order of peace, humility, honesty, and radical love.
Whether you feel it or not, whether your holiday looks more like a Hallmark movie or more like a horror film, God has made your being and God has come to be with you.
If that gives your heart a sense of peace and wellbeing for this Christmas season, that’s great. Maybe I’ve said something worth listening to. And if it doesn’t, that does not mean that you are lacking or that you have done anything wrong at all. You are still in God’s grace forever.
That’s the message of Christmas. Wholeness, fullness, wellbeing, and even joy are God’s promises and God’s gifts to you always.
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Monday, December 11, 2023
December 10, 2023 - Hope in God - Isaiah 40:1-11
You’ve certainly heard the phrase, “They don’t make things like they used to.” It’s usually a lament that the quality of items has deteriorated over time. Old things were thought to be of better and more durable quality. Older people often nod their heads at that. But the saying can also go the other way around. When I was a high school student I attended a farm machinery auction where there was something I wanted to buy. It was very old and wasn’t in working condition. I was hesitant in my bidding as the price was nearly at the maximum I was willing to spend. The auctioneer’s assistant leaned over to me and said, “You know, they don’t make things like they used to.” To which I replied loudly, “Yeah, I know. That’s why I don’t want to spend much on it!”
Indeed, we forget that many things – most things in fact – have improved in quality tremendously over the years. Cars are far more dependable, safer, and last a lot longer. Houses are far more efficient. Computers are faster and cheaper. And on and on goes the list.
But some things are timeless. Some things have value forever. We see that in our reading from Isaiah 40. The prophet declares, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Isaiah is a very complex book. It is easiest to say that the first 39 chapters of the book come to us from the 8th century B.C.E. and the prophetic activities of the historical prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem. Then the second portion of the book – chapters 40-55 comes from the 6th century B.C.E. when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon. Then the third portion of the book comes to us from late in the 6th century or early in the 5th century B.C.E., which is when the people returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt it.
That overall schema works okay, but Isaiah is actually far more complex. And even though it was written over a period of centuries, biblical scholars note that the form it has today has been very carefully assembled and edited to have an almost timeless quality.
If we move to the time of the writing of the gospels in the 1st century we see the words of Isaiah speaking timelessly to that day. In Mark 1, which we read, Mark is very authentically using Isaiah 40 to refer to John the Baptist and anticipate the arrival of Jesus. John’s gospel does the same.
Isaiah is written so as to be timeless. This fits with what its creation is intended to do, which is to build your faith in the timeless and enduring faithfulness of God.
We read from Isaiah, “A voice says, “Cry out!” The prophet replies, “What shall I cry? All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.”
Indeed, what word can be spoken that will have lasting effect? Will it not go out of date in time? Or perhaps, do they not make things like they used to? Will the quality of the future somehow be weaker?
There is a reply. (And if I may add a couple words.) “[Yes, indeed,] the grass withers and the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (40:6-8)
There is the timelessness the book of Isaiah is designed to create.
Fads and styles will come and go. Quality will come and go. Everything will fade, break, die, or decay. But… the word of our God will stand forever.
If this chapter from Isaiah does indeed come to us from late in the 6th century B.C.E. then let’s remind ourselves of the situation of the Jewish people. Jerusalem had been captured and destroyed decades before – maybe 50 or 60 years before. The leaders and many people were taken from Jerusalem and living in exile hundreds of miles away in Babylon. Hardly anyone alive anymore can remember what Jerusalem was like. A couple generations have gone by. Was the Jewish faith just going to slowly erode away until they became assimilated into Babylonian culture and religion? If God was real, and God’s promises were real, then when was God going to act? Again, it’s been a couple generations of waiting and getting nothing.
In that context we hear as if from God’s divine court, “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid…”
So God does see. God does know. And God does care. God is still with them. They can trust in God even though there is no physical evidence to justify that trust.
In time things do change. The once mighty and seemingly eternal Babylonian Empire collapsed quicker than anyone would have thought. The Persians came in. King Cyrus of Persia allows the Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. Time would prove that God was trustworthy.
I think we may be in a similar situation in our faith today, although in some ways the situation is opposite. While the Jewish people had their nation conquered, their capitol city destroyed and their temple reduced to rubble; and then many of them were taken off into exile, we have perhaps experienced the reverse. The United States has remained strong in power. While there have been terrorist attacks and some trivial invasions, the nation has not been threatened or destroyed. No one is tearing down churches. No one is hauling off Christians into exile. There is peace, prosperity, security, comfort and ease. And before you disagree with me on any of that, yes, I know life always takes work and there are plenty of things to worry about. But we no longer walk from place to place or ride horses as our major means of transportation. Roads are paved. Sidewalks are smooth. Cars are dependable. We have indoor plumbing, internet, cell phones, and entertainment galore – all luxuries almost unimaginable not that many decades ago.
Yet our faith faces a different threat. Perhaps it is the ease of everything that is undermining it. Churches close in this nation at an unheard of rate. All religious forms are declining, not just Christianity. The entire social fabric of the nation is coming apart. People call themselves “spiritual but not religious”, for in their affluence they create a god in their own image, and they create a morality that suits their lifestyle rather than become a part of a religious organization that will present serious challenges to their self-made gods.
Last week I gave blood at Victor United Methodist Church. Usually the Red Cross staff has music playing, and they select whatever they want. To my surprise they didn’t have someone’s playlist. They had actually tuned to a radio station. And to my even greater surprise it was a secular station that was playing all Christian Christmas music. At least that was the case at first. It later changed to all secular holiday music. Still though, I realized how completely whole it felt to have Christian music for a Christian holiday. And when the music changed I felt how utterly disjointed it was to have a religious holiday being celebrated with the religion removed.
I don’t say this to be critical. All of that has been said many times and for many years. It is what it is, but it does speak of a faith that for all intents and purposes is dying or dead. What do we do when multiple generations see no value in Christianity?
All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower fades…
But the word of our God will stand forever.
How long? When? What will it take? I do not know.
From a place in history, and yet with a message for all of time, Isaiah says, “’Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.” (40:10-11)
Our instructions are the same as the Israelites in Babylon. Stay true to your faith. Trust in God. Do not become watered down by the easy simplicity promised by just going with the flow of society. God sees. God knows. God cares. God is acting.
Fortunately for us we can see into the entire world. And we can see that our faith is growing overall and flourishing in many lands.
The past, the present, and the future are in God’s hands. Isaiah saw that. May we see it too. And may we faithfully prepare the way of the Lord. For many live in a desert. Many live in darkness. Many who are spiritual but not religious are actually very lost. It is not our work to fix things. Fixing things is God’s work. Our work is to faithfully prepare the way of the Lord.
Indeed, we forget that many things – most things in fact – have improved in quality tremendously over the years. Cars are far more dependable, safer, and last a lot longer. Houses are far more efficient. Computers are faster and cheaper. And on and on goes the list.
But some things are timeless. Some things have value forever. We see that in our reading from Isaiah 40. The prophet declares, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Isaiah is a very complex book. It is easiest to say that the first 39 chapters of the book come to us from the 8th century B.C.E. and the prophetic activities of the historical prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem. Then the second portion of the book – chapters 40-55 comes from the 6th century B.C.E. when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon. Then the third portion of the book comes to us from late in the 6th century or early in the 5th century B.C.E., which is when the people returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt it.
That overall schema works okay, but Isaiah is actually far more complex. And even though it was written over a period of centuries, biblical scholars note that the form it has today has been very carefully assembled and edited to have an almost timeless quality.
If we move to the time of the writing of the gospels in the 1st century we see the words of Isaiah speaking timelessly to that day. In Mark 1, which we read, Mark is very authentically using Isaiah 40 to refer to John the Baptist and anticipate the arrival of Jesus. John’s gospel does the same.
Isaiah is written so as to be timeless. This fits with what its creation is intended to do, which is to build your faith in the timeless and enduring faithfulness of God.
We read from Isaiah, “A voice says, “Cry out!” The prophet replies, “What shall I cry? All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.”
Indeed, what word can be spoken that will have lasting effect? Will it not go out of date in time? Or perhaps, do they not make things like they used to? Will the quality of the future somehow be weaker?
There is a reply. (And if I may add a couple words.) “[Yes, indeed,] the grass withers and the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (40:6-8)
There is the timelessness the book of Isaiah is designed to create.
Fads and styles will come and go. Quality will come and go. Everything will fade, break, die, or decay. But… the word of our God will stand forever.
If this chapter from Isaiah does indeed come to us from late in the 6th century B.C.E. then let’s remind ourselves of the situation of the Jewish people. Jerusalem had been captured and destroyed decades before – maybe 50 or 60 years before. The leaders and many people were taken from Jerusalem and living in exile hundreds of miles away in Babylon. Hardly anyone alive anymore can remember what Jerusalem was like. A couple generations have gone by. Was the Jewish faith just going to slowly erode away until they became assimilated into Babylonian culture and religion? If God was real, and God’s promises were real, then when was God going to act? Again, it’s been a couple generations of waiting and getting nothing.
In that context we hear as if from God’s divine court, “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid…”
So God does see. God does know. And God does care. God is still with them. They can trust in God even though there is no physical evidence to justify that trust.
In time things do change. The once mighty and seemingly eternal Babylonian Empire collapsed quicker than anyone would have thought. The Persians came in. King Cyrus of Persia allows the Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. Time would prove that God was trustworthy.
I think we may be in a similar situation in our faith today, although in some ways the situation is opposite. While the Jewish people had their nation conquered, their capitol city destroyed and their temple reduced to rubble; and then many of them were taken off into exile, we have perhaps experienced the reverse. The United States has remained strong in power. While there have been terrorist attacks and some trivial invasions, the nation has not been threatened or destroyed. No one is tearing down churches. No one is hauling off Christians into exile. There is peace, prosperity, security, comfort and ease. And before you disagree with me on any of that, yes, I know life always takes work and there are plenty of things to worry about. But we no longer walk from place to place or ride horses as our major means of transportation. Roads are paved. Sidewalks are smooth. Cars are dependable. We have indoor plumbing, internet, cell phones, and entertainment galore – all luxuries almost unimaginable not that many decades ago.
Yet our faith faces a different threat. Perhaps it is the ease of everything that is undermining it. Churches close in this nation at an unheard of rate. All religious forms are declining, not just Christianity. The entire social fabric of the nation is coming apart. People call themselves “spiritual but not religious”, for in their affluence they create a god in their own image, and they create a morality that suits their lifestyle rather than become a part of a religious organization that will present serious challenges to their self-made gods.
Last week I gave blood at Victor United Methodist Church. Usually the Red Cross staff has music playing, and they select whatever they want. To my surprise they didn’t have someone’s playlist. They had actually tuned to a radio station. And to my even greater surprise it was a secular station that was playing all Christian Christmas music. At least that was the case at first. It later changed to all secular holiday music. Still though, I realized how completely whole it felt to have Christian music for a Christian holiday. And when the music changed I felt how utterly disjointed it was to have a religious holiday being celebrated with the religion removed.
I don’t say this to be critical. All of that has been said many times and for many years. It is what it is, but it does speak of a faith that for all intents and purposes is dying or dead. What do we do when multiple generations see no value in Christianity?
All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower fades…
But the word of our God will stand forever.
How long? When? What will it take? I do not know.
From a place in history, and yet with a message for all of time, Isaiah says, “’Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.” (40:10-11)
Our instructions are the same as the Israelites in Babylon. Stay true to your faith. Trust in God. Do not become watered down by the easy simplicity promised by just going with the flow of society. God sees. God knows. God cares. God is acting.
Fortunately for us we can see into the entire world. And we can see that our faith is growing overall and flourishing in many lands.
The past, the present, and the future are in God’s hands. Isaiah saw that. May we see it too. And may we faithfully prepare the way of the Lord. For many live in a desert. Many live in darkness. Many who are spiritual but not religious are actually very lost. It is not our work to fix things. Fixing things is God’s work. Our work is to faithfully prepare the way of the Lord.
Monday, December 4, 2023
December 3, 2023 Defiant Hope and Peace Isaiah 11:1-10
The book of Isaiah is a composite work, the writings of two or more people. It covers two distinct time periods. The part of Isaiah that we read today probably comes from the 8th century B.C.E. It is a dark and fearful time. The Assyrian Empire is threatening to, or already has, conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel. Most of the tribes are lost or scattered. The future looks scary. Isaiah is writing from Jerusalem and the remaining tribe of Judah. It seems only a matter of time before the Assyrians stretch their reach a little bit farther south and take over Judah as well. There is no way Judah can muster the military might necessary to defend itself. Egypt might be talked into giving them some defense, but that can’t be counted upon.
Where is God in the midst of all this loss and destruction? What will God do? Will God protect them?
In the midst of those questions about the very existence of the nation Isaiah speaks a quiet word of defiant hope. The verses that we read from Isaiah 11 are among the best known verses in the Bible. They speak of a deep and persistent human hope for justice and peace. This is a Jewish text originally but Christians have used it to point to Jesus. Jesus, the new and ultimate king of Israel who would establish peace on earth.
Indeed a look towards the ministry of Jesus and we see someone in the line of David who spoke peace and brought wholeness.
I doubt, however, that Isaiah actually had Jesus in mind when he spoke these words of hope. He meant them fully for the people of his own time. They were to continue to trust God and to live faithfully. Their identity was not defined by the threat of an invading empire. Their identity was as the people whom God had chosen to be examples to the world. They needed to stay true to that. God indeed did see them. God would stay true to the promises. And God would bring them peace.
The peace that God would bring would not be just an absence of warfare with a more powerful adversary who nevertheless remained threatening. This was to be a deep and lasting peace even with the forces of nature. A child could play over the hole of a viper’s nest and be safe. Livestock would not be threatened by wolves or lions. Good honest farming and ranching would be predictable and secure. And God would raise a righteous ruler who would reign according to God’s promises of true justice.
It is an idyllic image. The front cover of the bulletin has the painting The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. It’s based on Isaiah 11. In the foreground is a bunch of wild and domestic animals all together in tranquility. Young children are among them. In the background is William Penn Jr., a Quaker and founder of the colony of Pennsylvania, peacefully making a land agreement with the Lenni Lenape Indians.
Would that the world would work that way! It is a dream to be sure. And Isaiah creates this vision defiantly in the midst of fear and uncertainty.
This Bible passage was on my mind last Thursday when I was asked to pick up someone from the Rochester airport. I was to pick up Jamil Zoughbi, who was flying in from the Wartburg Lutheran Seminary in Iowa. Jamil is studying to be a pastor at Wartburg but his approval process is being overseen by the Upstate New York Synod. I was to take him from the airport to the Notre Dame Retreat Center in Canandaigua. I was looking forward to meeting Jamil because I knew he is a Palestinian Lutheran who owns a house in Jerusalem. He came to the United States just a few weeks before the Hamas attacks on Israel. I wanted to get his feelings on what was going on over there.
I was not at all surprise when the first thing he said was, “Believe nothing that you hear on the news.” He said that all of the American news sources were wrong, with one exception. He’d heard some things on the program Democracy Now that were reasonably correct. I asked him to elaborate and he said that while it was certainly true that Hamas attacked Israel (and that he condemned that), and that Israel was launching a major attack on the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas, they were completely overlooking the real truths of what happens regularly and behind the scenes.
He said that they are overlooking the way that his family, as Lutherans living in Jerusalem are constantly needled and threatened by the Israeli government. He said that aid shipments come from time to time, even to his neighborhood. But the Israeli government gives it only to the Jewish families. And that when there are treats of missile or air attacks there are bomb shelters in the area. But they are only for Jewish people. Everyone else, including Lutheran families like his, are not welcome.
None of this surprised me. It shouldn’t surprise you. I’ve heard this stuff for decades and shared it with you. But of course we hear it as church insiders. For any number of reasons our news services ignore this stuff.
But Jamil did say stuff that surprised me. He said that his family, and the other non-Jewish families in his area, for the most part peaceably get along with their Jewish neighbors. The conflicts and taunting exist at the national level. At the level of individuals and neighborhoods the situation may be quite different.
Now don’t get me wrong. I did not say that at a personal level all Jews and Palestinians get along. That’s not at all the case! But in Jamil’s case, and probably many others, that is the case.
There is a defiance in that. His family and his neighbors are examples of people who are not letting their personal interactions be defined by what the nation says they are to be. They will live together. They will work together. They will look out for each other. They will build a constructive community for themselves together.
Jamil gave me this, a container made of olive wood with olive oil in it that was dedicated at Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.
Once again, something that does not seem to be being reported in mainstream media is that Christmas Lutheran Church and most all churches in Bethlehem have cancelled Christmas this year. It isn’t the first time they’ve done it.
Israel has built a wall that separates Bethlehem, which is a Palestinian community with many of them being Christians, from other areas. It has been joked that if Jesus was born in Bethlehem today the shepherds would not have been able to get to see him. There is now a big wall in the way!
But a bit of anointing oil makes the journey and conveys the truth in defiance of walls and policies and hostage taking and warfare.
It sometimes seems that there is forever fighting in the Holy Land. Not true. There has been recently, but if you are more than a couple decades old you remember times of peace, and permanent peace deals coming ever so close.
Jamil’s neighborhood lives in a quiet defiant hope for that peace.
The prophet Isaiah’s words were words of hope to people over 2700 years ago. He calls for patience, truth, and trust in the midst of darkness. God sees. God knows. God cares. God is acting.
Today Jamil’s neighborhood is also acting in patience, truth, and trust.
Our own land enjoys much more peace and stability. That is a blessing! Yet there is plenty of strife and violence too. Perhaps it seems like the tides and trends of the world are as big and powerful as the Assyrian Empire seemed to Isaiah and the people of his time. We, like them, know that God sees, and knows, and cares, and is acting. And so we live in defiance of all that tears down and breaks. Perhaps we do not do so in protests or rallies or anything that draws attention. But we do so in simplicity and quietness; witnessing to the hope of God that is always at work.
We pray for peace in the Holy Land. We lament that Christians in Bethlehem feel it is too dangerous to celebrate Christmas and so they are closing their churches. And we live in confidence and hope of God’s actions. We do not listen to the divisions and distinctions that powerful people try to create among us. We see in each other God’s good work, and honor it with lives of love.
Where is God in the midst of all this loss and destruction? What will God do? Will God protect them?
In the midst of those questions about the very existence of the nation Isaiah speaks a quiet word of defiant hope. The verses that we read from Isaiah 11 are among the best known verses in the Bible. They speak of a deep and persistent human hope for justice and peace. This is a Jewish text originally but Christians have used it to point to Jesus. Jesus, the new and ultimate king of Israel who would establish peace on earth.
Indeed a look towards the ministry of Jesus and we see someone in the line of David who spoke peace and brought wholeness.
I doubt, however, that Isaiah actually had Jesus in mind when he spoke these words of hope. He meant them fully for the people of his own time. They were to continue to trust God and to live faithfully. Their identity was not defined by the threat of an invading empire. Their identity was as the people whom God had chosen to be examples to the world. They needed to stay true to that. God indeed did see them. God would stay true to the promises. And God would bring them peace.
The peace that God would bring would not be just an absence of warfare with a more powerful adversary who nevertheless remained threatening. This was to be a deep and lasting peace even with the forces of nature. A child could play over the hole of a viper’s nest and be safe. Livestock would not be threatened by wolves or lions. Good honest farming and ranching would be predictable and secure. And God would raise a righteous ruler who would reign according to God’s promises of true justice.
It is an idyllic image. The front cover of the bulletin has the painting The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. It’s based on Isaiah 11. In the foreground is a bunch of wild and domestic animals all together in tranquility. Young children are among them. In the background is William Penn Jr., a Quaker and founder of the colony of Pennsylvania, peacefully making a land agreement with the Lenni Lenape Indians.
Would that the world would work that way! It is a dream to be sure. And Isaiah creates this vision defiantly in the midst of fear and uncertainty.
This Bible passage was on my mind last Thursday when I was asked to pick up someone from the Rochester airport. I was to pick up Jamil Zoughbi, who was flying in from the Wartburg Lutheran Seminary in Iowa. Jamil is studying to be a pastor at Wartburg but his approval process is being overseen by the Upstate New York Synod. I was to take him from the airport to the Notre Dame Retreat Center in Canandaigua. I was looking forward to meeting Jamil because I knew he is a Palestinian Lutheran who owns a house in Jerusalem. He came to the United States just a few weeks before the Hamas attacks on Israel. I wanted to get his feelings on what was going on over there.
I was not at all surprise when the first thing he said was, “Believe nothing that you hear on the news.” He said that all of the American news sources were wrong, with one exception. He’d heard some things on the program Democracy Now that were reasonably correct. I asked him to elaborate and he said that while it was certainly true that Hamas attacked Israel (and that he condemned that), and that Israel was launching a major attack on the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas, they were completely overlooking the real truths of what happens regularly and behind the scenes.
He said that they are overlooking the way that his family, as Lutherans living in Jerusalem are constantly needled and threatened by the Israeli government. He said that aid shipments come from time to time, even to his neighborhood. But the Israeli government gives it only to the Jewish families. And that when there are treats of missile or air attacks there are bomb shelters in the area. But they are only for Jewish people. Everyone else, including Lutheran families like his, are not welcome.
None of this surprised me. It shouldn’t surprise you. I’ve heard this stuff for decades and shared it with you. But of course we hear it as church insiders. For any number of reasons our news services ignore this stuff.
But Jamil did say stuff that surprised me. He said that his family, and the other non-Jewish families in his area, for the most part peaceably get along with their Jewish neighbors. The conflicts and taunting exist at the national level. At the level of individuals and neighborhoods the situation may be quite different.
Now don’t get me wrong. I did not say that at a personal level all Jews and Palestinians get along. That’s not at all the case! But in Jamil’s case, and probably many others, that is the case.
There is a defiance in that. His family and his neighbors are examples of people who are not letting their personal interactions be defined by what the nation says they are to be. They will live together. They will work together. They will look out for each other. They will build a constructive community for themselves together.
Jamil gave me this, a container made of olive wood with olive oil in it that was dedicated at Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.
Once again, something that does not seem to be being reported in mainstream media is that Christmas Lutheran Church and most all churches in Bethlehem have cancelled Christmas this year. It isn’t the first time they’ve done it.
Israel has built a wall that separates Bethlehem, which is a Palestinian community with many of them being Christians, from other areas. It has been joked that if Jesus was born in Bethlehem today the shepherds would not have been able to get to see him. There is now a big wall in the way!
But a bit of anointing oil makes the journey and conveys the truth in defiance of walls and policies and hostage taking and warfare.
It sometimes seems that there is forever fighting in the Holy Land. Not true. There has been recently, but if you are more than a couple decades old you remember times of peace, and permanent peace deals coming ever so close.
Jamil’s neighborhood lives in a quiet defiant hope for that peace.
The prophet Isaiah’s words were words of hope to people over 2700 years ago. He calls for patience, truth, and trust in the midst of darkness. God sees. God knows. God cares. God is acting.
Today Jamil’s neighborhood is also acting in patience, truth, and trust.
Our own land enjoys much more peace and stability. That is a blessing! Yet there is plenty of strife and violence too. Perhaps it seems like the tides and trends of the world are as big and powerful as the Assyrian Empire seemed to Isaiah and the people of his time. We, like them, know that God sees, and knows, and cares, and is acting. And so we live in defiance of all that tears down and breaks. Perhaps we do not do so in protests or rallies or anything that draws attention. But we do so in simplicity and quietness; witnessing to the hope of God that is always at work.
We pray for peace in the Holy Land. We lament that Christians in Bethlehem feel it is too dangerous to celebrate Christmas and so they are closing their churches. And we live in confidence and hope of God’s actions. We do not listen to the divisions and distinctions that powerful people try to create among us. We see in each other God’s good work, and honor it with lives of love.
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