October 05, 8:30am (Sare Gordy)
God expects Justice, but not the kind of justice that requires death. God expects righteousness, but not the kind of fervor that creates oppression. God’s love is open to anyone, God is always the one to reach out first, willing to invest in anyone who is open.
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SERMONS AT TRINITY
The Rev. Sarah Gordy
“The Wisdom of Isaiah”
October 5, 2008
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Our reading from Isaiah this morning starts out with lyric beauty. “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:…” And okay, perhaps if we’re not from the Finger Lakes Wine Region it’s not second nature for us to wax lyric about a field of grapes, but we can certainly use our imagination. But of course, the prophet Isaiah is really talking about the state of affairs of the people of Israel, according to God. And while later on in the extensive book of Isaiah the prophet and his school lighten up a bit and prophesy about what good things will happen when the people of God change their ways, we’re not there yet. This is early times, yet, and Isaiah is still trying to get across the fact that God’s Chosen Nation has been asleep at the wheel, and that this is not a good thing.
Asleep at the wheel. That’s a metaphor, and by and large, we love metaphors – have you noticed? They pepper our speech. Unless you happen to be writing a technical paper, or something exceedingly formal, they are difficult to escape. But that is how we are, now, in the 21st Century usage of standard American English. In the ancient Mediterranean they loved story. They had no need for the brevity of short soundbytes. It would be okay if the story took a while to tell, because they had the time, and because they had the time, and because theirs were oral cultures, they already had a pretty large archive of stories in their collective memories, and so to reference an element that might to us seem an obscure reference at best, would be to them something clear and obvious.
Clear and obvious – just like to us the phrase ‘asleep at the wheel’ implies a visceral knowledge of what happens when the driver or pilot falls asleep at the wheel of whatever craft is in question: a car that then runs off the road and kills the occupants, a plane that crashes into the mountainside that leaves no survivors, or a supertanker that runs aground of something and creates the largest man-made environmental disaster in history. Asleep at the wheel. We know what that means.
And it’s worth mentioning, too, that in the ancient Mediterranean, lacking any other plausible explanation for weather patterns, social patterns, political patterns, times of feast and famine and all of the complexity of this created world, they attributed it all to the whims of a rather temperamental God. And really, there are still some who treat their religion this way, regardless of the fact that to most of humanity it lacks implausibility and integrity for life as it is experienced. But lest we throw out the baby with the bathwater, there is more in this story that Isaiah tells than just pretty wine country and the threat of God engaging in violent retribution. There is the reason that God has turned angry, a reason why the prophet promises violence, and that comes just at the very end. It is the wisdom that shines through the ages even to today. It is this:
“For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
righteousness, but heard a cry!”
And there we have it. The wisdom of the prophet Isaiah: God expects Justice. God takes no pleasure in bloodshed. God expects righteousness. It pains God to hear the cries of the troubled.
And in Matthew, we hear Jesus to even further, because he comes from this tradition of story, and he knew about this part of Isaiah. That’s why we’re reading them together today, because this part of Isaiah was the inspiration for Jesus’ parable found in Matthew. And again, we have to think about how the ancients understood the relationship of the violent, chaotic, and unknown world they lived in with the God that they worshiped, but even though our understanding of that has evolved, again, there is wisdom to be found.
Matthew’s telling of this story takes nothing away from Isaiah’s wisdom. In Matthew too, God expects Justice. God expects righteousness. But Jesus adds something more. Instead of simply ending it there, Jesus goes on to make this point:
If God does not find it with the first people – if God does not find Justice and Righteousness with the first people he loves – God will open God’s arms to include anyone, everyone who might be willing to do Justice and live Rightly. Everyone who might be willing to do Justice and live Rightly, which is everyone there is.
God’s love, Jesus says, is now open to everyone, not just the select few.
The benefits of being God’s loved ones, God’s children, God’s beloved, is now open to all comers. The peace that passes all understanding has been unlocked and is no longer hidden away.
And that is something that we can take with us. Perhaps obscure stories of frustrated wine growers aren’t something you want to take with you any more than antiquated ideas of the wrath of God, but the kernel of wisdom in today’s readings is undimmed by either of these things. And the kernel of wisdom, to paraphrase both Isaiah and Jesus, is this:
God expects Justice,
but not the kind of justice that requires death.
God expects righteousness,
but not the kind of fervor that creates oppression.
God’s love is open to anyone,
God is always the one to reach out first,
willing to invest in anyone who is open.
And that sort of eternal wisdom, does, I believe, speak for itself.
Amen.
