“If you want peace, work for justice.”
In today’s piece of scripture we read one of the great messianic prophecies from Hebrew scripture.
It begins: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.” In these words Isaiah is prophesying that the new messiah (a word which means “anointed one”) will come forth from Jesse, who was David’s father. Whenever we have the kids in Sunday school do a “Jesse Tree,” we are depicted his family tree, his lineage, his ancestry. The Jesse Tree will go from Obed to Jesse to David to Solomon, all the way to Jesus. If we look at Jesus’ family tree—of which we are now part of as his disciples—we can see that it is a pretty mixed bag of folks. Now, that is good news for us because we are all…well… rather mixed. Yes?
I asked the men to talk about the times when they felt “stumped,” burned out, broken, lost, and how God used that time, worked through that time, to bring them some new blessings. I would now ask you the same questions.
The scripture next tell us that the “spirit of the Lord” shall give this king six gifts: wisdom and understanding; counsel and might; and, a knowledge and a fear of the Lord. Look at each couplet of gifts—there is an important balance that we need to see in each. We can have great understanding, but without wisdom, we can often falter translating our “smarts” into every day life. We can have counsel, but without might, we are not apt to get things done. Might, though, without counsel will tend to make us brash, even bullies. And then knowledge of God and fear of God—the messiah king needed both, as do we all. It is not enough simply to know a lot about God, for we must also have a sense of awe and reverence before God. I then asked the guys about a moment when they felt completely overwhelmed with the presence of God and how that changed their lives.
The scripture then says that this king will not “judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” In other words, he will see and hear from his gifts beyond the surface of things to the deeper truths. I hope we have all had moments like this, when we saw or heard or felt the deeper truth of a situation, of a person. This king will then, as the scripture says, “with righteousness judge the poor, and decide equity for the meek of the earth.” The king will stick up for, advocate for, the “least of these,” that is, those who most need his protection. This king will not coddle the most powerful; no, this king will work for justice, for righteousness, starting with those who are most disadvantaged. It will not be “trickle down,” but trickle up. Now, the word “righteousness” is very often misunderstood. It is not primarily a moralistic word. It is primarily a relational word. It means being in right relationship with God, and from God to each other and with our selves. We know what it feels like when we are not right with any of the above. It feels lonely and anxious, and we are then prone to do and say and think things that don’t bring us life and love and happiness.
At verse 6, the passage goes from concerns about justice to peace. In the next three verses we see the wolf and the lamb, the calf and the lion, and the cow and the bear making peace. No more are there predators and prey. No more enmity. No more “eat or be eaten.” Now, there is peace and harmony and concord. In other words, the picture we have for us is “paradise regained,” Eden returned. I then asked the men why we indulge in being predators and they mentioned fear—fear of not having enough, fear of not measuring up, fear that if they don’t act that way they will become prey themselves. This then prompted several men to come to me after our time together wanting to talk about how their lives are defined by, even driven by, being predators and the fear that is right now taking over their lives.
There is a wonderful painting by the American Quaker, Edward Hicks, from the 19th century that depicts this scene. It is titled, “Peaceable Kingdom.” In this painting we see beasts and little children playing together, and then off to the side we see William Penn and others making a peace treaty with the Native Americans. It is a statement that is both pastoral and political.
I started these reflections by including those words from a prominent bumper sticker: “If you want peace, then work for justice.” That is exactly what we see in this piece of scripture. The messiah king is blessed by God to work for justice; when justice exists between human beings peace will then follow in and through all creation.
As I mentioned before, this passage is one of the great messianic prophecies and we as Christians believe that Jesus fulfills these words—that he has been blessed by the Spirit of God with extraordinary gifts, that he brings to us peace with God, that he calls us to follow in his footsteps to work for justice. So, how can we do that? How can we, as his anointed ones, work for justice and peace in our daily interactions? At work? At home? How can we translate these words and make them real in our own time and place?
No comments:
Post a Comment