Isaiah 35:1-10
35:1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus
35:2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.
35:3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
35:4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you."
35:5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
35:6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
35:7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
35:8 A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
35:9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.
35:10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Psalm 146:5-10
146:5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God,
146:6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
146:7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free;
146:8 the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.
146:9 The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
146:10 The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the LORD!
Luke 1:46b-55
1:46b "My soul magnifies the Lord,
1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
1:49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
1:50 His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
1:52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
1:54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
1:55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
James 5:7-10
5:7 Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
5:8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.
5:9 Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors!
5:10 As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 11:2-11
While John was in prison he heard about what the Anointed had been doing and he sent his disciples to ask, "Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?"
And so Jesus answered them, "Go report to John what you have heard and seen: The blind see again and the lame walk; lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised and the poor have the good news preached to them. Congratulations to those who don't take offense at me."
After [John's disciples] had departed, Jesus began to talk about John to the crowds: "What did you go out to the wilderness to gawk at? A reed shaking in the wind? What did you really go out to see? A man dressed in fancy [clothes]? But wait! Those who wear fancy [clothes] are found in regal quarters. Come on, what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, that's what you went out to see, yet someone more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it was written:
Here is my messenger
whom I send on ahead of you
to prepare your way before you.
I swear to you, among those born of women no one has arisen who is greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in Heaven's domain is greater than he."
Advent began in the church as a shorter Lent, a period of preparation for Easter Sunday which was already well established. Preparation meant self-denial and hard self-reflection and looking inward at a soul seen to be black with corruption which only the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross could clean away. Not many people think that way today, even people who still hold to the atonement theory of Anselm (full disclosure: I do not). No matter in the exegesis today, except as it relates to the creation of Gaudete. It seems the people (who, as we say in November, always have a say) grew tired of the burden of so much doom and despair and description of corruption as we found in Matthew's version of J the B last week (which is not to denigrate Matthew's version of events). There was a bit too much emphasis on the "brood of vipers" and "fleeing the coming scourge" for people preparing for the celebration of the 12 days of Christmas (Easter is as joyous, or was; but it occurs in Spring; and Lent occurs in the dregs of winter. It's an easier transition. Christmas lightens a dark northern or even southern European winter. Getting too morose in December can be bad for your health.). They needed a break, and Mother Mary gave it to them, with her very advent related Magnificat.
There are many musical settings of these words. I don't find any of them do justice to the radical nature of Mary's song. The focus is too much on the supposed humility of Mary in the opening lines: "My soul magnifies the Lord." Good opening lines, don't get me wrong; but the song is not a pious hymn to a remote and passively benevolent God: it is a rebel's manifesto of revolution. Mary's soul magnifies the Lord precisely because the Lord is acting in human history, and from the ground up nothing will be the same again. Her soul magnifies the Lord because the Lord is bringing justice, is overturning the structures of power and raising up the lowly, like poor Mary and her equally poor betrothed. The music for this song should be jarring and powerful and stirring, and as shocking as the words themselves. I don't mean to elevate rock above the more classical choral settings, but a punk rock ballad of this song, a driving, compulsive, impulsive version of this song, a scream of rebellion and the restorative justice of these words, of the "great and terrible day" they predict, proclaim, announce....that would suit me just fine.
But until we get that, we have to make do with my minor summing up of a minor history. In the absence of a setting of this second song of Luke's nativity story (more on that during Christmastide), let's return to the scripture choices here, because the thread binding all of these scriptures (sometimes Biblical theology works!) is: reversal. Take that as read and follow along, I think I can show you what I mean.
And what I mean is: these scriptures are about reversal. Not reversing; reversing is going back, treading the same ground, turning back time, going back to where you started. Reversal is usually even more negative. In Greek tragedy the hero suffers a reversal of fortune (losing money or wealth), or worse, a reversal of fate (losing a privileged status, like Oedipus, who goes from king to blind, homeless beggar). We aren’t talking about that kind of reversal; or about reversing things. We are talking about a transformation that brings life back to lifeless places, and justice back to unjust conditions.
Justice will not be the Holy Mountain. Life in lifeless places won’t be, either. In fact, one is metaphor, and one is hard reality. But both are steps toward that Holy Mountain.
The reversal in Isaiah is pretty obvious: dry places made wet, arid land made fertile. We might be too realistic and complain about the value of desert ecologies. But to a people living in a desert, without benefit of modern technology, Isaiah’s words promise life and abundance, and a vast improvement in circumstances. Mary’s words, to the powerless and downtrodden, are water in the desert and hope in hopelessness. But we can come back to that. Let's stick with Isaiah for now: how do these images of reversal and justice and life restored connect to the words of Jesus?
Again in Matthew Jesus connects to Isaiah. He appeals to the same language of reversal, choosing the words about people regaining what they should have: health, wholeness of body, strength, comfort. What, in short, God wants for them. Isaiah’s holy mountain again. Isaiah’s promise made physical; particular; real. But Jesus picks up the words of Isaiah for a reason, and that reason is connected to Mary’s song from Luke’s gospel.
No, we aren’t through with Biblical theology; and here is a theme, if not a theological tenet, that runs through the scriptures: God’s reversal that brings justice and wholeness.
It’s hard to see anything objectionable in Isaiah’s vision of the desert blooming with life and people made whole. It’s a win-win; and that’s the language of Jesus. Heaven’s domain coming with healing for everyone: the reversal that benefits one and all. But does it?
If you go away from people in fancy clothes in regal places, what about their fancy clothes and regal places? Are they still fancy and regal? Are “fancy” and “regal” diminished, even a little? Isn’t there a reversal of authority and social order implicit here?
Yes. And don't slight Jesus' remark that in heaven's domain the least are greater than John the Baptist. It's not a slight on John; it's an early statement that in heaven's domain the first will be last, and the last first: a constant state of reversal of circumstance as no one is above any other.
The reversal is made explicit in Mary’s Magnificat.
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
Somebody wins; somebody loses. Mary is quite clear about that. And the loss is called justice.
If someone brings a suit against you and you lose: is that justice? The victor thinks so; do you? If someone is charged with a crime and loses their liberty, is that justice? Justice is only done when someone loses; either concretely or potentially. Even an arbitration means no one gets all they could have.
But justice is restorative. You damage me, I recover damages from you. But if the damage is a personal injury, you don’t get your health back. Wrongful death? You don’t get your loved one back. Taking someone’s liberty doesn’t compensate you, or restore your loss. Our justice is not restorative. But God’s justice is. That’s the reversal we’re talking about. The powerful are pulled down, the lowly are lifted up; the hungry are fed, the rich know hunger.
This reversal doesn’t just make everyone change places; it truly levels the playing field. The rough places are made smooth, the low places are raised up, the high places made low, so everyone can see the glory of God. And what glory is that? The glory that makes God invisible to human eyes, because the created cannot look upon the Creator? A petty and hollow glory, that. This is not the place for that glory. This glory is the working of God in human history. This glory is the holy mountain, the peaceable kingdom, Heaven’s imperial domain. The lowly are lifted up, the powerful brought down, so that everyone is equal. The most important reversal of all; the one that leads to the holy mountain, to the peaceable kingdom.
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Amen.
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