Third Sunday of Advent (A), December 15, 2019. The Rev. Pamela L. Wermtz
James 5:7-10. Beloved, do not grumble against one another.
Matthew 11:2-11. Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?
O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Today is the Sunday in Advent called Gaudete Sunday. (Gaudete means rejoice.) Our liturgical color for the third Sunday is rose; that’s why we have a rose-colored candle in our Advent wreath and rose in our vestments. It is a Sunday set aside to fill our imaginations with joyful anticipation of what God might be up to in creating new heavens and a new earth. It is a Sunday to pick our heads up and rejoice in the faithfulness of God, in the midst of everything that grieves us, in the midst of oppression and violence, in the midst of hunger and illness and imprisonment, even in the midst of destruction and death. I’ve spent considerable time this week wondering how to rejoice always in spite of wide-spread violence and hate crimes, the rise of fascism, and the wanton disregard for the well-being of our planet. It’s a hard choice, I think, not to give in to despair; it’s hard, even scandalous, to choose to rejoice. Rejoicing, however, is not the same as “holiday frolicking”, as William Stringfellow once wrote; and rejoicing certainly doesn’t mean letting up on our non-violent resistance and our actions to end oppression of all kinds.
Even when we remove ourselves for a little while from the 24-hour news cycle and the din of the Christmas marketplace machine, and enter this sacred space, it’s hard to hear the joyous anticipation of the Lord’s coming in our scripture readings for today. Isaiah’s prophecy that God will come with vengeance and with terrible recompense; and that there will be a highway only for the clean, not for the unclean. As one of our beloved parishioners is fond of saying during Bible study, it sounds like a shakedown. The epistle of James admonishes the community to stop grumbling against each other and be patient. (I wonder how that went over; it reminds me of the saying: “Never in the history of calm down has anyone ever calmed down from being told to calm down.”) And in the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptizer is in prison wondering just what kind of savior Jesus is. Are prisoners going to be freed? And if so, when? Even our cantata offers some grey and chilly comfort at the end. It’s hard, so I’m going to see what I can do to help you hear what might be cause for rejoicing.
The passage from the First Testament that we heard this morning is one of the most vivid and beautiful poetic descriptions of the Realm of God in all of Scripture. But it’s set in the middle of grim rants describing God’s anger about people’s arrogant sense of autonomy, God’s fury about their armies, God’s madness about people’s indifference to exploitation and suffering among the nations. Historically, the first 39 chapters of the Book of Isaiah, referred to as 1st Isaiah, come from the 8th century or early-7th century BCE. Chapter 35, however, is an interruption in a narrative of escalating wreckage and hopelessness, of increasing desolation in the face of so much violence and oppression. Some biblical scholars think that this hope-filled beauty of a poem belongs to a much later time, either toward the end of the Babylonian exile or after the return from exile in the centuries that followed the early part of the Book of Isaiah. It seems to have been written much later and inserted here by an ancient editor for a little relief.
But what kind of relief is this? I want to say something about the translation of the fourth verse: “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear!’ Here is your God, Who will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense, Who will come and save you.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually associate the word vengeance with being unafraid! Vengeance is a word that sounds like violence in response to violence; vengeance just increases and perpetuates violence. The Hebrew word is nakam. Biblical scholar Hendrik Peels teaches that “vindication” or “liberating retribution” are better translations.[1] Requital is how the Jewish Publication Society’s edition of the Hebrew Bible translates the word. The focus is on restorative justice. Furthermore, the word “terrible” isn’t in the Hebrew at all, and “recompense,” is literally translated “benefits of God.” Recompense is transformative compassion. So, listen to how different this version sounds: “Be strong and do not despair, behold your God, vindication is coming, the transformative compassion of God is coming to save you.”
Christian translations of these words of the prophet are reason number one that so many people are duped into believing an “old testament angry god” narrative. It makes me so angry! But divine promises of liberating restoration and transformative compassion sound like reasons to rejoice. Isaiah would (and did) say: never underestimate the power of God (or Love) to restore and redeem. Jesus would (and did) say the same thing, often quoting the good news of Isaiah, according to Matthew. Jesus was teaching and enacting Isaiah to the people around him some 700+ years later. Indeed, the vast majority of Jews, Christians, and Muslims are still teaching and enact this message to never underestimate the power of Love to restore and redeem. Muhammad’s teaching was about submitting to the power of Love in order to bring about peace.
Isaiah sees a holy way, a clear, wide, sacred path appearing, which will be safe and clean. I’m imagining that the highway is for those who are clean, and there are no more unclean, no fools, no dangerous ones—not because they’ve been annihilated, but because they’ve been transformed, made clear by compassion. The sacred path will be for God’s people, which means everyone. Anyone previously unable to fully function will be transformed with love, by love, for love. Walter Brueggemann says that this kind of redemption “has to do with [communal] solidarity wherein strong, resourceful members of the community intervene on behalf of the weak and jeopardized members of the community in order to assure their safety, well-being, and honor.”[2] Again, in Advent we are talking about community, corporate, societal repentance, and redemption. Illness and wellness are matters of the whole community well-being, and not just individual medical or disability issues.[3]
Brueggemann also says that the restoration of God’s honor and the rehabilitation of God’s people are inseparable; and we are called to the work of restoration and rehabilitation, which is reconciliation. It takes patience; you know, the patience called for in the epistles of James is not the same as passivity or inaction. The patience referred to in the epistle of James is more like dogged persistence; it’s an active kind of waiting. The whole letter of James is about activism on behalf of and care for those who are least, lost, and last. It’s a wild patience, as poet Adrienne Rich wrote: A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far.
The patience James speaks of is like the patience of Sojourner Truth, the brilliant and indomitable, enslaved woman, who could neither read nor write; but, oh she could use her voice. She was passionate about ending slavery and second-class treatment of women. There’s a story about how at the end of one of her anti-slavery speeches in Ohio, a man came up to her and said, “Old woman, do you think that your talk about slavery does any good? Do you suppose people care what you say? Why, I don’t care any more for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea.” “Perhaps not,” Sojourner Truth answered, “but, the Lord willing, I’ll keep you scratching.”[4]
As I’ve said, our Gospel portion for today is a variation on Isaiah’s theme. When the incarcerated John the Baptist sends people to ask Jesus if he’s the one they’ve been waiting for, Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly (does he ever answer a question directly?). He says, tell John about the people scandalously being restored to community. Why is it scandalous? Why does Jesus add, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense”, in other words, “who is not scandalized by me”? This points to healing being much more than a charitable gift or an awe-inspiring story. Perhaps there are now more people to participate in the resistance to the occupation of Rome; perhaps there are now more people to engage in non-violent action against oppression. Modern examples might be restoring voting rights, housing, and jobs to formerly incarcerated people; inviting people who have been down and out, because of bad luck and bad choices, to move into positions of responsibility and leadership; extending communal and societal benefits to refugees, aliens, and other people on the margins of our culture; or not retaliating against violence with more violence.
Two parts of Matthew that are just out of our view are the verse that follows our reading for today, and the end of the chapter. Verse 12 says, from the days of John the Baptist until now, the realm of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent take it by force. In the end of the chapter, Jesus offers this beautiful invitation:
Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Our Gaudete Sunday invites us rejoice in the yoke of community because it signifies that we belong to one another and we will participate in one another’s well-being. The yoke allows us to do more works serving others than we could ever do on our own. Rejoice, because the yoke demonstrates Love’s power to redeem us and those around us. As Dorothy Day once said, “We have all known the long loneliness. We have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” Gaudete!