Series: December 2022
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"The Release of Wrath"
First Reading
Isaiah 11:1-10
1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
10On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
Second Reading
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
1 Give the king your justice, O God,
The Release of Wrath
My brother and I were young, visiting our grandparents in their tiny West Virginia town. One of the men known to all the locals and my father and my uncles since they were boys was named Jimmy. Jimmy had special needs. He was a sweet man and he’d often spend Christmas with us. One time my brother and I were getting into it and Jimmy got our attention. Without speaking, he pointed to us one at a time, then made a motion with his hands, tangling his fingers in a furious motion, clearly signaling fighting. Then he waved his index finger back and forth, saying to us, “No no. No more.” Peace. Today we light the candle of peace.
We get ready for Christmas in the church, as I said last week, by returning in Advent to some familiar decorations, rituals, and readings, just as we return to the familiar in our homes. Through these traditions, the meaning is preserved…and it can get lost in them. We return to the readings to remind one another for whom and for what it is we are waiting, for it is through these readings, many from the Hebrew Bible, rearranged to comprise what we call the Old Testament, that the early Christians expressed their understanding of Jesus’ identity. Just as I said last week that the season’s invitation to rest and reflection has been subsumed by the cultural addiction to frenzy and purchase, so too has our impression of Jesus been coopted and neutered by those who have a stake in keeping Jesus’ focus narrow and saccharine. It, just as we, needs a reset. Listen to a passage that Christians believed pointed to Jesus as the awaited one:
2 May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.
3 May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness.
4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor.
5 May he live while the sun endures,
and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
6 May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth.
7 In his days may righteousness flourish
and peace abound, until the moon is no more.
(Psalm 72:2-7)
This may not be what we think of around Christmas time, but it is the tradition in which Jesus was firmly planted. He was to be the establishment of a new way of being on earth, at the heart of which was justice, justice named specifically for the poor and the needy. The oppressor is promised a very different fate, to be crushed! Sometimes people are a little taken aback when we sing the hymn “The Canticle of the Turning” during Advent, hymn number 100, which includes lyrics such as:
From the halls of power to the fortress tower
Not a stone will be left on stone
Let the king beware for your
Justice tears ev'ry tyrant from his throne
The hungry poor shall weep no more
For the food they can never earn
There are tables spread, ev'ry
Mouth be fed
For the world is about to turn
My heart shall sing of the day you bring
Let the fires of your justice burn
Wipe away all tears
For the dawn draws near
And the world is about to turn!
This is straight from the prophetic tradition. This is who early Christians understood to Jesus to be and what Jesus was about. Hear again the Magnificat, the song that Mary sings of her divine pregnancy:
My soul magnifies the Lord—we remember that part, but it goes on
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 (Luke 1:51-53)
Finally, listen to what God unleashes in Isaiah with themes similar to the Psalm we read:
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins (Isaiah 11:4-5)
These are fighting words. It’s hard to read them and not get fired up, and I haven’t even touched on John the Baptizer who seems a little unstable as he speaks of fire that this awaited one will bring. Looking around at their world of Jesus’ people and their position in it, I can understand why they would be worked up in their waiting. Sometimes looking around at ours I can start to relate. I remember a singer-songwriter I loved when I was younger and her lyric:
If you're not angry
you're just stupid
or you don't care
how else can you react
when you know
something's so unfair
the men of the hour
can kill half the world in war
make them slaves to a super power
and let them die poor[1]
When you look around at the world and the enormity of its challenges one of two reactions tend to settle in, fear which leads to resignation, depression even, or anger. Both have a place in Scripture, they have a place in our lives, just not a permanent unchanging one. Neither is meant to stay. Fear and anger have a function. They get our attention when it needs to be gotten. They’re not, however, good long-term operating modes. They always burn out one way or another, and they burn through a lot in the process. They have to be transformed, and remember transformation wants to happen. Don’t stunt the process of working through despair or anger so that it can be transformed into productive energy for positive justice-creating change. When we move forward in God, we look to pursue God’s way in a way that does not burn either our adversaries or ourselves to a crisp, as tempting as that may be. Remember how we first met God, in a bush that was on fire but was not consumed.
I came across a fascinating observation this year. It’s from James Alison, a Roman Catholic Theologian. He’s gay, which I point out not only to remind us that folks of the faith come in all sexualities, but also because one topic he is interested in because of the debates about sexuality and Christianity is God’s wrath. We see some wrath in Scripture, including in prophetic texts. What do we do with God’s wrath and by extension what do we do with ours? Well, according to Alison, there is an interesting transformation that plays out throughout the season of Advent. For the life of me I can’t recollect the source of this quote, but it’s in keeping with Alison’s other writings on wrath, so I’m certain of its authenticity. He says this:
What's nice about the lectionary cycle in Advent is that it begins with these foreboding passages that appear to be violent in what they promise, and it gets less and less violent and ends in something wholly unremarkable. It's the undoing of wrath, the assumption that if God is to arrive, it's going to be wrathful. Even John the Baptist thought it would be. It's the realization that there is no wrath at all, in fact all the wrath is ours and we're pretty good at it.
To a degree that pattern seems to hold. Certainly, you can make no argument about the wrathless babe that appears at the end of the Advent walk. Part of what Advent is for is having the time and space to get clear about the occasion for God’s anger and our own, and watch it transform, help it transform, into a disarming miracle capable of transforming the world. Jesus did not give up on the causes of God as expressed in the prophets. He did not stand down from what needed to be confronted, but while he suffered his own violence, he refused to inflict it on others.
I’ve heard wrath in Scripture described as merely the natural consequences of human behavior. In Advent, through Christ, God releases wrath, not unleashes it. God releases wrath and invites us to do so, not that we might give up on the work, but that we might be freed to bring about the transformation God dreams for the world without scorching the earth in the process. Isaiah reminds us that at the end of the transformation,
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them (Is. 11:6)
By the last verse of The Canticle of the Turning its only weaponry that take a beating:
Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God’s mercy must deliver us
from the conqueror’s crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard
is the promise which holds us bound,
till the spear and rod can be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around.
Mine the depths of your anger or fear—don’t be afraid to go there—get clear about what is amiss, and then engage in the divine alchemy that turns what can be poisonous into something more precious which can breed real and lasting transformation.
A story about two different brothers. They came forward for the Time of Discovery just other week, and sat next to each other, right next to each other, hip to hip. One of the boys, turned to the other, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
Amen.
[1]Ani Difranco, “Out of Range” https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/anidifranco/outofrange.html