As I read this passage on the ideal servant of Yahweh, thinking about the Mt. 3 passage on Jesus' baptism and looking toward the first Sunday after Epiphany, I think about what comes after our baptism. For Jesus, he received God's affirmation and he began his ministry. His ministry was one like the prophet envisioned of God's servant--Jesus was the embodiment of the ideal servant.
I wonder if we saw our baptism not just as a sign of God's forgiveness or an initiation into the church but as a commissioning to begin our ministry and that we might see the servant we are called to be modelled after the description envisioned in Isaiah 42.--Jim Westmoreland, Owensboro, KY
I read, at a sermon illustration site, that God's word of confirmation in Mt.3:7, "This is my son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased" is a combination of Ps.2:7,"you are my son, today I have begotten you", and Isaiah 42:1,"my servant...in whom my soul delights". This makes sense to me. It seems Jesus was ever finding his identity in the scriptures and Isaiah figures prominently.
Going from this confirmation, he would begin his ministry by preaching to his home town this very identity found in Isaiah. When John doubted and sent disciples asking, Jesus sent back a reminder of this characterization of his ministry to his cousin who had overheard the Father's words at the baptism. "See John, I am sticking to the original program", Jesus seems to say, "I'm not what you were called to be, but I am what I was called to be." What has God called us to be? Little Christs(Christ-ians)? Have we accepted God's identity for us? Are we still on track? tom in TN(USA)
Since we are ordaining elders and deacons this Sunday, I am going to talk about the idea of being chosen. Everybody wants to be chosen. Remember the ordeal of being picked for teams in elementary school? A sense of relief when you are chosen...
So many people are uncomfortable with the idea of being chosen in a religious sense, because they don't want to be part of an exclusive club that feels entitled to certain benefits and superior to those outside the fold. But that is NOT what being chosen by God is about. To say that you are chosen does not means that you are entitled, or are better than anyone else. It simply means that God wants you, that you are not rejected or forsaken, but that you have a place at God's table, a place in God's family.
This is at the same time a privilege, and a responsibility. In Isaiah the servant is not chosen to be a superstar, but to perform a mission: "to bring forth justice to the nations." And Jesus was chosen (before the foundation of the world) to be God's beloved Son, and to carry out a particular mission.
There are some really good posts on the Matthew site that this ties into... the idea from "Joy in the midst" of an employee model of service versus the family model of service... the employee goes back to regular life when the particular job is done, but the family member is in a constant relationship.
Can we come to terms with the fact that we are chosen as well?
Thanks for all your help everyone.
DGinNYC
The Rev. Ken Howard January 13, 2002 (Epiphany 1)
St. Nicholas Church Isaiah 42:1-9
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
Quiet a year we’ve had, 2001. Economy slowing to a standstill. Unemployment rising. And that was before 9-11. And after 9-11 – as if it weren’t bad enough all by itself – the events of that day made all the other bad things worse. Kicked the economy into the basement, unemployment into the attic, and hundreds of teetering business into the toilet. The experts are telling us that things may get better in 2002. Duh! I don’t know how many people came up to me, in the days immediately preceding and following New Year’s Day, and said, “2001 . . . I certainly am glad to put that year behind us.”
And 9-11? We’re all getting tired of talking about it. In the middle of the dinner table conversation or watching T.V., kids have been heard to say to their parents: “Can we stop talking about 9-11, now? Can we talk about something else, please?”
2001? 9-11? No one wants to talk about either one anymore. Even Dave Barry, famous for his annual, hilarious “The Year in Review” article, gave up on it this year. You know a year has gone seriously sour when even Dave Berry can’t think of anything funny to say about it.
And yet we can’t stop talking about it. Oh, some of the details have changed in the new year, but the ripples are spreading from the same rock. The current focus seems to be how Everything has Changed. Every commentator seems to be saying, “We live in a different world since 9-11. ”
It’s almost become a cliche. Yet the world does seem different to us: more unpredictable, more scary, more dangerous. The sense we have of feeling safe in our own backyard is considerably reduced from what it used to be – replaced by a heightened sense of wariness. And the awareness that it’s tiring to be on your guard all of the time.
But how true is it? Has the whole world really changed since 9-11? Notes and e-mails I have received from former seminary classmates of mine who live or work in the developing world tell a somewhat different story. Their world has always been a dangerous, scary, and unpredictable place. It isn’t so much that 9-11 changed the world, as that it has changed the world we live in. It has moved us from a world in which we thought were safe and secure and protected from harm into a world in which we know those things not to be true. We have moved in with the rest of humanity into the real world. Truth to tell: it is we who have changed. We now see the world as the rest of the world sees it. And it is not a very reassuring sight. It is a fallen world: a world where bad things happen to people that have done nothing to deserve them, a world where evil is done frequently and frequently done in the name of God.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Verna Dozier once added, “But first it will really tick you off.” Knowing this truth about the world may make us ill at ease, but it is not entirely a bad thing. We are only human, you see. And one of our very human frailties is that when face with a choice between a comforting fantasy and an uncomfortable reality, we more often then not chose that which will comfort us. We see what we want to see. And we make ourselves blind to what we don’t want to see. As Frank Anderson recently reminded me, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
But he also reminded me that “it does work, at least for a while.” The problem is that it is difficult to blind ourselves selectively. When we stop trying to see the world the way it is, we also stop trying to see the world the way God sees it. Unfortunately, when we blind ourselves to seeing the world as God sees it now, we also blind ourselves to seeing the world in the other way God sees it: the way it could be. And blind not only that, but also to the role that God sees for us in making that could be into what is.
But as Isaiah says in today’s lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, God sets us free from what binds us, lets us see through what blinds us, and brings life out of that which is intended to kill us. God has taken a horrible and costly tragedy, and brought forth from it a terrible and priceless gift. Now that we see the world as it is – a world filled with injustice – we can also begin to see what God is calling us to do in this world.
“Justice! Justice! Justice!” Three times in today’s lesson Isaiah calls for justice. “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” Yes, this is a prophecy about the God’s Anointed One – the Messiah – the Christ. But it is also a prophecy – a statement in God’s name about what is and what God desires to be – about us. Are we not also made God’s anointed ones at our baptism? Are we not made there a living and unique part of the body of Christ? Are we not also called with Christ to the ministry of justice?
Already we have seen a significant response to this call. We saw it in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 when so many people felt such a connection with the victims and their families and friends that thousands of people felt moved to do something, anything that would make an impact for good. And with acts both large and small, both heroic and tedious, they did. And in the months since that time we have seen people reexamine their lives and their commitment to their fellow human beings, making changes both large and small, in vocation or avocation in order to respond to that renewed sense of commitment. Some have changed careers paths from those headed toward business to paths toward public service. Others have taken up volunteering at homeless shelters or service organizations. Some professionals have committed themselves to more work pro bono. Some have answered the call of their country to fight terrorism or do peacekeeping or relief work in Afghanistan.
But is it enough? And will it last?
Karen Armstrong, in her book The War for God, points out that fundamentalist terrorists find willing recruits among those peoples embittered and humiliated by the injustices they have experienced in this world. Exacting some sort of revenge against the world for the humiliation they feel is worth even their lives, because in a perverse way it gives them some sense of power and control, if only for a while. She and others suggest merely bringing justice to the perpetrators of 9-11 will not make the world a safer place, at least not for long. Unless we go all the way, unless we become one with the rest of the world, feeling its pain and working to make it a more just place, evil will continue to find many willing partners.
That’s a tall order. In fact, it’s more that just tall, it is overwhelming. Bringing justice to the world is a task that could quickly and easily wear us down to nothing. We cannot do this alone.
There is an ancient middle-eastern story. It tells of a time back during the crusades when a horseman – in some versions a crusader knight, in others an arab warrior – riding along a path finds a sparrow in the middle of the road lying on its back with its feet in the air.
“Little sparrow,” called the horseman, “What are you doing lying upside down?”
“I am holding up the sky so it does not fall, “answered the sparrow.”
“Hah!” laughed the horseman, “You believe that your spindly little legs can hold up the whole sky?”
“No,” said the sparrow softly, “But one does what one can. One does what one can.”
God knows bringing God’s justice to this fallen world is an impossible calling. It would bruise us and break us and burn us out. God knows we cannot do it alone.
“A bruised reed he will not break; a dimly burning wick he will not quench.”
God does not ask us to. God made us part of the body of Christ. And that makes us partners, not only with each other, but with God.
God only asks that we want what God wants. That we try to love the world like God loves it. That we feel it’s pain and that we yearn for justice. That we each listen for God’s call and that we each be willing to do the small part that God asks of us – no more, no less – and to leave the rest to God.
