Give 'em the Axe

Isaiah 11:1-10

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

  and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

 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.

  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,

  but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor

  and decide with equity for the oppressed 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.

  Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist

  and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb;

  the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

 the calf and the lion will feed together,

  and a little child shall lead them.

  The cow and the bear shall graze;

  their young shall lie down together;

  and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

  and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

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.

On 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.

I want us to look at that lesson from Isaiah BUT (here’s the hard part) resist connecting Isaiah’s words to Jesus.  I know that’s hard and Handel’s little ear worm called “The Messiah” (you might have heard of it) makes that even harder.  But Isaiah had something important to stay to his people in their time, 700 years before Jesus was even a gleam in Mary’s eye, which I think would be helpful for us to hear too.  

In Isaiah’s day, the political leadership was only in it for their own gain… for their own enrichment… for their own power.  In Isaiah’s day, government officials manipulated the legal process so much that innocents were killed while the guilty were pardoned.  In Isaiah’s day, the obscenely wealthy held all the positions of power and shamelessly wrote oppression into the law itself to gain more wealth and power. 

It was into that sort of obscene and seemingly unchangeable political reality that Isaiah spoke to his people.  What he told them was that God still… has a preference.  A very clear, very focused, very consistent, very long standing preference… for those in authority to lead their people with justice.  And not just any kind of justice, but a justice that was biased toward the poor… a justice that brought equity to the oppressed.  This wasn’t an, only in the synagogue “spiritual” sort of justice or an equity only to be realized in the “sweet by and by” either.  God, Isaiah told his people, had a preference for justice and equity for all people… NOW and EVERYWHERE! 

God’s desire was for leaders to use their power to make sure that everyone… EVE-RY-ONE had enough… enough to eat, enough shelter, enough dignity, enough respect, enough purpose, enough security.  AND, Isaiah told them, if the current administration doesn’t care for everyone, but instead cares only for themselves… for their own gain… for their own enrichment… for their own power… if those in office fail to do justice FOR the poor and instead exploit the poor for their own gain… God notices that… God gets angry about that… and God will change that!    

What God wants and what God will have, Isaiah told his people, are leaders who pay attention to and follow the direction of the Spirit of the Lord… the same wind that blew over creation… the same breath of God that brought about life.  What God wants, and what God will have, are leaders who honor that breath… who allow themselves to be led by the Spirit with wisdom and understanding.  What God wants and what God will have, are leaders who move their nations toward God’s preference of justice for the poor and relief for the oppressed.  What God wants and what God will have, are leaders with a humility sized appropriately for someone who has been given the humbling responsibility of caring for an entire nation!  

Isaiah also made it clear in the passages leading up to today’s lesson that any leader who falls SHORT of that Divine standard will get the ax, be left a lifeless stump, and bring about something new.  But seeing the injustice, the corruption, the unbelievably brazen, unrepentant, and uncaring ugliness of their leaders go on seemingly unchecked… I imagine that Isaiah’s people really had begun to DOES still absolutely and unequivocally CARE and that even though it may seem beyond fantastical given their current reality, God would, in God’s time, and in God’s way bring about change.  It may feel, Isaiah told them, as likely to happen as a leopard snuggling in for a snooze with a baby goat.  As easy to imagine as lions and bears going vegan, and as believable in the moment as poisonous snakes becoming this year’s number one Christmas toy… but in the end, God’s will is always done, on earth as it is in heaven.   

I’m sure Isaiah’s people would have rather had a magical and immediate fix for the horror in which they were living.  I get that.  But that isn’t what Isaiah gave them, mostly because that simply wasn’t Isaiah’s to give.  All Isaiah could give them was the assurance that they, and their situation, had been SEEN by God, that God still cared, and that God would act.  

Like Isaiah, I too wish I had a magical and immediate fix for the the injustice, the corruption, the unbelievably brazen, unrepentant, and uncaring ugliness in which WE are living.  I can’t give you that any more than Isaiah could give that to his people.  All that is mine to give you is the same assurance Isaiah gave to his people… that we too have been SEEN by God, that God still deeply cares, and that God will bring about change.  

I know it’s not the immediate fix we all would prefer, but my hope is that being reminded that we have been SEEN by GOD… by GOD, no less… will give us all the courage to live out God’s preference for justice, kindness, and humility, even if we only have the power to make that happen in the few square feet in which we stand.  Then… standing together, we would realize we have the power to keep fending off the brood of vipers and standing together we would begin to see God change the world… for good.  Amen.