Hope for a Cynical Heart

Hope for a Cynical Heart--December 9, 2019

"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 why what his ears hear;

 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

     and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..." [Isaiah 35:1-4]

I used to think the cat was out of the bag with Jesus, and that I could no longer be joyfully surprised by the coming of the Messiah.  But God always has a few tricks up the divine sleeve.

Honestly, I think sometimes we church folk think we've got all the plot twists of the story of God figured out, and that they can't catch us off guard anymore.  This time of year is one of the reasons.  We Christians re-read passages from the prophets and say, "They were predicting the Messiah, but he's already come now, so there's nothing left for us to glean from these ancient poems."  We have a way of dismissing all of this Advent tension of delayed gratification as just a game we play every year--since we know that the baby will be born in a manger, and we are no longer surprised that the angels show up to see shepherds working the night shift.  We sometimes even treat the whole idea of a long-awaited messiah with a "been-there-done-that" attitude, like watching the same old Christmas movies year after year and pretending you don't know whether the hero will "save Christmas" this time or not.

I know I do this myself--it is tempting to think we are masters of these ancient texts, and that we have wrung every drop of meaning from them already.

But then I read these well-worn words again, and I discover that I am not nearly as in control of them--nor of the God to whom they witness--as I had thought.  The old poets and dreamers have things to tell me that I was not expecting... or maybe that I had never paid attention to before.

Take this for starters: the prophet here doesn't simply promise that there will be a new king one day who will come from David's (and Jesse, David's father) family line.  Honestly, that wasn't much of a headline in the days of Isaiah the prophet, since he lived during a time when there was a Davidic king already, and there would be more Davidic kings for another 150 years or so, give or take.  The surprise wasn't the announcement of that there would be more kings in this particular dynasty.  

But what makes this promised coming "branch" from the family tree of Jesse and David special is that for once in the world's history, this new sort of king won't be swayed by appearance, won't be motivated by the need to hold onto power for power's sake, won't be directed by greed or fear, and won't put his own personal interests over the interests of his people.  For once, Isaiah says, there will be a ruler who won't be fooled into caring only about surface appearances or what "plays well," but rather will be guided by righteousness, by equity, and by wisdom.  For once, in other words, there will be a ruler whose power is seen in serving those who are most vulnerable ("the poor" and "the meek of the earth," as Isaiah puts it) rather than trying to extract benefits from those who are most influential.

The real surprise, in other words is not the sentence, "There will be another king coming," but rather, "There will be a good one for once--a ruler who is genuinely and truly good, all the way to the core."  The world has been waiting for such a thing.  The world is waiting, still.  The prophets were not suckered by the official royal propaganda coming from the palace in their day that just assumed God blessed and approved of everything the kings of the day did. Isaiah had seen half-decent ones and terrible ones, but never one that was wholly good, just, and wise. The prophets saw through the spin-doctoring and PR management offered by king after crooked king, and they recognized how the powerful people of their day were all more or less entangled in getting themselves more power and keeping it. And so the prophets kept on daring to dream of a better way... a better kind of king. A completely different kind of king, honestly: one whose power is revealed in self-giving, and whose authority is used to lift up the lowly. Sometimes I forget just how radical an idea that really is for a ruler.

I think what surprises me and my cynical heart is the hope that Isaiah holds onto that things could really be different. It is so easy any more to see rottenness everywhere that we just assume that's how things must always be.  Heads of state, heads of corporations, and heads of institutions all seem bent on holding onto their power, or enriching themselves, or gaslighting their supporters, or making empty promises, and it is terribly easy just to assume that it must be OK because "everybody is doing it."  It feels any more like even just asking, "But what is the truth here?" is precariously close to being an out-of-fashion question, because so many pundits and experts seem only interested in what is popular, or what can be gotten away with, or what plays to a particular base.  In a time when we are all so tempted only to listen to voices or watch the channels that will tell us what we already want to hear, it is hard to imagine the Coming One whom Isaiah says will not act based on what tickles his ear, but on what is just and right and true.  

Sometimes you'll hear Respectable Religious types join the cynicism, too.  They'll say, "You don't have to hope for someone who is decent and honest and just and wise. You don't need a Boy Scout in charge--you just need someone who will do the favors on your wish-list in exchange for your allegiance.  Just make that kind of deal and you'll get things that you want, too."  But Isaiah doesn't let us off the hook for hoping for just making deals or selling out like that.  Isaiah dares us to hope this surprising hope--that at the last, God's intention is for a world ordered by justice and peace, rather than self-interest and competing hatreds.  Isaiah dares us not to be satisfied, and not to settle, for pinning our hopes on anybody or anything less than the promised shoot that comes out from the stump of Jesse, the One we know by the name Jesus.

Christians are people who have come to name Jesus as that king of whom Isaiah and the other prophets dreamed. In that sense, we are in on the secret--nobody expected in Isaiah's day that the king will be laid in a used food trough on the day of his birth. Or that his royal entourage will be made up of illiterate fishermen, outcast tax collectors, undervalued women, notorious sinners and little-faithed doubters. Or that he will reign from a cross, executed by the empire of the day, before he breaks out of his borrowed grave.

Just when I think I have gotten these old words of the prophets wrestled into submission and that they have no more surprises for me, Isaiah comes along and pokes at me just where I wasn't expecting it.  The prophets pull me out of my cynicism to look with hope to Jesus.  They call us not to settle for accepting rottenness, and to call it out wherever we see it.  They dare us keep holding on to the longing that at the last God will set all things right, and that we can anticipate it now in the ways we live, and love, and serve, and spend our selves.

Even now, all these centuries later, the surprising word from the prophets is, "Hold on.  Don't settle.  Justice, mercy, and peace really are on the way."

Lord God, keep us stubbornly hopeful, all our days, as we watch for your Reign among us.