The Hard Work of Hoping--December 6, 2022

The Hard Work of Hoping--December 6, 2022

"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 the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..." [Isaiah 11:2-4a]

It's easy to be jaded.  It's comfortable, or at least familiar, to be skeptical.  

Sometimes it feels like the legacy of my generation that we have learned to be pre-emptively cynical of everything and everyone.  After all, I grew up with songs like "I'm Only Happy When It Rains" [performed by a band literally named "Garbage"] playing in my freshman year of high school, as well as a slew of letdowns and disappointments from celebrities, politicians, and institutions of every sort. I've seen artists sell out for celebrity, sports heroes get caught for using steroids, and elected officials lie under oath. So disillusionment comes easy for me, and I'll also just come out and say that I've never known a politician or leader who didn't let me down in some way or another.  Every time some new charismatic figure comes on the horizon or some vibrant campaign comes along, I get myself ready to be disappointed, because they've just never measured up to the hype or lived up to their words.

So, like I say, it's easy for me to be jaded.

It's these prophets who keep poking at me, though.  These dreamers and visionaries, like Isaiah and Micah, or even grumpy old Amos, they keep holding out hope that things could be different.  They won't let me give in all the way to cynicism, because they keep dreaming of a new kind of kingdom... and a new kind of king.  When Isaiah first wrote these lines of poetry, he was daring to imagine a leader for his people who would at last live up to the hype, and more importantly, live up to the hope.  Isaiah was daring to imagine that after one disappointment after another from kings in David's line, and after one threat after another from kings of surrounding nations, that things could be different.  There could be a new administration--a new reign--that was just and wise, that was not concerned with looking "great" or "glorious" or "tough" or like a "winner," but rather with being good, deeply, genuinely good.  Isaiah dreamed that this hoped-for king wouldn't be swayed by power or money but would be concerned with making sure the lowly, the poor, and the meek would no longer be stepped on. It was a bold thing to hope for.

The people of Isaiah's day had plenty of reason to be jaded, too. They'd seen one king after another talk big about virtue and piety, only to have them all get sucked back into the old machine of power and wealth and war-making.  They'd seen kings mouth all the right-sounding religious words, draping themselves in shows of devotion and co-opting the Temple, the priests, and all the rest as props for to pretend to be pious, only to be just as corrupt and crooked as the last one... and they'd seen this play out over and over again, time after time.  It was easy in Isaiah's day to just give up hoping--or to decide that if every king was crooked, you had better at least find one who would be crooked for your advantage rather than somebody else's.  And over against that cynicism, Isaiah offers this vision.

Christians will likely hear in these words the kinds of things we have found in Jesus: one who is filled with the Spirit, who isn't fooled by appearances, and who is concerned for the poor and meek to be given justice.  And indeed, we are a people who believe that Jesus is the one to whom Isaiah's poetry was ultimately pointing.  But it's worth noting, all the same, that Jesus doesn't look like anybody's expectation of a king, either.  Jesus doesn't do the crown and white horse thing.  He doesn't conquer his enemies or plunder surrounding countries to build himself a fortress or palace.  He doesn't need his name carved in big gold letters or stone pylons, and he doesn't need people's fawning praise.  And even though Jesus doesn't look like our standard picture of a king, president, emperor, or prime minister, his very existence offers us an alternative to the rottenness we are used to.  Jesus didn't come to make himself a new Caesar or Herod, nor does he call his followers to do that either.  But his life, words, and way as someone who really and truly cared about bringing about the Reign of God, or what Dr. King used to call "the beloved community," all of those prevent us from giving up hope, even when everybody else in the headlines has let us down again.

If all we have is generational cynicism as a defense mechanism to avoid being let down again by the next person to make us Big Promises, we will end up not only not believing in anybody, but not living for anything.  We'll give up and shrug our shoulders in the sad acceptance that everybody's crooked at some point and everything will let us down.  And along the way a lot more people will be hurt or stepped on because we just stopped caring.  But prophets like Isaiah pull us back from the brink.  They make us do the hard work of hoping, and then they compel us to commit to the long task of waiting without settling for less than goodness, decency, justice, and equity.  Isaiah isn't here to sell us on a political party or a partisan agenda [our system of government would make very little sense to him, I suspect].  But he is here to keep us from settling for merely settling for a crook who will benefit you rather than a crook who will benefit somebody else.  Isaiah points us to a hope that it doesn't have to be that way, and to the One we name Jesus who makes an alternative possible. Isaiah won't let us get comfortably in cynicism, but to always keep envisioning, "This could be a world where nobody is stepped on; this could be a community where everyone has enough." If we've been raised to be jaded, that will take some unlearning.  But I do believe it's worth it.

Lord God, when we are ready to give in and give up, when we are ready to settle for less than your Reign of justice and mercy, keep stirring us up and pointing us back to Jesus.