“A New and Tender Middle”
Isaiah 42:1-9
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
1/15/17
Before reading
today’s passage, I invite you to imagine yourself witnessing or participating
in something brand new: A potter gingerly handling the still-soft clay of a
bowl he has just finished shaping. A farmer or gardener standing over
freshly-planted earth. A knitter examining thirty square feet of afghan before
tying off that last stitch. A couple reaching out to hold, for the first time,
the hands of the scared four-year-old child they have just adopted.
Like trauma, a
creative process almost always delivers us to a threshold of tenderness and
vulnerability. Unlike trauma, creativity is usually a choice. We pour ourselves
out. And when we offer our work, we take a risk. We expose our deepest heart to
critique, misunderstanding, and sometimes mockery and insult. While we are more
than what we have created, we are inseparable from it, as well.
Isaiah would,
I think, have us imagine God feeling the same way about the creation in general,
and, in particular, feeling that way about those whom God creates to enjoy and
steward the creation. Hear and feel God’s own tenderness as God admires a
uniquely crafted new servant. Hear and feel God’s vulnerability when
introducing and offering God’s own heart to a creation broken, bruised, and
bound by exile.
1Here 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.
2He will not cry or lift
up his voice,
or make it heard in
the street;
3a bruised reed he will
not break,
and a dimly
burning wick he will not quench;
he will
faithfully bring forth justice.
4He will not grow faint
or be crushed
until he has
established justice in the earth;
and the
coastlands wait for his teaching.
5Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the
heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the
earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath
to the people upon it
and spirit to
those who walk in it:
6I am the Lord,
I have called you
in righteousness,
I have taken you
by the hand and kept you;
I have given you
as a covenant to the people,
a light to the
nations,
7to
open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the
prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison
those who sit in darkness.
8I am the Lord, that is my name;
my glory I give to
no other,
nor my praise to
idols.
9See, the former things
have come to pass,
and new things I
now declare;
before they spring
forth, I tell you of them. (Isaiah 42:1-9 - NRSV)
Matthew’s
synonymous passage is much more succinct. When Jesus comes up from the waters
of his baptism, God introduces him to the world very simply, “This is my Son,
the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Mt. 3:17)
“I am the Lord,” God says to Jesus.
“I have called you…I have taken you [and] kept you…I have given you
as a covenant to the people.”
At this point, Jesus begins to
incarnate Isaiah’s poetic vision. For us, Jesus is the servant who will not get loud, who will be gentle with all that
feels broken and beaten down by the world. And come what may, he will
persevere.
Embodying God’s justice and
righteousness, showing holy compassion for every “bruised reed” and every
“dimly burning wick,” Jesus holds the tender new ground of God’s
self-revelation. And the world, who often prefers the vengeful and violent
certainties of Herod, will critique, misunderstand, insult, and murder Jesus.
Eventually, even those who claim to follow Jesus will exploit him for economic
gain and political power. None of us here invented the exploitation of Jesus, but
like generations before us, we’re not showing signs of ending it, either. It’s
difficult to turn loose of something so lucrative and fortifying.
Then again,
perhaps it is happening. A new and very tender middle, a wound, has opened up
in our culture. Families, neighbors, and communities are all wrestling with distancing,
even exiling differences. Culturally and spiritually we are standing over
something that cries out for a response of justice and righteousness. It seems
to me that, so far, most of that response has been reactive – angry, callous, accusatory.
And while I have my own opinions, some that may trouble those who want to hear
something different from their pastor, I hear Isaiah, Matthew, and Jesus calling
us to stand compassionately and fearlessly at our own moment in history. I hear them challenging us to acknowledge the
woundedness that is alienating us from ourselves, our neighbors, and from the earth
itself.
This new and tender middle demands that
we look at each other, especially those with whom we disagree, with the eyes
and heart of Christ. That is to say, with the eyes and heart of Resurrection,
because what was is no more. Expecting
to return to some imagined memory of glory is as reckless as deciding that the
future has been decided by our disappointments. To all of us, God says, “See, the former things have come to pass, and
new things I now declare.”
The Church and
its leaders are called to help communities stand compassionately, hopefully,
and consciously over Creation’s
wounds, and to lead in a response of purposed Love and forgiveness for the sake
of all creation. This, I think, is what Isaiah means by justice and righteousness.
I recently
discovered a new singer/songwriter. For me, her earthy, Taizé-like songs make
her something of a Christian mystic. Her name is Alana Levandoski, and in a
song entitled “Show Me the Place,” she sings, “Show me the place, help me roll
away the stone. Show me the place, I can’t move this thing alone. Show me the place
where the Word became a man. Show me the place where the suffering began.”1
Even a new and
tender middle has a history. Think about skilled and compassionate therapist guiding
a patient back into old fears and hurts, back into repressed memories of abuse,
or rejection, or terror, or grief. With careful questions and observations, the
therapist accompanies the patient to the still-raw edges of some long-ago wound,
because forgiveness and healing begin with acknowledgement and understanding.
In my first
semester at Columbia Seminary, I joined all my first-year classmates in a
course we just called P112. This class was designed to help students to think
both critically and creatively about their calls to ministry. One of the first
things we did was to draw up family trees and present them to the class,
sharing our own stories within the context of our whole families. I was
fortunate to be in the class with an experienced pastoral counseling professor
named Jap Keith. Proficient with family systems theory, Jap knew how to listen
to and handle all those intimate stories that included betrayals, abuse, and
broken relationships. He helped us to recognize our strengths, weaknesses, and
wounds.
I shared with
the class the story of my paternal grandfather. Grandpa was a man deeply
committed to and involved in his small Mississippi community, and in the wider
world. He served as a member of the local board of education and as a
legislative aide for the late Sen. John Stennis. Grandpa was known and
well-respected in his community. But at home, life was not a democracy. He was
an authoritarian who could become angry and somewhat abusive when his children
did not toe his line, or when he felt embarrassed by them. In his family,
Grandpa’s legacy includes the ripple effects of his volatility.
One day early
in my first semester of seminary, I walked into the kitchen as my two young
children were in the middle of an escalating skirmish over a box of crackers. I
honestly don’t remember exactly what happened, but when their loud screams over
something so silly combined with the anxiety of all the changes and demands of
moving and starting school, something in me gave way to angry impulse. I
grabbed fiercely at the box of crackers, and the next thing I saw was my
four-year-old son in a limp heap on the floor, sobbing his dismay. I set the
crackers on the counter and picked him up. I took him into the living room and
sat down on the sofa, holding him in my lap. He cried. I cried. And I promised
that whatever it was that just happened would never happen again.
The next day,
I went to P112 early and unannounced. I knocked on Jap Keith’s door and asked
if he had a few minutes. He didn’t, but he welcomed me. I shut the door behind
me, sat down, and before I could even speak, all the emotions of the previous
day began to wash over me anew. I told Jap what had happened. He listened. We
talked some more. Just before the rest of the class came in, Jap leaned forward
in his chair and looked me straight in the eye. He tapped the low, round table
in front of him with two fingers of his right hand and said, “Allen, now that
you recognize the grandfather in you, you are without excuse.”
With the
gentleness and firmness of genuine grace, Jap led me to a source of brokenness
and lingering hurt. He did not let me off the hook, but standing there over the
wound, he offered me a chance to understand, forgive, and heal.
This is the gift
of the Incarnation. In Jesus of Nazareth, God steps into our hurts and
hurtfulness and leads us back to the place where our brokenness, our “suffering
began.” God leads us to every Friday we have created or demanded. And there,
God stands with us, and acknowledges with us our willful acquiescence to Herod’s
selfish violence, and our fear of true holiness and grace.
It can be extremely tender there,
painful even. It leads us to Sunday, though. It leads to that most creative and
re-creative place, God’s new thing
where healing has already begun.
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