Servant Discipleship

Much of Isaiah reads like poetry, it is full of images.

The second reading is where we are focusing this morning.  The beginning of Second Isaiah, and part of the suffering servant passages.

Here is my servant!

    I have made him strong.
He is my chosen one;
    I am pleased with him.
I have given him my Spirit,
and he will bring justice
    to the nations.

As Christians this passage has often been understood to refer to the coming Messiah.  In Advent, it is easy for us to read this passage as a description of a future Jesus.

While the beginning of chapter 42 reads as if it is about a person, one person, it is likely that it is about Israel, the nation.[i] From the beginning God was using Israel to bring the message of justice and righteousness, of caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan, to the world.

I think the servant is personified in the life of Jesus, that is, Jesus shows us it is possible to live in the way described by Isaiah.

But the passage is about more than Jesus.

It is God’s desire for the people of Israel to be God’s people, not in name only, but in their national life.

What might this servant life look like:

“The servant:

• is upheld and chosen by God (verse 1)
• is one in whom God delights (verse 1)
• is one on whom God’s Spirit resides (verse 1)
• is part of the “new things” God is up to (verse 9)”

is this also us? are we not upheld by God,

does God not delight in us?

are we not filled with the Holy Spirit?

Back to the servant:

• “brings forth justice to the nations (verse 1)
• does not raise his voice in the streets (verse 2)
• does not break a bruised read or quench a burning wick (verse 3)
• faithfully brings forth justice (verse 3)
• will tirelessly work until he has established justice in the earth (verse 4)
• has the support of God (verse 6)
• is given as a “covenant to the people” (verse 6)
• is a “light to the nations” (verse 6)
• will “open the eyes that are blind” (verse 7)
• will “bring out the prisoners from the dungeon ... those who sit in darkness” (verse 7)

The servant is chosen by God for a mission of global scope that includes healing, teaching, and establishing justice. The servant’s deeds are part of the “new thing” that God is doing on behalf of exiled Jews, who find themselves driven to the far reaches of the earth.” [ii]

In our commitment and Baptism, we are part of the body of Christ, and are called to live in new ways.

Discipleship is a word that I think is underused and underrated. Look at the lives of the prophets and disciples. Even if they had comfortable lives before God called them, everything changed from that point.

In discussions in various places I am amazed, though I shouldn’t be, at the self interest people have, even in the church.

Isaiah is saying:

God sees you cheating

God sees you pay lip service to worship

God sees you not helping the poor,

And working against the widow and orphan.

God hears you when you call someone worthless

When you treat someone with contempt

Along with the other prophets, Isaiah is reminding the people of Israel,

and us,

that true worship is not about singing hymn or saying prayers,

any more than it is about sacrifices.

True worship is in our lived out lives.

True worship is in being light and hope

In standing with those treated unjustly

In feeding the poor

In calling for the release of captives.

In Luke chapter 4, Jesus quotes from Isaiah:

Isaiah 61: 1-2, Contemporary English Version (CEV)

The Spirit of the Lord God

    has taken control of me!

The Lord has chosen and sent me

to tell the oppressed

    the good news,

to heal the brokenhearted,

and to announce freedom

    for prisoners and captives.

 This is the year

    when the Lord God

will show kindness to us

    and punish our enemies.

Later in that chapter of Isaiah, we read:

Isaiah 61: 10-11 Contemporary English Version (CEV)

I celebrate and shout
    because of my Lord God.
His saving power and justice
    are the very clothes I wear.
They are more beautiful
than the jewellery worn
    by a bride or a groom.
The Lord will bring about
justice and praise
    in every nation on earth,
like flowers blooming
    in a garden.

Beautiful imagery, of wearing justice like clothing, and the way justice and praise will be like flowers blooming in a garden.

I wonder what that means justice might look like?

Maybe not one big thing. Not one thing that changes the world in an instant, but slow, gradual, continual work,

everyday,

until justice becomes as natural to us as breathing.

“What would our church communities look like, or feel like, if they were truly the people working to bring about God’s vision of justice for all?”[iii]

Would we be worrying about the colour of carpet, I know one church that took two months and numerous meetings to solve that dilemma.

What would our meeting agendas be like if our main business was:

·         bringing about God’s justice for all people,

·         being people of hope for the desperate

·         being hope and light to the nations

What if God is saying to you:

People of Broken Bay Uniting Church,

I chose you to bring justice,
    and I am here at your side.
I selected and sent you
    to bring light
and my promise of hope
    to the nations.
You will give sight
    to the blind;
you will set prisoners free
    from dark dungeons.

Like much of the Bible, there are many ways of interpreting these passages. They might be a prophecy about the coming Messiah.

It is also an image of the nation of Israel as God dreamt for them to be.

And I think a challenge for us, to live into our baptismal identity, of being part of the body of Christ, and therefore living as Jesus did:

People of grace

Hope

Love

And justice.

Where is God challenging or calling you today?

What does it feel like for God to delight in you?

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[i] https://robertwilliamsonjr.com/advent-eyes-isaiah/?fbclid=IwAR1CsDCbg3QCgyoHxmc6G6YigVsQbi_fam-13hIUaJmN-atqa6DtY4CSEsU

[ii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3839

[iii] Spill the Beans

Justice - how is it lived?

The passage we just heard is from the book of Isaiah. While it is one book, it is generally thought that it written in three different sections. First Isaiah finishes at the end of chapter 39, and deals mainly with God's judgement of the people of Israel, and warning the people of what is about to happen.

Second Isaiah, which starts with chapter 40, is a hope filled section, a time of coming back to Israel and to God. It speaks of a future for Israel that those in exile would find difficult to imagine.

The third section of Isaiah starts at chapter 56, at this point in time people were again living in a restored Jerusalem and here there are reminders for the people to be a community that is inclusive, just, caring for the socially marginalised – that is the homeless and poor.

 

So this reading today it's in this section where the people in exile are being told that there is a future back home,  that they can go back to Jerusalem and build a nation built on God's call.

 

This chapter is part of the so-called suffering servant readings from Isaiah, and as such we often read it in the context of the servant being Jesus. There are different opinions among scholars, it could be that the servant is in fact the people of Israel. It earlier parts of the Old Testament Israel is called to be different to the other nations, Israel has been blessed by God to be a blessing (Exodus 12) we are also told that Israel has been chosen to be a priestly nation (Deuteronomy 19). This kind of prophetic literature can easily have two or more ways of being read. The servant called in fact be the nation of Israel, and still point to Jesus.

 

God continually calls the nation of Israel to account, for not living up to their high calling as the people of God, a covenant nation. We too are called by God to give an account of how we live out gods call in our lives.

The word that is translated into English as justice, can also be translated as judgement or right order. Often when we think of justice we think of retribution, or revenge; the idea of getting even or giving back the harm that we believe has been done to us.

But that is not the image we see here in Isaiah. The message of Isaiah reminds the people that all of the world, and all of the people in the world, are part of God's good creation. The nation of Israel is to continue to be different, the nation of Israel is to continue to be a beacon of light, a beacon of hope, a place of justice and inclusion.

Israel never managed to live up to its high calling, I can't imagine any nation ever will, as I said this was spoken to the people of Israel and refers to the nation of Israel as a servant of God; it also refers to Jesus in whose life we see these values of justice and inclusion and compassion.

 

The gods of empires in the days of Isaiah were aligned with the powerful and the mighty [i]. The God of Israel was not a God for the powerful and mighty, but God of all people and God for the outcast and the marginalised. I wonder how we would hear these words of Isaiah if we were living in a homeless shelter;

if we were struggling to feed our family;

if we were living in an aboriginal homeland;

I wonder how we would hear these words of Isaiah if we were a small Pacific nation;

or a person trafficked into slavery;

a family fleeing from war.

I wonder what these words would mean to us?

 

I wonder what it means for us to read of the one who will not bruise the crushed reed or blow out the dimly burning wick.

who are the fragile, the desperate in our nation and the world?

do we trample over them, or do we treat them gently?

 

One of the articles I read this week is called ‘You don't want to be a prophet, but be one anyway‘ [ii]. Prophets are people of vision, people who can imagine a different world to the one we currently live in, who sees signs of the kingdom of God amidst everyday life. This article commented that our society is capable of implementing almost anything, but not visioning. There is a reason that totalitarian regimes are scared of artists, musicians, playwrights, people who deal in imagination, because imagination, visioning, is uncontrollable by state or royalty. ‘It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.’

The reason you don't want to be a Prophet, is because it is an uncomfortable place to be, you can get arrested, imprisoned, killed.

 

These words of Isaiah were written about 2 1/2 thousand years ago to a community coming out of exile, reminding them that God has called them to be different :

“ I 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,  to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” [Isaiah 42:6 – 7]

 

We believe that God has also called us to live in righteousness,

that God takes us by the hand and leads us,

we are called to live in covenant relationship with God and all of God's creation,

to be a light to the nations,

to open the eyes that are blind,

and offer freedom for those who live in darkness.

 

This is the third Sunday in advent, a time where we usually think of joy, yet today we hear of justice and transformation – and I wonder if transformation and justice lived out might bring joy to ourselves, to the community around us, and to God.

 

As we move towards  the coming of the Christ child, to celebrate yet again the birth of God made flesh, are we prepared to walk with God into the dark places of our world who need the light, the hope, and the joy that comes when we live as God's transformed people, when we live out the justice of God, Justice that is inclusive and compassionate and all-encompassing.

 

other resources: working preacher webpage and podcast

http://otl.unitingchurch.org.au/index.php?page=isaiah-42-1-9

Spill the Beans

 

 

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[i] A Story of Loss and Hope by Walter Brueggemann, Sojourners Nov Dec 1998

[ii] Rethink Church, email 12.12.2014