Isaiah 11:1-10
Advent 2 - Year A
Notes from The New Interpreter’s Study Bible indicate that patristic and medieval interpreters were concerned with Jesus’ messianic nature in Isaiah and often quote 11:1-2 in their writings and in the church’s liturgical traditions. They also indicate that 11:6-8, the image of the “peaceable kingdom”, found particular resonance in the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S.
This suggests different times see different emphases in this passage. What might we look at here in the 21st century? Is it time to cycle back to a messianic god/king? Time to continue the peace theme? Shift from the poles to look between them to see that what connects them is the issue of justice for the poor?
One option in this day of information overload might be issues of knowledge and understanding—where their similarities end and where their differences begin.
How do we inquire? That feels like an Advent issue here between times.
Inquiring becomes a winnowing fork. “Ask away, ask away, ask away, Joe”, becomes a sea chanty of our day as we sort out the knowledge of “the Lord” currently wider than the sea to see where we might find an island of solidity on which to stand for a moment before diving back in to acquire further understanding.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
While waiting between times, atween coming 1 and coming 2 (or coming sometime ago and coming some time to come) or any two moments in time, we are constantly faced with issues of righteous wolves and faithful lambs and what they mean to one another. Again and again the righteous question of prosperous justice arises from the lamb. Or is it just(ice) a question of prosperous righteousness, wolfwise? Each constantly calling the other to account and into question.
While the prayers of David may be ended, ours are not. We still appeal to a G*D of hope we hope is able to fill us with all joy and peace. Unfortunately the text adds "in believing" and all of a sudden we find joy and peace turned on their ears into teaching to the test of right answers defining what we shall see and hear; what we might divine, what we must filter.
While doing cost benefit ratios on every part of life we eventually must face water or fire, the biblical equivalent of a rock and a hard place. Water for the worthy fruit of repentance, fire for the fruit of worthy forgiveness.
We wait and waver between water and fire. We are always to blame they are always forgiven. We teach the extremes of life that both end up making everyone less than they are and might yet be.
Are we ready by dint of harmony set loose by steadfastness and encouragement to experience in any moment the steam power of water meeting fire needed for hope? If not, a shoot from the stump has not yet come. If so, a shoot is already a tree. Come play under a spreading chestnut tree where at a flaming forge our "toiling - rejoicing - sorrowing" is shaped into joy and peace.
- - -
we are so easily caught casting an eye about
for wolf that will devour
for lamb to swallow in a gulp
for water to engulf
for fire to consume
seeing only one horizon at a time
we listen repeatedly to echoing cares
hungry wolves and lost lambs - bleating
enfolded lambs and shunned wolves - howling
water fired - hiss
fire watered - whimper
hearing every sleepless nuance
come, root of jesse,
welcome us welcoming others
raise a standard of mercy -
on straying eye and roving ear
on cycles of poor and oppressor
- a once and future mercy
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
What authority will this Shoot of Jesse have when no longer limited by sight and sound? This one with spirit resting upon them will be able to see to the heart of the matter and justice will have some additional meaning than immediate and natural.
For ages the dream of a "peaceable kingdom" has captured our imagination. We yearn for and talk about an idyllic place where hurt is no more. We have all been hurt more than we can sometimes stand and this picture brings our hurt round right. It means those mean old toothy carnivores will find their come-uppance by going hungry tonight and tomorrow night and every night after that. Those meat-eaters, of course, are those who have hurt us. We will be able to keep them by our side and under an unnatural control of their being.
This is a vision of underdogs – an appeal to wisdom stronger than power, gnosis stronger than exile.
In theory this could be the outcome of repentance. A leopard could changes its spots. A sinner could pull themself up by their own bootstraps. I could be in a season other than curmudgeonee.
How long could a G*D within a wolf continue in this picture? Would they periodically stray to a picture down the gallery to feast on some pigs, since sheep are protected in this one?
An Advent question rises to the fore whenever we reach for one of these places of resolution as though it be would the last word. I can't imagine anything more boring and a place less worthy of spending time there than somewhere with no consequences when children do their child thing and stick a fork in a socket or a hand in a snake den. If you stop to consider this passage, is it a comfort or a challenge? A comfort in that all this will happen someday with the energy of someone else, some deus ex machina? A challenge to analyze the present, decide on a course of action to move in the direction of the vision, and to actually do something that will move in the direction of such a vision?
Generally this is seen as a comforting passage, rather than a challenging one.
While the political situation of a given time may be a time to keep quiet in the midst of all the different forces arrayed against one, a dream of Jesse's Shoot allows a certain amount of persistence, but it ultimately fails to drive our behavior to transform evil to good.
If you had to raise a banner these days for yourself and others, what would you raise high? Might it be close to: "I'm not completely dead, only mostly dead." (The wonderful Princes Bride book and movie strike again.) And perhaps we might even raise a second banner, "A green shoot can break cement." (Yea, Malvina Reynolds.) Perhaps a third would come along, "Don't get hung up on the metaphors!" And, since a trinity is usually looking for a stabilizing fourth, "Live the drop of G*D knowledge you have now, don't wait for a sea of it" might flutter forth.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
A "budding branch sprouts from old Jesse's stump". Yes we refer to Jesus when we read this, but Isaiah's followers turn out to not be so sure. Jesus, in the line of prophets has helped us along, but look around. See any Peaceable Kingdoms? How about spots where hurt and destruction are not so obvious? Not being sure about such a budding branch seems pretty reasonable.
For the moment let's presume that a revelatory experience has convinced you that Jesus is that budding branch. As the church seems frailer and frailer, more and more stumpish, a disciple of Jesus now becomes a budding branch that can move on from that which faltered. This is more than Rethinking Church, it is transformative community.
Whether it is a wet Baptizer John or a desiccated old Jesse Stump, both look beyond the present to something coming later. You're a late arrival, even if not the latest, and it is time to judge the traditions that have come down to us, winnow them, and begin being fruitful by adding some new fiery Holy Holly Spirit manure to past understandings that still have a sense of expansive and expanding love in them. It is also time to be ready for more than contemporizing tradition - to be ready for a new incarnation that may include you.
Stand up. Signal. A Merciful Glory nears.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/11/isaiah-111-10.html
Notes from The New Interpreter's Study Bible indicate that patristic and medieval interpreters were concerned with Jesus' messianic nature in Isaiah and often quote 11:1-2 in their writings and in the church's liturgical traditions. They also indicate that 11:6-8, the image of the "peaceable kingdom", found particular resonance in the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S.
This suggests different times see different emphases in this passage. What might we look at here in the 21st century? Is it time to cycle back to the messianic god/king? Time to continue the peace theme? Shift from the poles to look between them at what connects them — issues of justice for the poor?
One option in this day of information overload might be issues of knowledge and understanding — where their similarities end and where their differences begin.
How do we inquire? That feels like an Advent issue here between times.
Inquiring becomes a winnowing fork. "Ask away, ask away, ask away, Joe" - becomes the sea chanty of our day as we sort out the knowledge of the Lord currently wider than the sea to see where we find an island of solidity on which to stand for a moment before diving back to inquire further.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/december2004.html
“From Abraham to David, God’s promise was focused on the Land. After David, they thought that a better king could not be found: they only hoped that their present and future kings would imitate David, whose dynasty by God’s promise would be continuous (2 Sam 7:14). Isaiah is the first to announce the Messiah, a future king who would surpass even David.” [The New Community Bible note.]
“He will judge the needy with righteousness : The needy and poor (those who suffer) are the same two groups described in Isaiah 10:2 as being exploited by those responsible for the law. rod of his mouth: Unlike the foreceful rod of the Assyrians in Isaiah 10:5, 15, 24, the rod of the Judean ruler is verbal, that is, just legislation on behalf of the needy and against those who are violent.” [The Common English Bible note.]
Evidence shows that leaders inevitably disappoint. One person cannot stand against the principalities and powers and any governing process. Appeals to our fears are always creeping in carrying the day for they trigger our earliest brain function of fight now or fight later (flight). To remain in power appears to require pandering to a fear that diminishes and divides us, one from another (the opposite of angelic announcement and experience of assurance).
The two clues given in these notes place greater emphasis upon caring for the Land (as basic grounding for any freedom—no health in the environment, no health in any other part of our life) and Just Legislation (communal wisdom that we are in life together and injustice in any one part of our commonwealth makes everyone and all together poorer).
Read this passage again:
From the stump of a degraded environment, a shoot will come forth; root and branch will grow and bear fruit. A blessed land brings a blessing of wisdom, counsel, and knowledge; of understanding, power, and reverence. These qualities will see mercy steadfastly available and not be fooled by appearances of piety covering meanness. These will decide for the benefit of the whole community (particularly for the part of the community so easily labeled and dismissed as “poor”). “Fertilizing” the poor will return creation to its basic interconnections of relationship. [Note: this does not mean that there will be no death—a calf will eat grass and be eaten; a lion will eat calves and their bones be picked by a crow as they return to grass.]
Here the magic answer is not Jesus, but Land and Just Legislation. This may sound much more mundane, but it does open a place for us to be in solidarity with one another and creation. Can you now unread this perspective? Hopefully it will continue to niggle at you until its importance comes clear.