Hall of fame game
Commentary
Every major professional sport has a hall of fame. So do a lot of more obscure sports.
Many college sports boast a hall of fame of their own. Both the rock music industry and
the country music industry enshrine their best and brightest stars in halls of fame.
Inventors, cowgirls, and robots all have halls of fame, as well.
Being "in" a hall of fame, of course, can mean one of two things. If I say that I am in the such-and-such hall of fame, it can mean that I have been elected to membership in the hall, which is a great honor in that particular field. Or if I say that I am in that hall of fame, I might simply be saying that I am presently walking through the museum-like building that is identified as the hall.
The two meanings are entirely separate, of course. For the accomplished people who are "in" the hall in the first sense are probably very seldom "in" the hall in the second sense. Busts, pictures, jerseys, and memorabilia of the famous members are what I would find in each hall that I visited; I would not find the members themselves.
But let us imagine for a moment that the members were there; that such halls were not merely repositories of mementos and tributes, but that the actual people themselves were there. Then a visit to such a hall would be a heady experience, indeed.
Each summer the National Football League signals the beginning of the preseason with its hall of fame game. It is played in Canton, Ohio, at the site of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On that weekend, the newly elected class of hall of fame members are honored and installed, and two current NFL teams play one another in an exhibition game as part of the festivities.
Mostly, the stadium in Canton is filled with ordinary fans that day. But suppose it was the members of the hall who were in attendance. What would it be like for a current player or team to play in front of the legends?
Imagine being a player on the field. You look up in the stands and see Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown, and Jim Thorpe -- watching you play. Nearby are Sid Luckman, Walter Peyton, and Don Hutson. Face after legendary face: Raymond Berry, Dick Butkus, Chuck Bednarik, and Ray Nitchkie. And, in a special box overlooking the field, you see the imposing figures of George Halas, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, Paul Brown, and Vince Lombardi.
These are the men to whom the game belonged before you took the field. Indeed, in many cases, before you were born. These are the players and coaches who set records and won championships. Trophies and awards are named after these guys -- and now they're watching you play their game.
And so, "since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses," says the writer of Hebrews, let's play our best and play to win!
Isaiah 5:1-7
In the midst of the most unsavory episode from King David's life and reign, the prophet Nathan comes to him with a story. It is all innocently told in the third person until, at the end, the prophet reveals that David himself has a role in the story. And here, in the book of the prophet Isaiah, we encounter a story with a similar dramatic shift.
In the first two verses, the audience is introduced to the owner of a vineyard, and they are told his brief story. It is, initially, a scene full of beauty and promise, but it ends with disappointment. And then comes the shift. What seemed to be a detached, third-person account suddenly becomes quite personal. The storyteller-prophet is displaced by the Lord himself. And the fruitless vineyard of the story, the audience discovers, represents them.
For some years now, it has been the popular practice among many preachers to distribute sermon note-taking sheets to their congregations. The sheets offer an outline of the sermon, often including sentences with blanks left to be filled in by the listener. But long before such sheets became fashionable in North American pulpits, the Old Testament prophets employed a variation with dramatic effect.
What Nathan did with David and what Isaiah did with the inhabitants of Jerusalem was to leave a blank on the sermon sheet, only to invite the audience members to fill in their own names on that blank. "Now, friends, do you see that blank line next to 'the vineyard'? Go ahead and write 'Jerusalem' there. Jot down 'Judah.' Or you may simply write, 'Us.' "
We may have a preconceived notion about the typical judgment-prophet's message. We recognize that the bulk of his material is divided under two broad headings: 1) the people's chronic sinfulness; and 2) the coming judgment of God. Both of these subjects are covered and cataloged in some detail.
This Isaiah passage, however, offers a somewhat different take on the people's sinfulness. For the prophet does not itemize their faults. He does not catalog here the details of their injustice, idolatry, greed, and hypocrisy. Instead, in the brief story of the vineyard, the people's failure is not cast in terms of what they were, but rather what they were not. We will explore further this poignant truth below, under the heading "What Might Have Been."
What began as a promise turned into disappointment. And what was disappointing, according to the prophet, would soon be destroyed. "I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard," the Lord says, ominously.
In broad strokes, the pattern of this Old Testament passage may remind us of several New Testament passages. Just as the fruitless vineyard can expect to be ruined, so John the Baptist warned that the fruitless trees will be cut down (Matthew 3:10). Similarly, when Jesus was disappointed by a fig tree that had nothing to offer (probably symbolic of Jerusalem in the larger context), he cursed it, and it withered (Mark 11:12-21). And Jesus also told an open-ended parable about a landowner who, upon discovering that a particular tree was not producing as it should, instructed that it be cut down (Luke 13:6- 9). So we see this consistent theme of pragmatic judgment: doing away with the worthless tree or vine that is not functioning as it ought.
In the case of the Isaiah prophecy, the proposed judgment has a distinctively painful element. We sense that God does not need to do the vineyard harm directly; he needs only to remove his blessings from it (the wall, the care, the rain), and it will be devastated. We are reminded of David's wisdom, who, upon facing a choice of punishments, reasoned, "Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into human hands" (2 Samuel 24:14). Forebodingly, it seems that the vineyard of Isaiah's day would no longer be in the hand of the Lord, and that is perhaps the worst fate of all.
Hebrews 11:29--12:2
By the time we meet up with the author of this famous "faith chapter," he is already 28 verses into his marvelous litany. Having begun with a definition of faith, he has since been inspired to offer examples of it. Indeed, many examples of it! He begins in humanity's second generation, with the exemplary Abel, and works his way forward through the many early heroes of faith.
When we join his survey in verse 29, we discover that he has only made it to the book of Exodus. And, even after accelerating a bit, he was only in Joshua by the end of verse 31. It's understandable, therefore, when he stops short of the judges, saying, "Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah...." The author moves from individual examples to broad categories: men and women who, by faith, "conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword," and on and on.
If I were still working with youth groups, I would present verses 33-35a as a sort of quiz, inviting the kids to give one specific example from scripture of each of the categories identified by the writer. My experience is that adults are not so receptive to such quizzes. Still, it would be a good exercise -- for individuals or for small groups -- to put names on these descriptions.
Meanwhile, in the midst of verse 35, there is a sudden and unanticipated polar shift. Having heaped up a great pile of blessings and victories, climaxing with a reference to people coming back from the dead, the writer abruptly turns 180-degrees, saying, "Others were tortured ... suffered mocking and flogging ... stoned to death, sawn in two, killed by the sword ... destitute, persecuted, tormented." If reading were driving, we would have suffered whiplash from such a sudden and dramatic turn.
How can the writer move so seamlessly from victories to defeats? How can he shift, without warning or explanation, from tales of success to such images of failure? A quotation of verses 35b-39 should appear in the dictionary under "non-sequitur."
The author does not treat the accounts of destitution and death as being inconsistent with the early accounts of marvels and miracles. He sees a great continuity where we are inclined to see a great diversion. He recognizes a continuous flow where we perceive a watershed.
The linguistic link between the two sections is the word "resurrection." The word represents the climax of what we might call the victory section: "Women received their dead by resurrection." And then, in the very next phrase, the writer repeats the word, but with a very different flavor: "Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection." And so begins the series of grim descriptions that we might call the defeat section.
But the writer of Hebrews would not call it that. He does not regard the accounts of torture, persecution, imprisonment, and martyrdom as defeats. For him, the escalator just keeps going up. There is, you see, "a better resurrection." And, by extension, there is a better life and reward than what the first group of heroes could experience here in this world. This world, after all, is not worthy of them. And so it is that, one way or another, faith always gains its reward.
Still, when the writer comes to the end of the chapter, we discover that the escalator has yet another floor to go. For all of these heroes of faith, saints, and martyrs, still "did not receive what was promised." There still remained "something better." And that something better, he suggests, came with the present generation, "so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect."
Thus the author makes one more effortless, seamless shift. All of the preceding generations of the faithful, having been introduced in a line, are now collapsed into a single unit. They are all together now as an audience. And now it is our time -- and our turn -- to be faithful.
Luke 12:49-56
You probably receive, as I do, the religious catalogs featuring various bulletin covers and artwork that we can purchase for our churches. When significant holy days and seasons come round, there is a superabundant offering of options, including matching stationery and offering envelopes.
Perhaps the greatest supply of such resources is found during the Advent and Christmas seasons. And one of the great recurring themes of the artwork and texts is "peace." The images are peaceful. The angels proclaim, "Peace on earth." One candle in the Advent wreath is designated as "peace." And the Baby is heralded as "the prince of peace."
It seems, however, that Jesus did not get the memo.
"Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?" he asks his followers. And with earnestness, hopefulness, and a bit of sentimentality, we eagerly answer, "Yes! That's exactly what we think!"
"No," he answers, "but rather division."
What follows may be a bit surprising for some in our congregations. Perhaps not having read much of the Bible for themselves, they are left with only what they have heard and what they have been told through the years. And what they have been told, in so many cases, is that Jesus brings peace.
To address the discrepancy, we might do well to define just what we mean -- or what scripture means -- by "peace." The predicted "prince of peace" (Isaiah 9:6), on the one hand, may anticipate an eschatological messianic achievement of global peace among peoples and nations. The "peace I give to you" (John 14:27), on the other hand, may refer to a personal experience, an inner peace that is quite independent of the larger context.
In our gospel lection, meanwhile, it seems that Jesus is speaking of neither global peace nor inner peace. Instead, he goes on to reference interpersonal relationships: fathers and son, mothers and daughters, and in-laws.
The divisions that Jesus anticipates -- indeed, causes -- will not cut along the traditional lines of nations, ethnic groups, or social classes. Rather, the divisions will be close to home and very personal. The "us" and "them" are completely redefined, for "they" are not on the other side of the tracks, or a different color, or across the ocean. No, "they" are at the supper table with "us." It's an astonishing proposition.
I endorse the mostly unquestioned assumption that God would have us be good family members -- that Christian husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and children all bear a certain responsibility before God to play our parts well. That theme can be traced from the Old Testament law through the Proverbs and into the writings of Peter and Paul.
At the same time, however, this passage reminds us of the subordination and redefining of family that we find in Jesus' teachings. He insists that we love him more than the nearest and most natural of our love relationships (Matthew 10:37). He seems to take for granted that discipleship may require the certain abandoning of those relationships (Matthew 19:29). And he reformulates the boundaries and membership of family (Luke 8:19-21).
Application
You and I are called to be faithful, and we call our brothers and sisters, the friends and members of our congregations, to be faithful, too.
And what does that faithfulness look like?
Well, it doesn't look like Judah and Jerusalem of Isaiah's day. That generation of God's people had not lived in proper response to God's guidance and care. Their lives were not marked by justice and righteousness. They had not born fruit pleasing to God. Rather, they were a disappointment to him.
So what does faithfulness look like? The writer of Hebrews knows, and he shows us.
In his marvelous chapter on faith, the writer walks us through the snapshots and memorabilia of the faith hall of fame. There we see the inspiring busts of Abel and Abraham. We remember the stories of Moses and Joshua. We see old footage from the era of the judges. And we are reminded of the noble martyrs all along the way, suffering unjustly but staying faithful, even through pain and death.
Perhaps those great heroes of faith come to mind, too, when we read Jesus' teaching. He depicts faithful discipleship as a fierce personal allegiance that has priority over every other love, affection, and ambition. Personal faithfulness to him may create tension and divisions between us and other people, and it may cost us some relationships.
So now we know what faithfulness looks like. And to challenge us on to brave and no- nonsense faithfulness where we are, the writer of Hebrews shows us the stadium. All of those marvelous saints from days gone by -- the legendary men and women of faith through the ages -- they are "so great a cloud of witnesses." We run the race in front of that audience. When we get winded or wounded; when we are inclined toward discouragement or despair; we look up in the stands, and we remember what faithfulness looks like. Best of all, we look to Jesus, and we remember what faithfulness looks like; then we "run with perseverance the race that is set before us."
Alternative Application
Isaiah 5:1-7. "What Might Have Been." I don't remember many occasions during my growing up years when my parents scolded me. They were low-key parents, and I was a pretty good child. But I do remember one occasion, when I was about sixteen years old, when I was caught in the midst of a rather significant deception. There was no big scene at the time. And the next time I was in the same room as my mom, it was awkwardly silent. After several tense minutes, she finally was the one to break the silence. She turned to look at me, and she said, without raising her voice, "I'm so disappointed."
So many years later, I still feel the pain of that moment. I don't think she could have said anything more effective or more penetrating to me.
That is the thrust of God's message through Isaiah to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. He was disappointed -- so profoundly disappointed. There was such hope and promise at the beginning. He had invested such effort and care, but the people did not produce accordingly.
We see hints of this divine disappointment from the very beginning. In the opening chapters of Genesis, we are introduced to a universe and a garden that are created to be so very good. And the man and woman -- they were created even better, for they were made in the image of God: "ordained to be transcripts of the Trinity," as Charles Wesley wrote, "creatures capable of God" in his hymn, "Sinners, Turn: Why Will You Die." Yet just a few chapters later, God looks at what has become of his good creation and creatures; he "saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Genesis 6:5-6).
The great tragedy of the vineyard -- of God's people -- is not merely how bad they were, but how good they ought to have been. When a C student brings home a D, the disappointment is not so great because the expectation was not so great. But when a straight-A student brings home a D, it's a stunning disappointment. We expected so much better from him or from her.
God expected so much better from his vineyard. And he still does.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19
There is a deep yearning here. A longing for a time now past. It seems that memory always burnishes the finish of bygone days. Listen closely to any gathering of older folk recalling the good old days. If honesty were to prevail, they probably weren't quite as good as recollection claims. But still, fortunes do decline. Armies invade. Economies stumble. Crops fail, and loved ones perish. In other words, even with an inclination to put a spin on the past, there are times when people ache for a restoration of good fortune.
History, of course, teaches that people and civilization move in cycles and long arcs of rise and decline. The movement and shove of cultures, the shift and jumble of intermingling traditions. But here lies something different. Here is desolation in the extreme. Here is a people who feel spurned by their God.
So the cry goes up. "Save us!"
In the wake of contemporary culture, the question arises. From what do twenty-first- century Americans need saving? If today's church community came together to cry out for restoration, what is it that would be restored? What kind of psalm would be sung to God if we were to fall on our knees and ask for God's help? Would the cry come to restore old "mainline denominations"? Would the old men and women gather in the church kitchen to recollect Norman Rockwell scenes of once and long ago? How would the people pray? What words, what yearning or longing would pass from their lips?
Perhaps it is longing itself that calls for restoration. Could it be that some ancient sense of yearning for God's intimate presence has evaporated in the wake of modern culture? Is it possible that the militant march of individualism has snatched holy intimacy away and replaced it with an incessant and wearying search for the self? Is there a chance that the self is somehow diminished or fractionalized by this vacuum where holy yearning once lived?
If there is a psalm of restoration to be written today, this could well be it. A fervent prayer for a reconnection to the holy is something that might well be considered. It might go something like this: Restore us, holy one, to relationship with you! Save us, Lord, from our empty search for a self that doesn't really exist apart from you. Bring us, we pray, into the fold of your embrace. Crack open our hearts and awaken our sense of longing, of yearning, our childlike sense of wonder at your magnificence. Restore us, O God, and come live in our hearts again. Amen.
Being "in" a hall of fame, of course, can mean one of two things. If I say that I am in the such-and-such hall of fame, it can mean that I have been elected to membership in the hall, which is a great honor in that particular field. Or if I say that I am in that hall of fame, I might simply be saying that I am presently walking through the museum-like building that is identified as the hall.
The two meanings are entirely separate, of course. For the accomplished people who are "in" the hall in the first sense are probably very seldom "in" the hall in the second sense. Busts, pictures, jerseys, and memorabilia of the famous members are what I would find in each hall that I visited; I would not find the members themselves.
But let us imagine for a moment that the members were there; that such halls were not merely repositories of mementos and tributes, but that the actual people themselves were there. Then a visit to such a hall would be a heady experience, indeed.
Each summer the National Football League signals the beginning of the preseason with its hall of fame game. It is played in Canton, Ohio, at the site of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On that weekend, the newly elected class of hall of fame members are honored and installed, and two current NFL teams play one another in an exhibition game as part of the festivities.
Mostly, the stadium in Canton is filled with ordinary fans that day. But suppose it was the members of the hall who were in attendance. What would it be like for a current player or team to play in front of the legends?
Imagine being a player on the field. You look up in the stands and see Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown, and Jim Thorpe -- watching you play. Nearby are Sid Luckman, Walter Peyton, and Don Hutson. Face after legendary face: Raymond Berry, Dick Butkus, Chuck Bednarik, and Ray Nitchkie. And, in a special box overlooking the field, you see the imposing figures of George Halas, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, Paul Brown, and Vince Lombardi.
These are the men to whom the game belonged before you took the field. Indeed, in many cases, before you were born. These are the players and coaches who set records and won championships. Trophies and awards are named after these guys -- and now they're watching you play their game.
And so, "since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses," says the writer of Hebrews, let's play our best and play to win!
Isaiah 5:1-7
In the midst of the most unsavory episode from King David's life and reign, the prophet Nathan comes to him with a story. It is all innocently told in the third person until, at the end, the prophet reveals that David himself has a role in the story. And here, in the book of the prophet Isaiah, we encounter a story with a similar dramatic shift.
In the first two verses, the audience is introduced to the owner of a vineyard, and they are told his brief story. It is, initially, a scene full of beauty and promise, but it ends with disappointment. And then comes the shift. What seemed to be a detached, third-person account suddenly becomes quite personal. The storyteller-prophet is displaced by the Lord himself. And the fruitless vineyard of the story, the audience discovers, represents them.
For some years now, it has been the popular practice among many preachers to distribute sermon note-taking sheets to their congregations. The sheets offer an outline of the sermon, often including sentences with blanks left to be filled in by the listener. But long before such sheets became fashionable in North American pulpits, the Old Testament prophets employed a variation with dramatic effect.
What Nathan did with David and what Isaiah did with the inhabitants of Jerusalem was to leave a blank on the sermon sheet, only to invite the audience members to fill in their own names on that blank. "Now, friends, do you see that blank line next to 'the vineyard'? Go ahead and write 'Jerusalem' there. Jot down 'Judah.' Or you may simply write, 'Us.' "
We may have a preconceived notion about the typical judgment-prophet's message. We recognize that the bulk of his material is divided under two broad headings: 1) the people's chronic sinfulness; and 2) the coming judgment of God. Both of these subjects are covered and cataloged in some detail.
This Isaiah passage, however, offers a somewhat different take on the people's sinfulness. For the prophet does not itemize their faults. He does not catalog here the details of their injustice, idolatry, greed, and hypocrisy. Instead, in the brief story of the vineyard, the people's failure is not cast in terms of what they were, but rather what they were not. We will explore further this poignant truth below, under the heading "What Might Have Been."
What began as a promise turned into disappointment. And what was disappointing, according to the prophet, would soon be destroyed. "I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard," the Lord says, ominously.
In broad strokes, the pattern of this Old Testament passage may remind us of several New Testament passages. Just as the fruitless vineyard can expect to be ruined, so John the Baptist warned that the fruitless trees will be cut down (Matthew 3:10). Similarly, when Jesus was disappointed by a fig tree that had nothing to offer (probably symbolic of Jerusalem in the larger context), he cursed it, and it withered (Mark 11:12-21). And Jesus also told an open-ended parable about a landowner who, upon discovering that a particular tree was not producing as it should, instructed that it be cut down (Luke 13:6- 9). So we see this consistent theme of pragmatic judgment: doing away with the worthless tree or vine that is not functioning as it ought.
In the case of the Isaiah prophecy, the proposed judgment has a distinctively painful element. We sense that God does not need to do the vineyard harm directly; he needs only to remove his blessings from it (the wall, the care, the rain), and it will be devastated. We are reminded of David's wisdom, who, upon facing a choice of punishments, reasoned, "Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into human hands" (2 Samuel 24:14). Forebodingly, it seems that the vineyard of Isaiah's day would no longer be in the hand of the Lord, and that is perhaps the worst fate of all.
Hebrews 11:29--12:2
By the time we meet up with the author of this famous "faith chapter," he is already 28 verses into his marvelous litany. Having begun with a definition of faith, he has since been inspired to offer examples of it. Indeed, many examples of it! He begins in humanity's second generation, with the exemplary Abel, and works his way forward through the many early heroes of faith.
When we join his survey in verse 29, we discover that he has only made it to the book of Exodus. And, even after accelerating a bit, he was only in Joshua by the end of verse 31. It's understandable, therefore, when he stops short of the judges, saying, "Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah...." The author moves from individual examples to broad categories: men and women who, by faith, "conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword," and on and on.
If I were still working with youth groups, I would present verses 33-35a as a sort of quiz, inviting the kids to give one specific example from scripture of each of the categories identified by the writer. My experience is that adults are not so receptive to such quizzes. Still, it would be a good exercise -- for individuals or for small groups -- to put names on these descriptions.
Meanwhile, in the midst of verse 35, there is a sudden and unanticipated polar shift. Having heaped up a great pile of blessings and victories, climaxing with a reference to people coming back from the dead, the writer abruptly turns 180-degrees, saying, "Others were tortured ... suffered mocking and flogging ... stoned to death, sawn in two, killed by the sword ... destitute, persecuted, tormented." If reading were driving, we would have suffered whiplash from such a sudden and dramatic turn.
How can the writer move so seamlessly from victories to defeats? How can he shift, without warning or explanation, from tales of success to such images of failure? A quotation of verses 35b-39 should appear in the dictionary under "non-sequitur."
The author does not treat the accounts of destitution and death as being inconsistent with the early accounts of marvels and miracles. He sees a great continuity where we are inclined to see a great diversion. He recognizes a continuous flow where we perceive a watershed.
The linguistic link between the two sections is the word "resurrection." The word represents the climax of what we might call the victory section: "Women received their dead by resurrection." And then, in the very next phrase, the writer repeats the word, but with a very different flavor: "Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection." And so begins the series of grim descriptions that we might call the defeat section.
But the writer of Hebrews would not call it that. He does not regard the accounts of torture, persecution, imprisonment, and martyrdom as defeats. For him, the escalator just keeps going up. There is, you see, "a better resurrection." And, by extension, there is a better life and reward than what the first group of heroes could experience here in this world. This world, after all, is not worthy of them. And so it is that, one way or another, faith always gains its reward.
Still, when the writer comes to the end of the chapter, we discover that the escalator has yet another floor to go. For all of these heroes of faith, saints, and martyrs, still "did not receive what was promised." There still remained "something better." And that something better, he suggests, came with the present generation, "so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect."
Thus the author makes one more effortless, seamless shift. All of the preceding generations of the faithful, having been introduced in a line, are now collapsed into a single unit. They are all together now as an audience. And now it is our time -- and our turn -- to be faithful.
Luke 12:49-56
You probably receive, as I do, the religious catalogs featuring various bulletin covers and artwork that we can purchase for our churches. When significant holy days and seasons come round, there is a superabundant offering of options, including matching stationery and offering envelopes.
Perhaps the greatest supply of such resources is found during the Advent and Christmas seasons. And one of the great recurring themes of the artwork and texts is "peace." The images are peaceful. The angels proclaim, "Peace on earth." One candle in the Advent wreath is designated as "peace." And the Baby is heralded as "the prince of peace."
It seems, however, that Jesus did not get the memo.
"Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?" he asks his followers. And with earnestness, hopefulness, and a bit of sentimentality, we eagerly answer, "Yes! That's exactly what we think!"
"No," he answers, "but rather division."
What follows may be a bit surprising for some in our congregations. Perhaps not having read much of the Bible for themselves, they are left with only what they have heard and what they have been told through the years. And what they have been told, in so many cases, is that Jesus brings peace.
To address the discrepancy, we might do well to define just what we mean -- or what scripture means -- by "peace." The predicted "prince of peace" (Isaiah 9:6), on the one hand, may anticipate an eschatological messianic achievement of global peace among peoples and nations. The "peace I give to you" (John 14:27), on the other hand, may refer to a personal experience, an inner peace that is quite independent of the larger context.
In our gospel lection, meanwhile, it seems that Jesus is speaking of neither global peace nor inner peace. Instead, he goes on to reference interpersonal relationships: fathers and son, mothers and daughters, and in-laws.
The divisions that Jesus anticipates -- indeed, causes -- will not cut along the traditional lines of nations, ethnic groups, or social classes. Rather, the divisions will be close to home and very personal. The "us" and "them" are completely redefined, for "they" are not on the other side of the tracks, or a different color, or across the ocean. No, "they" are at the supper table with "us." It's an astonishing proposition.
I endorse the mostly unquestioned assumption that God would have us be good family members -- that Christian husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and children all bear a certain responsibility before God to play our parts well. That theme can be traced from the Old Testament law through the Proverbs and into the writings of Peter and Paul.
At the same time, however, this passage reminds us of the subordination and redefining of family that we find in Jesus' teachings. He insists that we love him more than the nearest and most natural of our love relationships (Matthew 10:37). He seems to take for granted that discipleship may require the certain abandoning of those relationships (Matthew 19:29). And he reformulates the boundaries and membership of family (Luke 8:19-21).
Application
You and I are called to be faithful, and we call our brothers and sisters, the friends and members of our congregations, to be faithful, too.
And what does that faithfulness look like?
Well, it doesn't look like Judah and Jerusalem of Isaiah's day. That generation of God's people had not lived in proper response to God's guidance and care. Their lives were not marked by justice and righteousness. They had not born fruit pleasing to God. Rather, they were a disappointment to him.
So what does faithfulness look like? The writer of Hebrews knows, and he shows us.
In his marvelous chapter on faith, the writer walks us through the snapshots and memorabilia of the faith hall of fame. There we see the inspiring busts of Abel and Abraham. We remember the stories of Moses and Joshua. We see old footage from the era of the judges. And we are reminded of the noble martyrs all along the way, suffering unjustly but staying faithful, even through pain and death.
Perhaps those great heroes of faith come to mind, too, when we read Jesus' teaching. He depicts faithful discipleship as a fierce personal allegiance that has priority over every other love, affection, and ambition. Personal faithfulness to him may create tension and divisions between us and other people, and it may cost us some relationships.
So now we know what faithfulness looks like. And to challenge us on to brave and no- nonsense faithfulness where we are, the writer of Hebrews shows us the stadium. All of those marvelous saints from days gone by -- the legendary men and women of faith through the ages -- they are "so great a cloud of witnesses." We run the race in front of that audience. When we get winded or wounded; when we are inclined toward discouragement or despair; we look up in the stands, and we remember what faithfulness looks like. Best of all, we look to Jesus, and we remember what faithfulness looks like; then we "run with perseverance the race that is set before us."
Alternative Application
Isaiah 5:1-7. "What Might Have Been." I don't remember many occasions during my growing up years when my parents scolded me. They were low-key parents, and I was a pretty good child. But I do remember one occasion, when I was about sixteen years old, when I was caught in the midst of a rather significant deception. There was no big scene at the time. And the next time I was in the same room as my mom, it was awkwardly silent. After several tense minutes, she finally was the one to break the silence. She turned to look at me, and she said, without raising her voice, "I'm so disappointed."
So many years later, I still feel the pain of that moment. I don't think she could have said anything more effective or more penetrating to me.
That is the thrust of God's message through Isaiah to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. He was disappointed -- so profoundly disappointed. There was such hope and promise at the beginning. He had invested such effort and care, but the people did not produce accordingly.
We see hints of this divine disappointment from the very beginning. In the opening chapters of Genesis, we are introduced to a universe and a garden that are created to be so very good. And the man and woman -- they were created even better, for they were made in the image of God: "ordained to be transcripts of the Trinity," as Charles Wesley wrote, "creatures capable of God" in his hymn, "Sinners, Turn: Why Will You Die." Yet just a few chapters later, God looks at what has become of his good creation and creatures; he "saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Genesis 6:5-6).
The great tragedy of the vineyard -- of God's people -- is not merely how bad they were, but how good they ought to have been. When a C student brings home a D, the disappointment is not so great because the expectation was not so great. But when a straight-A student brings home a D, it's a stunning disappointment. We expected so much better from him or from her.
God expected so much better from his vineyard. And he still does.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19
There is a deep yearning here. A longing for a time now past. It seems that memory always burnishes the finish of bygone days. Listen closely to any gathering of older folk recalling the good old days. If honesty were to prevail, they probably weren't quite as good as recollection claims. But still, fortunes do decline. Armies invade. Economies stumble. Crops fail, and loved ones perish. In other words, even with an inclination to put a spin on the past, there are times when people ache for a restoration of good fortune.
History, of course, teaches that people and civilization move in cycles and long arcs of rise and decline. The movement and shove of cultures, the shift and jumble of intermingling traditions. But here lies something different. Here is desolation in the extreme. Here is a people who feel spurned by their God.
So the cry goes up. "Save us!"
In the wake of contemporary culture, the question arises. From what do twenty-first- century Americans need saving? If today's church community came together to cry out for restoration, what is it that would be restored? What kind of psalm would be sung to God if we were to fall on our knees and ask for God's help? Would the cry come to restore old "mainline denominations"? Would the old men and women gather in the church kitchen to recollect Norman Rockwell scenes of once and long ago? How would the people pray? What words, what yearning or longing would pass from their lips?
Perhaps it is longing itself that calls for restoration. Could it be that some ancient sense of yearning for God's intimate presence has evaporated in the wake of modern culture? Is it possible that the militant march of individualism has snatched holy intimacy away and replaced it with an incessant and wearying search for the self? Is there a chance that the self is somehow diminished or fractionalized by this vacuum where holy yearning once lived?
If there is a psalm of restoration to be written today, this could well be it. A fervent prayer for a reconnection to the holy is something that might well be considered. It might go something like this: Restore us, holy one, to relationship with you! Save us, Lord, from our empty search for a self that doesn't really exist apart from you. Bring us, we pray, into the fold of your embrace. Crack open our hearts and awaken our sense of longing, of yearning, our childlike sense of wonder at your magnificence. Restore us, O God, and come live in our hearts again. Amen.
