Daring To Trust The Roots
Sermon
Hope Beneath the Surface
Cycle A First Lesson Sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
Object:
There is so much uncertainty in life that most of us look hard and long for as many "sure things" as we can find. A fisherman goes back again and again to that hole that always produces fish and leaves on his line that special lure that always does the trick. The fishing hole and the lure are sure things.
A gardener finds it hard to switch from tried and true varieties of vegetables. Blue Lake or Provider green beans, Silver Queen white corn, Beefsteak tomatoes, Detroit Red beets all have a familiar, solid ring to them for a gardener. They're "sure things" if the weather cooperates. It's hard to try other varieties.
People are looking for sure things today, in gardening, in buying computer software, hand tools or diapers, in signing position players for baseball or football, in buying a business, and yes, even in giving one's heart to a religion.
And you and I know that those sure things don't always turn out the way we hoped. Think back on your own life. Think back on the decisions you made that you thought were good, informed decisions, and then, poof, up went your dream. It was no sure thing at all.
Today you and I are looking for security, for stability, for joy.
This has been going on for a long, long time. Approximately 13 centuries before Jesus, the people of Israel were rescued by God through Moses from their forced slavery in Egypt. After 40 years in the wilderness and receiving the ten commandments at Mount Sinai, they finally found themselves in the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. Before they went over into the land of Palestine, however, they were warned by the Lord through Moses. They were warned of what would happen if, once they were comfortable again and had their beautiful homes, they forgot who had provided them with all their blessings (Deuteronomy 8:11ff).
Over and over again we read in the Bible that, after they had gone over into the Promised Land, Israel did forget, and "... did what was evil in the sight of the Lord" (Judges 2:11-15; 4:1; 6:1). In other words, instead of leaning on the Lord and being faithful to God and praising God, they were drawn to the pagan gods of Baal. These gods were images they could see, and worship of them included sensuous acts they could enjoy in the temple as a part of the pagan religious rituals. Far more fun than just paying annual connectional apportionments! They forgot who it was they were to be serving and who it was who gave them life.
And over the centuries, the Hebrews wavered back and forth in their covenant with God. Around 750 years before Jesus, there was King Uzziah who, initially, "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Chronicles 26:4). But listen to this, from 2 Chronicles 26:15-16:
And [Uzziah's] fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong he grew proud, to his destruction, for he was false to the Lord his God ..."
Strong, proud Uzziah then contracted leprosy, and lived out his life separated from his people, while Jotham, his son, did the governing. Jotham, who sought to be faithful to God, was followed by his anxious son Ahaz who did not. Ahaz tried to buy the favor of Assyria and frantically made altars to every god he knew of, in hopes that one of them might save his hide and his country Judah. Ahaz was followed by Hezekiah, who sought to break Judah's vassal relationship with Assyria and clean out the altars to foreign gods. Back and forth the kings went, while their people lost more and more of their memory and discipline of being in covenant with their God.
And in the midst of these four kings of Judah, in the seventh and eighth centuries before Christ, Isaiah the prophet sought to bring faithfulness and hope to his people and to the kings whose ear he had from 742 to 701 B.C.: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (cf. Isaiah 1:1).
Now you may not remember the names of these four kings, and you may even forget the prophet Isaiah's name, but I doubt very much that you will be able to forget the image which he used to solidify hope among a people who were frightened by current events, by the concern over foreign affairs and the sin and wickedness within their own lives and country. Hear the words of Isaiah:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him ...
(Isaiah 11:1-2a)
And Isaiah went on to tell of the kind of ruler he foresaw coming from that great stump. And while Isaiah was speaking about an actual king in his own day, he was at the same time speaking a word of hope for people in any age. It is quite natural then that seven centuries later, followers of Jesus would see Jesus the Christ in these words. And so it is that this passage has become one of the key passages we read as we await the celebration of Jesus' birth.
A shoot from a stump. This was an easy thing for me to picture after events at our house this past year. You see we had a very thirsty willow tree not far from our house that was sending large masses of roots into the basement and into the sump pump. Reluctantly the decision was made to cut it down.
For some reason, a four-foot stump was left, to be cut down later. I didn't think much about the stump until early this fall when it suddenly struck me as I looked out my bedroom window that I could not even see the stump. Growing out of the sides of that stump was a mass of branches, some of them reaching six feet into the air! It all started with a shoot out of the stump of a willow tree. What a great picture of Isaiah 11:1: "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse ..."
So who's Jesse? Jesse was the son of Obed and the grandson of Boaz, the husband of Ruth. Going the other way, Jesse was the father of eight sons and two daughters. And most importantly, one of those sons was David, King David.
In other words, from the heritage of King David, from David's great line, David who sinned yet was used of God for great things, from this heritage that goes back to those who made a great covenant of faithfulness with their God, would come forth a leader. And this leader would be wise, he would not jump to conclusions about issues or about the poor, and he would not weaken before wickedness.
And out of this leadership would come forth a peace in all the earth, even including the natural world, which would be as never before, "... the calf and the lion and the fatling [would lie down together] and a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11:6).
Isn't it true that just to hear those lines of Isaiah is to picture rolling eyes and "Get real!" comments from people "in touch" with the realities of the day? Isn't it true that just to allow such grandiose idealism to be seriously verbalized in our modern day is to be shunted aside as Pollyanna, out-of-touch dreamers? Almost as crazy as those who, years ago, held forth hope that one day the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall would crumble. A hope that was seen clearly by those praying Christians in the East and radical believers in the West, but derided as nonsense by the clear-thinking "realistic" leaders of the day.
Yet it is true that your and my faith roots go deep into the soil and history of the Hebrew people and our nearer roots in the greatest product of the Hebrew line, Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord and Savior, whose birth we are preparing to celebrate.
And so let us ask ourselves as we move into Advent: Do we trust these roots of ours? Do we trust the roots from which we draw our life?
I wonder if there is not rather a sense that while we should hold on to these roots and connections (and who would openly deny them?), yet do we dare draw primarily from them? I wonder whether in fact we find it hard to allow our hearts to trust that these roots will in time produce the Kingdom of God we talk about, to give us in time the security and meaning and hope of which the scriptures and Jesus are so richly full. Instead, we keep some other roots side-by-side in another part of the garden, roots that go into the soil of rugged individualism, cynical "realism," and hedonistic "get all you can now for tomorrow we die."
Isaiah said, "It's a sure thing." Isaiah said you can trust the roots; you can trust the Lord; in God's timing the Kingdom will come.
I have a garden. One of the new things I have added to it is a bed of strawberries. What a joy it was this past spring to go out to the garden every morning and bring in five or six fresh berries for our cereal! What I have learned, though, is that you mustn't allow the weeds in the strawberry patch to get away from you! I almost allowed that to happen this past spring. So this fall I spent many hours weeding the strawberry bed. I took my long dandelion tool and dug way down deep to get the roots out. And what a mass of roots I found. Virtual sod from grass that had encroached. And those long white roots from crab grass that went everywhere, and the roots of all the little maple trees that were started when the millions of winged seeds covered the land this past spring.
But I also saw some strawberry roots and their runners. And I knew that come spring they would lead to a harvest of strawberries. I was certain. No doubt in my mind.
Such was the faith and hope of Isaiah. You can trust the roots of our faith which spring up out of the heart of God.
Imagine for a moment being able to trust the Gospel; imagine for a moment being able to speak the Word without anxiety and anger, and mean it, that "though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet." Imagine being able to say gently but firmly that out of the stump of Jesse, out of the stump of a Church sometimes gone wrong, out of the stump of a former Christian society that even back then was far from perfect, will come the Kingdom of God.
Imagine being able to say gently but firmly that the life of joy and forgiveness within the Church is a foretaste of things to come and that there will be some in the world who will listen and hear and turn and will be caught up with us in the march to Zion.
Imagine us then no longer anxiously and frantically trying to drag in the Kingdom. Rather it would be up to us to witness to the activity of God today, to point to the divine branches of life through Jesus Christ that even now are growing around the world out of dead-looking stumps, nurtured by roots that are deep in the heart of God.
Isaiah didn't wait around for evidence of hope in order to hope (cf. Romans 8:24-25; Hebrews 11:1). His hope came from a deep and abiding trust in God. And he knew that God would send leaders who would carry on God's message.
You and I have the advantage over Isaiah of knowing the ultimate leader, the ultimate shoot off the stump of Jesse: Jesus Christ. And that branch connects us forever with an undying hope, which is foolishness to the wise and life itself to those who give their life to Him.
Saint Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Rome these words:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Romans 15:13)
Only through the power of the Holy Spirit are we able to hope in these days. And to that hope I bear witness to you this morning, and to that hope the Church at its best has always borne witness.
You see, it is a sure thing, because we can dare to trust our roots that go deep in the heart of God, roots to which Isaiah pointed, and roots which came to full flower in the face and in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Thanks be to God!
A gardener finds it hard to switch from tried and true varieties of vegetables. Blue Lake or Provider green beans, Silver Queen white corn, Beefsteak tomatoes, Detroit Red beets all have a familiar, solid ring to them for a gardener. They're "sure things" if the weather cooperates. It's hard to try other varieties.
People are looking for sure things today, in gardening, in buying computer software, hand tools or diapers, in signing position players for baseball or football, in buying a business, and yes, even in giving one's heart to a religion.
And you and I know that those sure things don't always turn out the way we hoped. Think back on your own life. Think back on the decisions you made that you thought were good, informed decisions, and then, poof, up went your dream. It was no sure thing at all.
Today you and I are looking for security, for stability, for joy.
This has been going on for a long, long time. Approximately 13 centuries before Jesus, the people of Israel were rescued by God through Moses from their forced slavery in Egypt. After 40 years in the wilderness and receiving the ten commandments at Mount Sinai, they finally found themselves in the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. Before they went over into the land of Palestine, however, they were warned by the Lord through Moses. They were warned of what would happen if, once they were comfortable again and had their beautiful homes, they forgot who had provided them with all their blessings (Deuteronomy 8:11ff).
Over and over again we read in the Bible that, after they had gone over into the Promised Land, Israel did forget, and "... did what was evil in the sight of the Lord" (Judges 2:11-15; 4:1; 6:1). In other words, instead of leaning on the Lord and being faithful to God and praising God, they were drawn to the pagan gods of Baal. These gods were images they could see, and worship of them included sensuous acts they could enjoy in the temple as a part of the pagan religious rituals. Far more fun than just paying annual connectional apportionments! They forgot who it was they were to be serving and who it was who gave them life.
And over the centuries, the Hebrews wavered back and forth in their covenant with God. Around 750 years before Jesus, there was King Uzziah who, initially, "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Chronicles 26:4). But listen to this, from 2 Chronicles 26:15-16:
And [Uzziah's] fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong he grew proud, to his destruction, for he was false to the Lord his God ..."
Strong, proud Uzziah then contracted leprosy, and lived out his life separated from his people, while Jotham, his son, did the governing. Jotham, who sought to be faithful to God, was followed by his anxious son Ahaz who did not. Ahaz tried to buy the favor of Assyria and frantically made altars to every god he knew of, in hopes that one of them might save his hide and his country Judah. Ahaz was followed by Hezekiah, who sought to break Judah's vassal relationship with Assyria and clean out the altars to foreign gods. Back and forth the kings went, while their people lost more and more of their memory and discipline of being in covenant with their God.
And in the midst of these four kings of Judah, in the seventh and eighth centuries before Christ, Isaiah the prophet sought to bring faithfulness and hope to his people and to the kings whose ear he had from 742 to 701 B.C.: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (cf. Isaiah 1:1).
Now you may not remember the names of these four kings, and you may even forget the prophet Isaiah's name, but I doubt very much that you will be able to forget the image which he used to solidify hope among a people who were frightened by current events, by the concern over foreign affairs and the sin and wickedness within their own lives and country. Hear the words of Isaiah:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him ...
(Isaiah 11:1-2a)
And Isaiah went on to tell of the kind of ruler he foresaw coming from that great stump. And while Isaiah was speaking about an actual king in his own day, he was at the same time speaking a word of hope for people in any age. It is quite natural then that seven centuries later, followers of Jesus would see Jesus the Christ in these words. And so it is that this passage has become one of the key passages we read as we await the celebration of Jesus' birth.
A shoot from a stump. This was an easy thing for me to picture after events at our house this past year. You see we had a very thirsty willow tree not far from our house that was sending large masses of roots into the basement and into the sump pump. Reluctantly the decision was made to cut it down.
For some reason, a four-foot stump was left, to be cut down later. I didn't think much about the stump until early this fall when it suddenly struck me as I looked out my bedroom window that I could not even see the stump. Growing out of the sides of that stump was a mass of branches, some of them reaching six feet into the air! It all started with a shoot out of the stump of a willow tree. What a great picture of Isaiah 11:1: "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse ..."
So who's Jesse? Jesse was the son of Obed and the grandson of Boaz, the husband of Ruth. Going the other way, Jesse was the father of eight sons and two daughters. And most importantly, one of those sons was David, King David.
In other words, from the heritage of King David, from David's great line, David who sinned yet was used of God for great things, from this heritage that goes back to those who made a great covenant of faithfulness with their God, would come forth a leader. And this leader would be wise, he would not jump to conclusions about issues or about the poor, and he would not weaken before wickedness.
And out of this leadership would come forth a peace in all the earth, even including the natural world, which would be as never before, "... the calf and the lion and the fatling [would lie down together] and a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11:6).
Isn't it true that just to hear those lines of Isaiah is to picture rolling eyes and "Get real!" comments from people "in touch" with the realities of the day? Isn't it true that just to allow such grandiose idealism to be seriously verbalized in our modern day is to be shunted aside as Pollyanna, out-of-touch dreamers? Almost as crazy as those who, years ago, held forth hope that one day the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall would crumble. A hope that was seen clearly by those praying Christians in the East and radical believers in the West, but derided as nonsense by the clear-thinking "realistic" leaders of the day.
Yet it is true that your and my faith roots go deep into the soil and history of the Hebrew people and our nearer roots in the greatest product of the Hebrew line, Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord and Savior, whose birth we are preparing to celebrate.
And so let us ask ourselves as we move into Advent: Do we trust these roots of ours? Do we trust the roots from which we draw our life?
I wonder if there is not rather a sense that while we should hold on to these roots and connections (and who would openly deny them?), yet do we dare draw primarily from them? I wonder whether in fact we find it hard to allow our hearts to trust that these roots will in time produce the Kingdom of God we talk about, to give us in time the security and meaning and hope of which the scriptures and Jesus are so richly full. Instead, we keep some other roots side-by-side in another part of the garden, roots that go into the soil of rugged individualism, cynical "realism," and hedonistic "get all you can now for tomorrow we die."
Isaiah said, "It's a sure thing." Isaiah said you can trust the roots; you can trust the Lord; in God's timing the Kingdom will come.
I have a garden. One of the new things I have added to it is a bed of strawberries. What a joy it was this past spring to go out to the garden every morning and bring in five or six fresh berries for our cereal! What I have learned, though, is that you mustn't allow the weeds in the strawberry patch to get away from you! I almost allowed that to happen this past spring. So this fall I spent many hours weeding the strawberry bed. I took my long dandelion tool and dug way down deep to get the roots out. And what a mass of roots I found. Virtual sod from grass that had encroached. And those long white roots from crab grass that went everywhere, and the roots of all the little maple trees that were started when the millions of winged seeds covered the land this past spring.
But I also saw some strawberry roots and their runners. And I knew that come spring they would lead to a harvest of strawberries. I was certain. No doubt in my mind.
Such was the faith and hope of Isaiah. You can trust the roots of our faith which spring up out of the heart of God.
Imagine for a moment being able to trust the Gospel; imagine for a moment being able to speak the Word without anxiety and anger, and mean it, that "though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet." Imagine being able to say gently but firmly that out of the stump of Jesse, out of the stump of a Church sometimes gone wrong, out of the stump of a former Christian society that even back then was far from perfect, will come the Kingdom of God.
Imagine being able to say gently but firmly that the life of joy and forgiveness within the Church is a foretaste of things to come and that there will be some in the world who will listen and hear and turn and will be caught up with us in the march to Zion.
Imagine us then no longer anxiously and frantically trying to drag in the Kingdom. Rather it would be up to us to witness to the activity of God today, to point to the divine branches of life through Jesus Christ that even now are growing around the world out of dead-looking stumps, nurtured by roots that are deep in the heart of God.
Isaiah didn't wait around for evidence of hope in order to hope (cf. Romans 8:24-25; Hebrews 11:1). His hope came from a deep and abiding trust in God. And he knew that God would send leaders who would carry on God's message.
You and I have the advantage over Isaiah of knowing the ultimate leader, the ultimate shoot off the stump of Jesse: Jesus Christ. And that branch connects us forever with an undying hope, which is foolishness to the wise and life itself to those who give their life to Him.
Saint Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Rome these words:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Romans 15:13)
Only through the power of the Holy Spirit are we able to hope in these days. And to that hope I bear witness to you this morning, and to that hope the Church at its best has always borne witness.
You see, it is a sure thing, because we can dare to trust our roots that go deep in the heart of God, roots to which Isaiah pointed, and roots which came to full flower in the face and in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Thanks be to God!
