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Stumptown Advent 2 Walt McCanless
Advent 2, Year A, Dec. 8, 2019
Isaiah 11:0-10
Stumptown
Nestled between Charlotte and Monroe, the area now known as Matthews was
unspoiled rolling woodlands with large stands of trees. By the early 1800s, this rich and
inviting land attracted our early settlers, who were mainly farmers. In the vicinity lay the
trading trails, game-rich hunting grounds and the ancestral homes of the Waxhaw and
Catawba Indians. These farmers began clearing the land for planting around the start of
the 19th century. Cotton grew well and soon became the primary cash crop. As the land
was cleared for planting, so many tree stumps were left standing that the early
settlement was unofficially known as Stumptown.
So, I learned the hard way that stump removal is not included as a coverable item
in most homeowner’s policies. So, you have a choice – to pay to have it removed, or
leave it there. We’ve seen neighbors go both ways, the most creative one I’ve seen is a
large tree stump about 3’ in diameter and 3’ high with some gorgeous flowers and
greenery planted in a massive circular flower box on top. In the Springtime is beautiful
with the flowers in bloom and the ivy hanging down. But it is a just stump. A dead
stump at that.
Such was the case with the stump of Jesse. Jesse was King David’s father and
was therefore the root of the linage of the descendants of David, who would, according
to God’s covenant with David, continue to be kings over Israel so long as they continued
to be obedient to the laws God had given and to the covenant God had established.
David’s son, Solomon, ruled after him, but upon his death things started to break apart,
break in two to be more accurate. The kingdom split….. into the southern kingdom
called Judah which is were Jerusalem was, and the northern kingdom which retained
the name Israel. Each kingdom had their kings, most declaring that they were of the
true linage of David. Isaiah prophesied to the people of Judah from 742 to 701 (some
say all the way to 687 BCE). The northern kingdom, Israel, was conquered and annexed
to Assyria, and now Assyria was a constant threat to Judah. If this particular text was
written by Isaiah and is not a later addition then it seems that Isaiah might be using
what has happened to the Northern Kingdom Israel as an object lesson for the kings and
people of Judah.
And what had happened?
Corrupt leaders enacted oppressive statutes, turned the needy from justice,
robbed the poor of their right, took what little widows had for themselves, and made
orphans their slaves. They did not turn to the Lord. Elders and dignitaries and
prophets who taught lies left the people in confusion. Everyone was godless, doing evil
and every mouth spoke folly. “They even devoured the flesh of their own kindred,” and
whether or not this accusation made by Isaiah was to be taken literally as a denunciation
against cannibalism or as a metaphor for the leaders gorging themselves at the people’s
expense, it was not the will of the Lord.
And Assyria, that proud, un-godly nation, was the Lord’s chosen rod of discipline
for his people Israel. Assyria had conquered the Northern Kingdom and deported to
various lands many of its peoples. “Only a remnant would return,” said the Lord
through Isaiah. So Judah beware! This could happen to you if you continue on the
same path as your northern neighbors. But they did, and a similar calamity fell upon
them, though not until 586 BCE, and it was the Babylonians who’d conquered Assyria
who came upon the rebellious little souther nation and demolished Jerusalem, laid
waste to the land, destroyed the temple and exiled the people to Babylon, Egypt and
various other lands. And only a remnant would return.
But that’s getting ahead of the story.
Assyria was now at the doorsteps of Judah. Chapter 10 speaks of their approach,
but they would not be able to take Jerusalem, for the Lord, the Sovereign, like a mighty
Paul Bunyan would cut down the Assyrians, like so much kindling. Isaiah puts it this
way: The tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. The Lord will
hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will
fall.” These trees and thickets were the captains and soldiers of Assyria, the majestic
trees were its rulers. The promise to Judah is that the Lord would take care of them.
So why would Judah look to any other beside God for help? Why try to make
alliances with other powerful nations such as Egypt, hoping that they will come to your
aid when Assyria attacks….. which, by the way, Egypt did not. Do not trust these kings
and princes who make promises they do not intend to keep. It is the Lord who will help
you, it is the Lord who is at your right hand, it is the Lord who will hear when you call to
him, it is the Lord, the almighty, who’ll hack down the Assyrians, who will clear cut the
forest of Israel’s enemies. Trust the Lord. But they did not.
Trust the Lord who after laying forests bare, will raise up a shoot from one of
those dead stumps; the stump of Jesse, the father of David, the greatest king united
Israel had ever known. (The Lord cuts down, the Lord raises up….)
Through her sin and rebellion Israel was ravaged and taken by the Assyrians, her
people exiled. Through their sin, rebellion, and distrust of their God, Judah fell,
Jerusalem was destroyed, her people exiled. But God would bring a remnant home,
though the remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that “a child can write them.”
It would not be the glorious ingathering for which the exiled Jews longed. But there is
more, A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…. a branch shall grow out of his
roots. This will be the fulfillment of God’s covenant with David, that one of his
descendants would rule the kingdom. When all seems lost, when there are no kings, no
dignitaries, no one to lead the people; when a stump is all there is, it is then the Lord
will act, and raise up a shoot from the stump of Jesse, a King after God’s own heart, as
was David.
The spirit or the Lord shall rest on this one, this shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and the gifts that spirit brings are wisdom and understanding (wisdom is the quality
that enables the king to make good judgments, understanding implies a deep
intellectual insight into events, persons, and is required to establish truthful, beneficial
policy), counsel and might (counsel has to do with the formation of strategy, might is the
power to carry that strategy out), knowledge and fear of the Lord (both words relate to
God and will occur again in these short verses. Together they describe a life of faith and
worship).
When all seemed lost… when a dead stump is all there is…..
It was the second time she’d heard the diagnosis: Cancer. This time it was worse,
farther along than before, and worse than that, she knew from before the sickness, pain,
the drainage of any energy that would leave her incapacitated. “O God,” she cried that
night, “can any good come of this? Why should I go through this? What hope is there?”
He couldn’t quit. He’d gotten yet another pay day loan and was at the track, he
just had to win, it was the only way out. But it was not to be, and now he’d lose the
house. It was a good time for a drink or three. Better get fortified before going home to
face the utter disappointment, disgust, and probable dismissal from his family as they
packed up and tried to find some place to live, the shelter most likely; O God, is this all
there is?
Without a vision the people perish, and as long as neither political party has a
vision beyond its own agenda, its own retention or gain of power, without a thought of
justice, equity, truth, and the good of the people – all the people – then what hope do we
have?
Do you feel a breeze? Did you get a whiff of something, well, new? I was walking
through my neighborhood the other day. We’ve had a fair number of new families move
in recently and I don’t know them all anymore, but as I rounded the corner and went
down the street behind our house I suddenly smelled the most tantalizing aroma….
someone of our new neighbors was cooking some concoction and the smell of that dish,
which must have and a good deal of garlic in it, was such that I was sorely tempted to
start knocking on doors to find out who it was and what they were cooking and would
they share the recipe with me and teach me how to cook it too. Ever since that day when
I walk the dog around the block I’m sniffing and smelling and longing for that aroma
once more.
Our text says, “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” The word for delight
here actually means “smell.” This king will have a nose for God and will delight in all
those ingredients – the wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of
the Lord given by the Spirit of God. Adoration, worship, reverence, awe, and attention
to God, this is what is meant by the fear of the Lord, and this is the pleasing aroma that
attracts this king.
This shoot from the stump of Jesse will not judge by what his eyes see, neither by
appearances nor by the bribes that are held out in front of him. Nor will he be deceived
by the propaganda, or opinion polls, or the party politics that he may hear. Justice and
equity for all will be the character of his rule, and this will mean that the poor who
cannot afford a team of expensive attorneys will nevertheless receive right judgment,
and the meek of the earth who are not greedily after all they can get no matter who they
have to get it from or how, will be treated with equity. I quote some commentator, I
cannot remember who, but the said: “Yahweh’s commitment to justice for the poor is
paramount. No regime that fails on this point can claim to be the work of Yahweh.” No
regime then or now. And yet we continue to stamp “In God We Trust,” on our coinage
and bills; we claim in our pledge we are one nation under God. But when we host the
ladies from the SACOH and hear their stories, we realize that we are not one nation
under the same laws and legislation. There is whole different system at work for the
poor and homeless, and it doesn’t seem to be characterized by justice, hardly at all by
mercy.
And the shoot from the stump of Jesse, so empowered by the Spirit, delighting in
the Lord God, and loving the people of God, all the people of God, will bring about the
great reversal…. if you see this next section as a return to Eden, which it certainly
sounds like, or, a new kingdom entirely, it is a true Paradise, where the rich shall live
with the poor, and the Republican with the Democrat; the Muslim and the Jew and the
Christian together in such harmony that a little child can lead them. African Americans
and Caucasians will sit at table and sup together, and no longer will any eat the bread of
anxious toil, but women and men, gay and straight will enjoy equitable fruits of their
labor. That sounds a lot closer to Eden than what we’ve got going on now.
And in a nod back to Gen. 3, Isaiah prophesies that the curse shall be reversed.
After Adam and Eve at the forbidden fruit, thumbing their noses at God, and deciding to
be their own gods well, life got tough. Labor pains in childbirth for the woman, farming
would be laborious for the man, the serpent would have to crawl on its belly. And then
this God speaks to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and hers, he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
But now, in the new Paradise, that enmity is gone, there is nothing to fear an little
children play even over the viper’s den. (My sister with the Coral snake???)
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, which seems to mean all
the earth for, “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea.
In Jeremiah 31 God makes covenant and says, “they will each know me from the
least to the greatest, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”
We will each know the Lord (and ‘know’ is an intimate word meaning ‘love’) through
the forgiveness of our sins.
This is what the shoot from the stump, the good as dead stump of Jesse, will do.
In our Bethel Bible class we study about the resulting disharmonies from our
disobedience and refusing to trust what God said about the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. Broken are our relations with God, with one another, with ourselves and
with the land. But the promise here is that the shoot from the stump of Jesse will bring
those relations back into harmony once again. “How very good it is when folks live
together in unity,” Psalm 133 says, and that unity involves not only relations with others,
but with the God who put us together and with the earth that sustains us and even a
unity within, becoming comfortable in our own skin. And, this is brought about,
according to the psalm, by the ordination, the anointing of God. In other words, this is
the gift of God.
And it can be lived out in the church. Paul, in 1 Cor. 12, describes the church as a
body with the shoot of the stump of Jesse, the son of David giving the body its unity and
the Spirit endowing each member with diverse gifts, talents, callings, and more. And
then Paul goes into chapter 13, the still more excellent way of being together which is
love.
If the Lord can and will do all this from a good as dead stump, then will the Lord
leave abandoned the woman with her second devastating diagnoses of cancer? What
might the Lord do in her situation, or through her as she undergoes the painful,
debilitating treatment? Or through others as they come along side her and walk with
her this journey wherever it may lead?
And the fellow who has gambled his life away, if there ever was a dead stump, he
would be it. Can a shoot spring forth from someplace in his life? Can God’s Spirit bring
life from death? Can a new king begin to rule where his addictions have wrought such
havoc and chaos?
And from the stump left by our politicians of all stripes and over all the years
when they hacked down the tree of democracy, and planted instead the weeds of
partisanship, party loyalty, vilifying opponents, lying, greed for power, for money, and
for privilege; when watered then with injustice, fertilized with gross economic disparity,
and special access and influence afforded to the rich and monied corporate interests….
well is it any wonder that the weeds grew into racism, gun violence, economic and
educational inequities, and worse?
From this dead stump, from this dead end, can the Lord bring forth a shoot? Can
the Spirit of the Lord rest anew on one who will with wisdom and understanding,
counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord…. bring forth a new kingdom, a new
rule, a new peace? That’s quite a vision, is it not? On that day, says the prophet; but no;
not on THAT day, but on THIS day the Lord has done this. The shoot has sprung from
the stump of Jesse. The new king has come wearing a crown of thorns, and with a cross
for a throne, and he brings the knowledge of the Lord that will fill the earth as the waters
cover the sea. This is our hope. A hope that begins anew during this Advent season, for:
“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean
village of Nazareth to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David,”
who was descended from Jesse. From the stump of Jesse a shoot sprouts. The king
comes girded with saving justice and faithfulness. This is our sure and certain hope, and
one we can begin to live now. Amen.
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