Pentecost 24 Year A
Isaiah 45:1-7, Matthew 22:15-22
Always Ready
By Rich Gamble
In the reading from Isaiah this morning we find the residents of the former nation of Israel, captive in Babylon. Their nation has been stomped six ways to Sunday, their armies defeated, their fortifications destroyed, their temple and their capital turned into a charred rubble heap. They are the servants of their Babylonian masters forcibly herded away from their homeland.
In those days, gods were seen as rulers of territory and people. The Hebrew people had believed that their God was the real deal. That is why many of their religious leaders had told the people that they had nothing to fear from other nations. Those nations worshiped the wrong gods Their gods were wimps of wood and stone. So it was a real test of faith when Israel was wiped out. How could God be the real deal and yet God’s people get stomped by worshippers of other gods? How could the people of Israel worship the God of Israel when Israel no longer existed and the people were now residents of Babylon? How could a faith system that was built around making offerings at a Temple exist when there was no Temple?
The people of Israel came up with a remarkable response to the disaster. Instead of abandoning their God for the god’s of Babylon they re-examined their faith to understand how it could be that the people of the first rate God could be conquered second class citizens. Instead of abandoning their faith, they incorporated their disaster into their notion of God and faithfulness.
Do they formulate an escape? No. Do they plan a rebellion? No. This isn’t Egypt. In Egypt when their ancestors had been slaves, the fault was on the Egyptian empire. But this time the people of Israel realized that their situation was their fault. They had aspired to be a top down, domination based political economy. They had been warned that the subsequent injustice would bring doom to their nation. They ignored the warnings. So one day the mighty king of what was left of David’s realm found out that he wasn’t so mighty after all. Those who wanted to be the masters of their neighbors become the slaves of strangers. Poetic justice.
So this time there is no promised land to flee to. There is no safe wilderness to wander in. There is no Moses to lead them. This time they have to make the best of the situation that they believed they brought on themselves. They had gone against God and God had put their nation in time-out.
Instead of a Temple based faith, they formed a literature based faith. You don’t need a fancy Temple for this faith, just a scroll to study, just a poem to ponder, just a tale to tell. Though undoubtedly many chose to become like their Babylonian masters, many chose to remain a people apart, resident aliens. Faithful to a God that did not, by all outward appearances, seem to be in charge. The poets of faith told the people that their exile was part of God’s plan and that there was another chapter in their story.
Then the empire that had swallowed them was swallowed by an even bigger empire. The Persian Empire of Cyrus smashed the armies of Babylon inspiring the poet using the name Isaiah to write this poem about Cyrus. In the poem, the God of Israel tells the King of Persia that the defeat of the Babylonians was part of God’s plan. That’s good propaganda for a weak people caught in turmoil of an empire’s collapse. Those invading Persians are really acting out the will of the God of Israel.
So what are we to learn from all of this? Well let’s acknowledge that the idea the people had about God changed over time. Last week we heard Moses talk God down from genocide. “Just put the lightening bolt down and back away there, big guy. No nation needs to die today.” Well Moses didn’t use those words but that was the gist. God had genocidal intent but changed God’s mind because Moses persuaded God that genocide would give God a bad reputation with the Egyptians. Our notion of God has changed since then.
Over time we have been able to see past our projections onto the divine to see a God that is wholly other. This God operates out of the power of self-giving love. We are still trying to understand how power and self-giving love can be the same, since from the dawn of civilization we have known power in terms of domination and destruction.
This changed concept of God opens up the possibility that God isn’t sitting up on high pulling the strings of fate, controlling who wins the lottery and who gets hemorrhoids. Indeed, if Jesus is right, there are no outward signs of God’s power in the traditional sense. Jesus as the embodiment of God’s love stands on the side of meek, the poor, the oppressed, the sick. Now if God were pulling the strings of fate why wouldn’t the ones for which God has special affinity be wealthy and healthy? Certainly some folks have twisted the faith of Jesus to say just that. They say that the blessings of God are made manifest in the world.
God is………agape…… love. And the will of God is that we create a society which manifests that particular type of love. God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven.
Here we are a small community which proclaims a belief that the divine will is love. We look around and we see that behind all the spin of politicians in need of votes, love is not the model for our nation. Agape love, self-giving does not allow some people to revel in riches while others suffer from lack of necessities. Love does not dump hundreds of billions of dollars into militarism and a small percentage of that for care of those in need. Our nation stands in contradiction to the power of love. And for the most part our Christian churches stand in support of our nation.
Like the children of Israel we have awakened to the reality that we are aliens in this empire. And it is worth examining our options.
One path is that of the exiles of Israel. We accept our status as outsiders. In fact we clearly articulate our differences with the concepts of power and success held by the culture which surrounds us. We live as close as we can in the light of the love of God. We stand with the victims of the false faith in the power of domination. We strive where we can to change the world around us but we recognize that it will take greater forces than we possess to make the huge changes needed.
And when some titanic force jars the assumptions of those who trust the power of domination, we see in that a divinely inspired opportunity. God doesn’t have to be cause of the real estate bubble or a stock market crash or a recession or global warming or… but like the people in the exile in Babylon such a disaster can be an opportunity to change our fundamental beliefs about the direction of our lives and society.
Isaiah saw in the catastrophic collapse of Israel the hand of God. Isaiah saw in the collapse of Babylon, the hand of God. And by helping the community see the opportunity within the seeming disaster, an essential transformation occurred within the life of the people of Israel.
Those communities of faith which have actively or passively aligned themselves to the surrounding systems of domination based politics and economics will fall as surely as the Temple in Jerusalem when those surrounding systems collapse. What will survive will be those of us who have a radically alternative vision.
The change that McCain and Obama offer is largely veneer. They moderate between the liberal and conservative sides of the same fundamentally flawed system of domination based power.
Real change is something very different.
And when the old system wavers there is opportunity for the world to really see at least some of that alternative.
Love is not pulling the strings up in heaven. Love is with those who dare to dream. Love is building a new world on the fragile hopes of hungry people.
But when systems of domination weaken or fall, the articulation of the love based alternative is the power of God. It is not inevitable. Indeed it is more likely that a threatened people will resort to more oppression, more violence. Only an active articulation of the vision can change that. Like the poets of the exile, we are called to diligently put forward that alternative vision, lest the world in fear and despair turn to another Stalin or Hitler.
The good news is that the power of love is real power. The good news is that love of God can change hearts and communities. The Good news is that these fretful times can be times of life giving transformation.
Amen.
