5 Lent, Year C (RCL) notes

[Isaiah 43: 16-21]
[Psalm 126]
[Philippians 3:4b-14]
[John 12:1-8]

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Isaiah 43:16-21
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"a new thing"

Here the prophet invokes Israel's sacred memory of the Exodus, when God led them through the parted Red Sea. This is a powerful, decisive moment in Israel's collective memory, defining them as a people, God's people.

However, the prophet moves quickly from the distant past to the immediate future. God announces that God is doing a new thing *right now*. The past is invoked briefly to remind Israel of God's redemptive power, but God goes on to say, "Okay, forget about that-- I'm up to something new!"

In fact, the prophet's poetic description of the impending Return, when God will lead the Babylonian Exiles back to Judah, actually picks up where historical reminder left off: God parted the water, led God's people safely through, and when the pursuing army followed they were "quenched like a wick". By stopping the retelling of the Exodus there, and then describing the upcoming Return as "a way in the wilderness" where God will "give drink to my chosen people," the prophesy invites the listener to project themselves into the Exodus story-- there return will be like a second wandering through the wilderness, and God will be with them just as God was with their ancestors.

The sense of expectancy, of imminence, is palpable. The verses are practically crackling with an electic sense of suspence. These events are about to burst out into motion; in fact, "it now springs forth, do you not perceive it?" The prophet sure does; the impending departure from Exile is so certain that it's as if it's already unfolding before his eyes: He describes the events "springing forth," and this metaphor quickly becomes a literal image of God creating "rivers in the desert," over which all the animals of the wilds rejoice.

It's interesting that the "former things" described are God's parting water and bringing death to pursuers, while the "new thing" is God's creating a life-giving river in the desert...

Look a the structural parallels:

The Lord who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters...

I will make a way in the wilderness,
and rivers in the desert.

Israel was given this word while living as captives in Babylon, as "strangers in a strange land." They were dispirited, beaten, and subservient. By the thinking of the day, their defeat demonstrated that the Babylonian God Marduk was superior to their God, LORD. On a practical level, their defeat meant that they were no longer independent politically, and inferior on the social ladder. Things may not have looked absolutely bleak, but they sure did not look hopeful.

God, through the prophet, is inviting Israel to enliven its spiritual imagination, to dare to visualize a new thing, to have hope. God is opening Israel's eyes to a new vision of hope-- as powerful and awesome as the Exodus their ancestors experiences, but completely new, completely unprecedented.

This passage can speak to us as powerfully as it did to those dispirited Israelites in Babylon. Arguably, we are better off than the Bablyonian Exiles, in so many ways that it would be tedious to list them all. We're also better off, in terms of finances, diet, and political self-determination, than many other places in the world.

But the truth is, for all that, there are still things-- sometimes seemingly insurmountable things-- wrong with our life, with our city's life, with our nation's life. And I don't know what it is us, but sometimes we seem to see only what's wrong. Our vision gets gummed up with all the suffering and injustice that it's all we can see. Our imaginations get clogged with images of violence and crime and corruption until that's all we can imagine.

God is telling us to wipe the sand and grit from our eyes, and look out for something new. God is challenging us to imagine what amazing things we can do in the world-- even when it's hard to imagine that.

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Psalm 126
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I already preached on this Psalm earlier this year, so I won't go into too much detail..

"joy" is shot throughout this psalm, both the word and the emotion. So, however, is grief and sadness.

- joyful harvest & the spontaneous bubbling laughter

- the work of carrying the seed and sowing is done with "tears" and "weeping." Though the psalm affirms that joy follows with the harvest, the work that leads to renewal and rejoicing is done when that joy is not yet felt.

- have faith and trust in God; plant and sow even in hard times

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St. Louis connections
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When we first moved into the Shaw neighborhood of Tower Grove, Hope and I would go on walks around our neighborhood to get to know the area. On one of our excursions, we happened across this little diner on Russell. Apparently, the owner wasn't terribly busy that night, or maybe he was really in the mood to talk; when we told him we were new to this part of town, he regaled us for almost half an our with tales of the neighbhorhood. He told us that it's had some major ups and downs in the past few decades. After a long period of decline, he told us, with increases in property crime and drug use, when the streets were less safe and the houses in a poor state, the neighborhood looked like it would slide into a slow, ugly decay. More and more people were leaving the area as they felt less safe; more houses were looking run-down or left empty. However, some of the local residents teamed up to turn things around. They started an aggressive neighborhood watch, called the police repeatedly on known drug-houses, and did things like clean the sidewalks and lawns together. Some young couples started moving in and fixing up the old townhouses which were starting to look shabby. This guy-- the restaurant owner, had apparently been around to see this change happen, and to hear him tell about it, it was a dramatic change. It took people who were able to see past the problems to what the neighborhood might be, to effect this change. It took folks who could imagine a hopeful future, even when the present didn't given all that much reason for hope. It even took the ability to see that hopeful vision breaking through, in small ways, in the midst of a still-problem-ridden present-- and to celebrate those moments as the victories they were. Today, the Shaw neighborhood still has some important problems, but it isn't nearly as bad as it was in years past. Whether they know it or not, everyone who has the courage and imagination to see a vision of a better life for those around them, and to work to help that vision "spring forth" in little ways, is entering into the invitation God issues in today's Isaiah reading and Psalm.