Speaking Tenderly: Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent II
1 Comfort, comfort my people, says
your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her
that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she
has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. 3 A
voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the
LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every
valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven
ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 And
the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
6 A voice says, "Cry!" And I
said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its
beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass
withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the
people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
9 Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of
good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good
news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your
God!" 10 Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and
his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense
before him. 11 He will tend his flock like a
shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in
his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (ESV)
A
week ago Saturday, Vanderbilt University made history. In their SEC (Southeastern Conference) game
against the University of Missouri, Vanderbilt’s football team put in Sarah
Fuller, a goalkeeper from the women’s soccer team, as their kicker. Fuller is the first woman to play in a Power
Five game—the ring of college football conferences that includes the SEC, the
Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten Conference, the Big 12 Conference, and
the Pac-12 Conference.[1] She is the third woman ever to play in the
NCAA Division I Bowl Subdivision. Even though
her services were rarely needed in the game itself, she made history. It is an important moment.
But
for many, it was a chance to show off their hatred. Within an hour of SportsCenter posting
Vanderbilt’s announcement of their choice on their social media, thousands of people
had turned up to protest in sometimes graphic ways. “I hope someone cleans her clock,” said one
of the tamer comments. “Hope she made
the team cookies, too!” laughed another.[2] The dismissal and anger that a woman dare
enter what many consider to be a man’s sport was palpable, smearing the
historic nature of breaking through yet another glass ceiling—or goalpost.
“Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended.”
In
case you hadn’t noticed, anger is something that comes out quite a lot these
days. People are angry about sports
decisions, angry about politics, angry about court decisions, angry about yet
another cancelled event, angry about how the holidays are going, angry about financial
realities, angry about how long this pandemic is taking. I know some of you are angry about having to
continue with online rather than in-person services, about how Advent this year
doesn’t look like you’d hoped it would.
I get that.
When
we’re angry, even here in the oh-so-polite Midwest, sometimes our mouths get
the better of us—or our keyboards, here in the digital age. This is not to say that all anger is bad—in
the Midwest and elsewhere, we are often told that anger is impolite or damaging
simply by its nature, but this is not true.
Anger can be a great energizer; no injustice in the history of the world
was ever named and righted by people who were unruffled. Anger pushes us to desire change and desire
it so strongly that we risk relationships, patterns, habits, and social stigmas
by refusing to settle for anything less than the recognition that this is
wrong and something must be done about it.
Anger can be marvelous, cleansing, powerful.
When done in
the service of justice, that is. “Those
who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from
evil and their lips from speaking deceit,” says 1 Peter 3:10. The men who gathered online to be angry about
the athleticism of Sarah Fuller were indeed saying that something was wrong and
something must be done about it, but there was no moment of “this is wrong because
it harms another,” or “this is wrong because it is making another
person less.” In point of fact, their
response is what caused harm; their response made another less. “Let them keep their tongues from evil,” the
kind of evil that is warfare, is iniquity, is the sins for which Jerusalem
received double the portion correction—and it should not be lost on those of us
still apparently navigating the basic humanity and worth of women that the
Jerusalem that is punished for unwanted action is personified as female. The anger that becomes cruelty, the anger
that stems from our fear or discomfort rather than our righteousness—that is
not good, or useful, or godly anger. The
tongue that cuts down another is only violence dripping from human lips.
“Comfort,
comfort my people,” begins this passage from the second chunk of Isaiah. The 66 chapters of Isaiah are usually broken
down into three pieces dealing with the prophet’s warnings leading up to exile,
the exile itself, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This middle section “contains poems
reflecting the impact of Persian expansion under Cyrus the Great on the peoples
living in exile after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem,” explains
Professor Corinne Corvalho. “The oracles
of condemnation in Isaiah 1-39 reflect this period of destruction, while the
poems in chapter 40-55 are filled with hope and joy because Cyrus allowed the
exiles to return home.”[3]
We
come to this second week of Advent, the season of waiting and preparing for the
startlingly unexpected event of God being born into the human timeline, on the textual
heels of a people worn down by exile and turmoil; we bring to the conversation
this second week of our walk through the stages of grief: the stage of anger. There was quite a bit of anger on all sides
as this prophet writing to the exiles captured God’s call to comfort—anger that
God had allowed Israel to fall to the Babylonians, anger that the people hadn’t
listened to God more, anger at separation, anger at destruction, anger wrapped
in the grief that nothing would ever be the same. It is terrible anger, and constructive anger
both. It was not the destructive and
belittling anger of harmful gender expectations but the ferocity of a people
who had had their city pulled out from under them, who had been humiliated and,
seemingly, abandoned by the One Who promised to protect them. The stakes here are high, 39 chapters of loss
and devastation high. This is not petty annoyance
but genuine grief.
Here at the
tail end of 2020, we may understand—though to a much lesser degree—the anger of
a life interrupted, of an outside force destroying what we had expected to
happen in our lives, of taking away the ones we hold dear.
“Comfort,
comfort my people.” Anger sharpens our
tongues, making weapons of our words. The
anger of the prophet in the chapters leading up to today’s reading has barbs,
demanding that the people change their selfishness and greed. The nation of Israel had left God’s path of
holiness, had opted for dismissal and vitriol not from behind a keyboard but
with similar disregard for the value of their fellow human beings. There was cause and cause again for God to
leave the Israelites in exile forever, the prophet wrote, but instead of
further anger that burned out the very core of this people, God calls for
comfort. “Speak tenderly to My
people, reassuring them that there is a pause, a moment of respite; the way
back home will be made plain, level, easily traveled.”
I
don’t know about you, but I could use some tender speech after a year like this,
after stories like that of Sarah Fuller.
I could also school my own tongue to speak tenderly to others in this
topsy-turvy holiday season. It is not
just a pat on the head and a “there there” that God offers to the people; it is
a bone-deep reassurance that they have not been forgotten, that the tough days
are not endless, that the covenant of God being their God and Israel being
God’s people is still in place, that there will be peace.
It
is the second Sunday of Advent, and as our candle-lighting reminded us, this is
the Sunday focusing on peace. What is it
to find peace in the midst of anger?
What is it to find peace in the midst of grief? Of uncertainty? Of waiting?
“The
intimacy and compassion that are to infuse this comfort are underscored in the
parallel command: Speak tenderly! (literally: ‘speak to the heart’),” writes
Professor Elna Solvang. “This poignant
command not only names a deep human desire and need, it summons to mind
multiple biblical examples of such tender ministrations. …The people of
Jerusalem are not ‘deserving’ of comfort according to the norms of retributive
justice, but God insists — no, commands — that they be comforted.”[4]
All
flesh shall see the glory of the Lord, the glory that has guided the people
through the wilderness before, the glory that made Moses’ face shine blindingly
bright, the glory that has surrounded the people through generations upon
generations of God’s faithfulness not because all flesh has managed to keep
only in the good and righteous anger but because the mouth of the Lord has
spoken it. This is not a secret and
momentary aside but an outpouring of God’s concern for the battered Israelite
people. It is the men who took to the
internet not to deride or belittle Sarah Fuller but to tell her thank you, my
daughter saw you and knows now that she can do that too; thank you for your
strength and courage; thank you for your example, your hope. Speak tenderly to the bruised and beaten not
as a prelude to more violence but as a support toward healing, an encouragement
that the glory of the Lord heals the broken-hearted.
This
text gets pulled into Advent because we Christians read into it the person of
John the Baptist as the voice that cries in the wilderness. John, Jesus’ older cousin, was the one who
proclaimed the coming of the Messiah, was the one who recognized Who Jesus was
and said, “Follow Him.” Prepare the way
of the Lord, a way that is lined not with cruelty but with consideration, not
with brutality but with benevolence, not with tumult but with tender words.
What
a comforting thought.
But
even comfort seems to have a bit of an edge, as there’s the bit in the middle
about our own mortality. Surely this is
not the year, with more than one and a half million dead from the
coronavirus—more than 100 of them here in Bay County—to talk about how all
flesh is grass and grass withers so easily.[5] Do we really need to hear about how the
breath of the Lord fades the flowers? Do
we really need to be reminded that beauty and life alike are fleeting and
fragile? Isn’t that a jarring switch
from this idea of valleys raised and mountains lowered and peace, peace coming
in tender speech? Isn’t that a little
grim in this season of a whole faith system awaiting a birth, an entrance of
Light into the dark night of the year?
If
the only way we can be comforted is through our own work, yes. If Advent is only about us, yes. If we who are grass, who are
flowers—beautiful one moment and faded back into the earth the next—are the
only people who can speak tenderly, who can prepare the way in the wilderness,
who can reveal the glory of the Lord, then yes, it’s a jarring switch and a
rather depressing idea. If we flowers
only look to the grass for that light and that peace, we are in for very little
comfort indeed.
But
we have so much more than that, the prophet Isaiah reassures readers through
thousands of years. Get you up to a high
mountain to shout that “the word of our God will stand forever,” that the
comfort and peace of God’s compassion are not limited to our strength or lifespans,
that no matter how many times we are angry in our grief and frustration and
exhaustion God will not abandon us, that despite the vitriol and violence that
may come from our tongues and our keyboards there is One Who leans down and
gathers the lambs in His arms. We do not
earn comfort, we do not gain glory; neither the Israelites returning from exile
nor Sarah Fuller playing despite those who wished her harm nor we who worship
in the second week of an Advent that is wildly unfamiliar have to bow to the
fear that the Lord God Who comes with might will only and forever destroy us if
we do not have our act together, if we do not seem worthy enough, if we have
not spoken our own tender words with tongues kept from evil.
What
comfort! What hope! What peace!
“That divine warrior, with arm outstretched to slay an enemy, instead
bends down and scoops the little lambs into the divine bosom,” Professor
Carvalho writes. “What does startling
comfort look like today? The poem does not promise that all suffering will
cease. It does not deny or change the brokenness of the human condition. It
suggests that some of us may be called to be messengers of a declaration, which
others may find hard to fathom. But no matter where we locate ourselves in this
poem, it ultimately reminds us that the unexpected can happen: God still sends
comfort into our short and frail lives.”[6]
May
we speak tender words to those around us.
May we hear the tender words God has for us. And may we remember that God works in the
unexpected, breaking open all channels available to remind us we are welcome,
we are beloved, we are heralds of the good news that God is with us, in all
things, now and forever. Amen.
[2]
(1)
Facebook (SportsCenter selected screen cap from the page You Look Like a
Man, November 28, 2020).
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