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Donate| December 9, 2007 2nd Sunday in Advent Commentary by Paul S. Nancarrow |
See also: [2004]Advent Liturgy John Cobb on incarnation |
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
Isaiah 11:1-10
The Isaiah reading for Advent 1 looked forward to a time when Zion would be made the highest of all mountains, to which the nations would come for instruction in the Way of God. This reading from Isaiah assigned for Advent 2 continues that general theme, yet shifts the focus in two important ways. First, it introduces the “shoot from the stump of Jesse,” the figure of the inspired and righteous king; then it provides a vision of what has come to be called the “peaceable kingdom,” a reign of peace which includes not only the nations, as in last week’s reading, but all of nature as well. Unlike later apocalyptic, which tends to focus on violent imagery of the upheavals of the End, this passage looks ahead to the accomplishment of God’s purpose, the “end” in the sense if the final cause or goal of God’s creative work in the world. The Davidic heir pictured here—not yet the fully developed character of messianic expectation that would emerge in post-exilic prophecy—seems both a human and a supernatural person: he is inspired by the spirit of the Lord, not by his own internal powers, and from God he has wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. But he also has extraordinary insight, judging by means of righteousness, an attunement to God’s own judgment, rather than by the external evidence of eyes or ears. His word and his breath/spirit will be active agents in their own rights, striking the earth and eliminating the wicked—an active power usually ascribed to the dabar and ruach of God. This Davidic heir will reign not only over Jerusalem and Mount Zion, but will be “a signal to the peoples,” one of whom “the nations shall inquire”and who will instruct all peoples in the Way of God; what was ascribed to Zion as a whole in Isaiah 2 is here concentrated in the single persona of the the Davidic heir. Most significantly, the reign of peace initiated by the Heir will transform the entire created order; not only will nations cease from warfare, but even natural enemies, predators and prey, will not hurt or destroy; in some of the most quoted lines from scripture, the prophet foresees that “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” Cows and bears, lions and oxen, snakes and human children will coexist without injury or harm. It is the fullness of Peace—the Harmony of harmonies, reconciling intensities in mutual richness of life, in Whitehead’s particular use of the word; and shalom, wholeness, completeness, shared well-being, in the broadest biblical sense of the term. All this will happen because the earth—not just the human population, but the entire world-fabric itself—“will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The vision serves as a kind of transcendantal, an envisagement of the coordinated ideal aims of God for creation, a proposition (in Whitehead’s sense) which all actual societies can strive to embody in the greatest degree possible to them. While no actual earthly society—no human community and no ecosystem—may be able to achieve the fullness of Peace under the conditions of this world, yet the vision serves as an ideal against which any and all actual societies can be measured. Today’s preacher might ask “What signs of this fullness of Peace can we see emerging in our own difficult time? What concrete actions might we take to further embody the divine ideals Isaiah reveals to us here?”
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
The psalm echoes the theme of the supernatural king whose reign will bring prosperity and righteousness, both to people and to nature, and who will live and reign forever. Christians, of course, see this theme reflected and fulfilled in Jesus as the Christ, though there is no need to imagine that the psalmist “foresaw” the particulars of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The process-Christian interpreter might consider that, since Jesus is the one to whom God gave justice and righteousness to inaugurate in his life and ministry the reign of Peace, and since Christians by baptism share in the qualities and ideal aims of Jesus’ life and ministry, then Christians too are actively involved in the emergence of the reign of Peace, to defend the poor, deliver the needy, and sustain the earth. In what ways do we now show forth Christ’s reign in making Peace?
Romans 15:4-13
If the psalm picks up from Isaiah the thematic thread of the unity of nature in peace, then the Romans reading picks up the other thread, that of the unity of peoples in the basileia of the Davidic heir. Paul’s particular concern here is the unity of Jews and Gentiles in the church, giving this passage a subtle shift from the international feel of many nations gathered around Zion to a kind of cosmopolitan feel of persons from many ethnic and religious backgrounds gathering together in Christ. Because of the “welcome” of Christ, now the Gentiles may join the Jews in praise, rejoicing, and hope in God. The harmony in which Jewish and Gentile Christians are to live is not of their own making, but is granted to them by “the God of steadfastness and encouragement”; such harmony is not the result of political or religious effort but of the working of the Holy Spirit. Yet political and religious and interpersonal effort is required to from the people so that they may cooperate with the Spirit’s gift—after all, “steadfastness” and “encouragement” are not ends but means—and Paul calls the people to real work to “welcome one another.” The end or purpose of this welcome is that they “may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This certainly means joining together in prayer and worship; but it also means to “glorify” God in action for justice and peace in the wider world. The passage suggests the same kind of relationship between worship and action expressed by William Temple in his aphorism, “The proper relation between prayer and conduct is not that conduct is supremely important and prayer helps it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct tests it.” If unity in Christ begins and ends in prayer and worship, it lives “in the meantime” in conduct and action. This applies both to living in harmony within the Christian community, and to life in the wider Roman society; that is the basis of Paul’s teaching, earlier in Chapter 12, that the Roman Christian community should, “Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (vss 17-18). The unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ within the church is therefore to be taken as a template for the coming-together of all peoples in the ideal aims Christ in wider human communities. Such a vision of human community is beyond our grasp—as it was beyond Paul’s communities’ grasp—yet it continues to function as a lure to our efforts to embody God’s proposition in actual societies as we can. The power of that lure is the power of hope abounding through the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 3:1-12
The first Sunday of Advent focuses on Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching. The second and third Sundays feature stories of John the Baptist. The fourth Sunday turns attention to stories of the birth of Jesus. The gospel readings in Advent, therefore, follow a sort of backward trajectory in the Jesus story. The passage from Matthew today introduces John the Baptist and provides a capsule summary of his preaching. Scholars and historians have proposed various speculations about John’s origins (e.g., that he was trained by the Essenes but left that group and formulated his own call to prepare for the End) and his relationship to Jesus (e.g., that Jesus’ disciples, and perhaps Jesus himself, were originally followers of John). For Matthew, what is most important is that John is the forerunner of Jesus. John’s first preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” is identical to Jesus’ first preaching; John is the fulfillment of the Isaian promise of a voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. And, more explicitly than the other gospels, Matthew claims that John is Elijah returned to earth: John’s dress of camel’s hair and a leather belt echoes the description of Elijah in 2 Kings 1:8; and later, in chapter 18, Matthew notes that the disciples understand Jesus is talking about John when he says that Elijah has already come to earth. This is important because of the prophecy in Malachi 4:5 that God “will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes”; Matthew is more careful than the other gospels to spell out in detail that John’s baptizing ministry is the specific fulfillment of prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of the End. Accordingly, Matthew presents the most concentratedly apocalyptic version of the Baptist’s preaching. Mark and John both omit the reference to “the ax lying at the root of the trees,” moving directly to the proclamation of “the one who comes after”; Luke includes both references, but separates them with a block of ethical teaching; only Matthew presents John’s teaching as one uninterrupted flow from the warning to the “brood of vipers” straight through to the gathering of the wheat and burning of the chaff with “unquenchable fire.” The effect of this Matthean editing is to make John a much more imposing figure of an apocalyptic preacher, whose call to repentance is offered as an urgent last chance to escape the coming wrath. The options John gives his hearers reduce to a bare opposition between being “trees” that bear good fruit of repentance, or being “trees” that are cut down and thrown with the chaff into unquenchable fire. In such a context, the vision of the One Who Is To Come becomes ambiguous at best: the promised baptism with the Holy Spirit will, it seems, fulfill and extend John’s baptism for repentance; but baptism with fire is difficult to distinguish here from the unquenchable fire of destruction, and seems more threat than promise. The one slim hope Matthew’s John offers is the promise that the Coming One will gather “his wheat into the granary”; if this is combined with references in Isaiah and Romans to the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s covenant, then the final image of John’s apocalyptic preaching might be taken as an evocation of the Davidic Heir who will unite all peoples in peace. Perhaps Matthew leaves this point in John the Baptist’s teaching incomplete deliberately, in order to show that only Jesus brings the full message of repentance and inclusion in the Reign of God. For the process-relational preacher, the task would be to show how John the Baptist’s preaching does and does not echo the promise of Isaiah and the hope of Romans, thus raising our Advent feeling of expectation and longing for the full coming of Christ.
Paul Nancarrow is rector of of St. George's Episcopal Church, St. Louis Park, MN, and canon theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. He is a regular contributor to Creative Transformation and co-author of The Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in a Relational World.
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