The Compassionate God Who Never Abandons Anyone

Sunday, January 11, 2004 (First Sunday after the Epiphany; The Baptism of Our Lord)

By The Very Rev. James Hubbard, Dean Interim

- Isaiah 42:1-9
- Psalm 89:20-29
- Acts 10:34-38
- Luke 3:15-16,21-22

(From The Lectionary Page)

The neo-Babylonian empire did not long survive the death of Nebuchadnezzar in the year 562 B.C.E. At that time there were two great powers in the Near East—Media and Babylonia. The Persian Cyrus, king of a small principality, succeeded in overturning both of these major powers, Media in 550 and Babylonia in 539 some 11 years later. It was an exciting, perhaps fearful, period and it was during this time that a new prophet arose in Israel.

His name was not transmitted with his message, but his message took the political implications of these world changing times and reinterpreted them as a drama of redemption. It was a redemption completed by the God of the unpronounceable name, the God of Israel and Judah. So we have a prophet without a name proclaiming a God whose name no one dared say. He prophesied that Cyrus would come to power and that Cyrus, this Persian infidel, was to be God’s instrument in returning Israel’s exiles home and in restoring Jerusalem from its destroyed state to its former prestige and power.

Though we know not his name, his words have been preserved at the end of the book Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40. These chapters, 40-46, are known simply as Second Isaiah. “It is,” in the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, “a prophecy tempered with human tears, mixed with a joy that heals all scars, clearing a way for understanding the future in spite of the present. No words have ever gone further in offering comfort when the sick world cries.” [1955, The Prophets, Harper & Row, New York, p. 145]

The passage read this morning is the first of a series of Servant Songs, which have been taken by Christian authors to refer to Jesus. The reference in the Gospel Story that at Jesus’ baptism God spoke and said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” is a quote from our Second Isaiah text, which is itself translated to proclaim, “here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights.” But who was the servant in whom God delighted? Scholars agree that he was one of four possibilities: a contemporary person known to the prophet, the prophet himself, the nation of Israel or a purely ideal or imaginary figure. The Christian evangelist, Luke, obviously chose the latter and declared him to be Jesus, but most scholars believe that the prophet had the covenant people of Israel in mind.

This servant was to be anointed by God and immediately, the prophet claims three things. 1) He will bring justice, and 2) he will not call attention to himself in doing so. He will bring his justice with great mercy so that “a bruised reed he will not break, “ that is, an injured person will not be hurt further, and “a dimly burning wick he will not quench,” i.e., a weak soul will not be stomped on. 3) This servant will not lose strength until he has both established justice and the coastlands or the surrounding nations are ready to receive his teaching. This servant himself embodies justice in five beautiful ways, for he is humble, compassionate, faithful, strong, and compelling.

So what does all of this mean to us? What did it mean to those folk in the fifth century B.C.E.? It is, I believe, God’s affirmation that he will abandon no one. No one. All will have the light of God through justice. The weak and injured among the covenant people, those poor souls in exile, many of them still in prison, and finally, those in lands which do not serve the one God of truth and justice, all will learn of the yearning compassion of this God. This God is one who will not abandon those he has created and sustained, those to whom he gives breath.

What a remarkable message in a world where to be abandoned is the common experience of all. Abandoned when a parent dies, abandoned by divorce, abandoned as an infant by a mother who can’t take care of you, abandoned by your friends when you do something you shouldn’t or maybe when you do something you should. To be abandoned as a political prisoner, or an economic misfit, or an employee whose company needs to improve profits, or whose government wants to cut taxes. To be abandoned in the world is experience of everyone at one time or another, and this God, this great God, who declares only that He is, and that He is to be known because he lives, this God says that He will bring justice by the agency of his servant to all of the weak and despairing of the world. This One sends His son. This One reaches out to you and to me, and through you and through me to the world. In our lesson God says, “I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name.”

Someone gave me a book written by Mother Teresa. [1995. A Simple Path, compiled by Lucinda Vardey. Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 99-100] Mother Teresa put it this way, “I was once walking down the street and a beggar came to me and he said, ‘Mother Teresa, everybody’s giving to you. I also want to give to you. Today, for the whole day, I got only twenty-nine paise and I want to give it to you.’ I thought for a moment: if I take it he will have nothing to eat tonight, and if I don’t take it I will hurt him. So I put out my hands and I took the money. I have never seen such joy on l anybody’s face as I saw on his—that a beggar, he too, could give to Mother Teresa. It was a big sacrifice for that poor man who’d been sitting in the sun all day and had only received twenty-nine paise. It was beautiful: twenty-nine paise, is such a small amount and I can get nothing with it, but as he gave it up and I took it, it became like thousands because it was given with so much love.”

That’s the message of the servant song of Second Isaiah. This God gives his love through his servant, and you and me. Even a beggar can be His servant. We bring God’s justice to those who feel abandoned and we say ‘God loves you,’ and He will never abandon you. And even the culturally abandoned, like the beggar, can know and give love, can share and build justice strong and true and compelling. Are you feeling abandoned today? The God of the unpronounceable name is there for you this morning. Here in bread and wine. Here in the company of the servant people, the covenant people, the people of the way of the cross, people beggared by the lack of love, enriched by a surfeit of grace, who still have a lifetime of learning the meaning of the God who is here and who will never abandon them. You too are his servant, whom he upholds, his chosen, in whom his soul delights. He has put his spirit of compassion upon you; you will both know and bring forth justice…., justice which is humble, compassionate, faithful, strong and compelling. Amen.