Upheld by the Spirit
Isaiah 42:1-9
January 13, 2008
Baptism of the Lord Sunday
Leslie A. Klingensmith
Late last week, I started reading the novel The Book of Marie by Southern writer Terry Kay. Kay is not an author I was familiar with, and I had not heard of this book. My husband Ed, knowing my passion for reading book reviews and having a list of about fifty "pending" books at any given time, takes great delight in finding something that I have never heard of and have not placed on my ever-growing Amazon wish list, and getting it for me as a gift. Once in awhile he misses, but most of the time he finds books that I would have read on my own if I had gotten to them first. This one, for example, is an engaging, thought-provoking story that transports the reader back more than five decades. I can't imagine how I did not know about it from all the scoping I normally do in bookstores and online. I've been glued to the book for several days, and Ed is feeling quite smug.
The Book of Marie is set in the small fictional Georgia town of Overton in 1954. The first stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement are just getting underway, but has not yet penetrated the insulated world of Overton. One of the protagonists, the high school quarterback Cole Bishop, fits what I would imagine the profile of many teenagers were at that time. He is not a malicious or cruel person, but accepts segregation as "the way things are" without really even thinking about it. He does not question why he does not attend school or church with African-Americans, and is much more preoccupied with football and dating than with any concern or even awareness of issues of social justice or race relations.
At the beginning of Cole's senior year of high school, his world is turned upside down, as is that of his peers, by the arrival of a new girl in their school. Marie Fitzpatrick moves to Overton from Washington, D.C., bringing with her a boatload of attitude. Marie thinks that the social hierarchy of Overton High School, based as it is on athletic prowess and economics, is absurd. She is brilliant, and not afraid to let the other kids know that. Marie is appalled by the separation of the races in Overton, and shrewd enough to recognize the consequences that unjust laws have for the black children in their town. We all know that teenagers can be cruel, and Marie quickly becomes an easy target for the teasing and pranks of the football players and cheerleaders. Marie pretends to not be bothered by their taunts, but in reality she feels the pain of her isolation keenly.
Against all odds, Cole Bishop and Marie Fitzpatrick become friends. Her acerbic personality annoys him, as do her quick judgments of him and her stinging comments. Cole is basically kind, though, if a little on the clueless side, and he senses the loneliness that she hides behind her rudeness. Even more importantly, he quickly learns that Marie has a different side to her, one that includes a heart for justice and a determination to do the right thing. Early in their friendship, Marie asks Cole to come to her house, saying that she has something she wants to show him. When Cole goes there, he is shocked to find that Marie has set up a small school in her family's garage, where she is teaching several young black children to read. Cole has no idea what to think about this. "Why doesn't their mother teach them to read?" he asks. "I can't believe you would even ask that question," Marie shoots back. "Their mother can't teach them to read because she can't read herself! Where would she have had a chance to learn in this town? The so-called schools for black children are awful!" This is the beginning of Cole's awakening to the inequities of his small world. Sadly, Marie's small classroom is soon disbanded - the children's mother is too afraid of trouble to let her children continue to learn.
I like to hope that even before Brown vs. the Board of Education and the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, that there were Maries out there, and not just in the deep South. The world needs people like this fictional character Marie Fitzpatrick - people who are focused on doing what is right and fair without it having to be mandated by law, people for whom being liked is less important than being just, people who speak truth to power (be it the power of government or the potentially devastating power of the "popular crowd" in the school cafeteria. People like Marie bring a prophetic witness to their surroundings, whether or not they ever become famous for it.
The words from Isaiah and Matthew that we are looking at today speak to us about the responsibility that comes from being identified as one of God's people. Immediately after Jesus' baptism, God's Spirit descends like a dove and says "This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Through the voice of the prophet Isaiah, God similarly introduces "the servant" at the beginning of Isaiah 42. "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him. . ." Isaiah goes on to describe the characteristics of this servant, which we will look at more fully in a moment, but I want to focus first on this issue of identity. In both these cases, when the servant is named and when Jesus is baptized, God's spirit comes upon the person. The Isaiah passage is the more explicit of the two, but since we all know the story of Jesus' ministry and teachings, it seems clear to me that with the gift of God's spirit coming upon us comes serious responsibility. At the moment we receive the Spirit of God into our lives, we are accountable to someone other than ourselves and responsible for people and nations other than our own. We see from both of these passages that an outpouring of God's spirit on us is not an end in itself - it is the beginning of a whole new way of living and being.
Furthermore, Isaiah tells us that God expects these responsibilities to be carried out in a spirit of gentleness and reconciliation. "The servant will not cry or lift up the voice; will not break a bruised reed, will not quench a dimly burning wick." I thought of these words as I read The Book of Marie. As sympathetic a character as Marie is, the reader gets frustrated with her. She is so contemptuous of her peers, and so uninterested in trying to understand who they are and how they became the people that they are, that she has trouble getting her important and true messages heard. She turns people off, they think she is crazy and want nothing to do with her. As admirable as her goals and commitment are, she would make much more headway in realizing them if she could build a community of committed people, rather than tearing down the people who potentially could be part of that community. (PAUSE)
Who, exactly, is "the servant?" II Isaiah includes four "servant songs," each of which is a description of God's highest hopes of the servant - what God expects the servant to do and who God expects the servant to be. Isaiah predicts both suffering and glory as parts of the servant's destiny. Academics have debated for years whether "the servant" described by Isaiah is intended to describe an individual, or if the servant was a metaphor for the nation of Israel. I think, and this is also an interpretation that has been corroborated by much more adept biblical scholars than I am, that both interpretations are valid. Certainly individuals are called to engage in the ministries that Isaiah describes - setting prisoners free, serving as a light for others, opening the eyes of the blind - we all can and should be part of this.
In our Christian context, it has been common to think of Jesus as the prototype of the servant. That is certainly one valid way of looking at it, but Jesus' embodiment of these characteristics in no way lets us off the hook. If we are serious about following Christ, that includes imitating him and finishing out the ministries that he started. Isaiah commentator Paul Hanson theorizes that the original readers of the servant songs most likely "found in the description of the servant's vocationan invitation to reflect on the responsibility of all who acknowledge God's sovereignty and recognize the dependence of all creation on God's order of justice (Interpretation, p. 41). Hanson goes on to say that "Rather than being a biographical description of one person in one place and time, the Servant is a description of the human being whom all who love God are challenged to become." However, even more importantly, with enough individuals that take the idea of the servant seriously, societies and nations can be brought around, can come to see themselves as a servant people. This mental and spiritual shift it crucial in my book, because groups of people compelled by their faith to do the right thing and committed to holding each other accountable, can make a huge difference in how we live together on this planet.
The servant will bring forth justice to the nations. That is really what it's all about. The other tasks - setting free the prisoners and giving sight to the blind, etc., essentially fall under this major umbrella of brining forth justice. Not justice only for our nation. Not justice for nations that agree with us, and everyone else can just take their lumps. Let's look for a minute at this word Isaiah uses that we translate in English to "justice," but really does not have an English equivalent. Isaiah uses the Hebrew word mishpat, which Hanson describes as "the order of compassionate justice that God has created and upon which the wholeness of the universe depends." In other words, the turmoil of our neighbors in Kenya (300,000 displaced people) is not someone else's problem. The refugee Iraqis that have nowhere to go - they are most certainly our problem. Becoming the servant people and nation that God is calling us to be requires us to be engaged in our world and informed about what is happening to people we do not know personally. Then, we are called to progress another step and do whatever we can to right those situations that cause such suffering and heartbreak.
It is overwhelming. There is no question. Sometimes I want to crawl under a stack of blankets and pull the covers over my head, because I feel so powerless in the face of the world's problems. There is hope, though. There is hope to be found in both of these passages. We are not alone in these tasks. We do not carry the burden of these responsibilities ourselves. We are upheld by the God who calls us in the first place. Upheld by God's spirit, which has been so generously poured out upon us. This is the God who formed a covenant with Abraham and Sarah, who has taken us by the hand and kept our lives from the beginning. This is not a capricious God, or one who has the slightest intention of running out on us. We know what Jesus faced as he became an adult and was baptized into the ministry for which God had created him. It must have been difficult for Christ - to move forward knowing that he would be misunderstood and betrayed and that he would eventually suffer for his convictions. But God held him up, and gave him the strength and the courage that he needed. And Isaiah tells us that God upholds the servant and that God's spirit rests on the servant. I pray that we here at St. Matthew can continue to develop as Servant People, upheld by the spirit and empowered to bring forth God's mishpat wherever we might find ourselves.
Amen.
