Isaiah
11:1-10
Advent
2
December
4, 2016
William G. Carter
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch
shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what
his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
Recently
I was in a room of thirty adults, playing a get-to-know you game: raise your
hand if you have red hair, raise your hand if you enjoy the Pittsburgh
Steelers. Then this question came: Raise your hand if you’re left handed. I put
my hand in the air. I was the only one. They all looked at me. Some old
feelings returned.
I
suddenly recalled Mrs. Carr’s kindergarten class. She was teaching us to write,
and she told me I had my pencil in the wrong hand. So I tried to write with the
other hand and it was terrible. She stood over my shoulder, scowled, and shook
her head. So I switched back. This wasn’t fair.
Then
she handed out scissors. I put them in my left hand, tried to cut with them,
and they didn’t work. “No, those are normal scissors,” she said. “Use your
right hand.” I couldn’t do it. So she rummaged around until she found a pair of
ugly green handled scissors and said, “I suppose you will have to use these.” I
tried them with my right hand. “No, no,” she said. “They are left handed
scissors.” So I switched hands, and they didn’t work with my left hand either.
By now the whole class was looking at me. The girls were smirking. It wasn’t
fair.
Life
isn’t fair. We are born with grievous inequities. Some are left-handed, some
are left brained. Some are tall, some are short. Some of us lose weight
quickly, others can’t keep their hands off the Christmas cookies. More to the
point, some are wealthy, some are not. Some discover within themselves great
abilities and advantages, some struggle to simply be average. Some are born to
Presbyterian parents, others born to Muslims. Sometimes the differences separate
us, and it isn’t fair.
It’s like the Baptist
preacher said in 1963: “I have a dream my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character.”[1]
It’s the dream of fairness. It is a worthy dream and it is still dangling out
there ahead of us.
So
we hear Isaiah declare that the Promised One “shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his
ears hear.” It is an interesting addition to what we have already have heard.
The Messiah will be full of the Spirit of God. This Spirit will fill him with
wisdom and understanding, counsel and might. He will be full of knowledge, with
deep reverence for God. And he will also be fair.
That’s where the prophet
is pointing. He will not be swayed by visual deception. He will not believe the
hype or nonsense of what others say. He will see things for what they are. And
this quality of clarity will determine how he judges.
Now, that word “judge”
is a venerable word. For the Jews, it hearkens back to a time when the land was
governed by people called judges. They were local authorities. You took your
case to them, and they decided. If there was something wrong, they had the
ability to fix it. If a grievance needed to be addressed, they had the power to
do so.
Their fairness depended
on the quality of their character. If they were good people, they would make
good decisions. If they were sleazy, if their opinions could be purchased, then
the victims might be in further trouble. All the more reason why justice had to
be independent from what the judge saw or what people were saying.
Maybe you remember the
statue of Lady Justice, which hearkens back to the empires of Egpyt, Greece,
and Rome. She stands with the scales to measure out right from wrong, and she
is blindfolded. That’s the ancient way of declaring that true justice is fair.
Justice
means that everybody has the same opportunity, that no one can buy their own
way, that truth is not determined by hiring an army of high-priced attorneys.
Justice means that even the scam artists have to live with themselves late at
night. By day, they can surround themselves with the best friends money can
buy. But there comes a time of reckoning when all shall be revealed, and all shall
be judged fairly.
This
what Isaiah hopes for all of us. The Holy One who is coming, the One who is so
full of God’s Spirit, shall preside over the poor with righteousness – with
clear character. He will decide with fairness for the meek of the earth. From
where I stand, the world still needs this. We need that kind of Messiah.
Maybe
it would help us to listen to one another. God knows we need that, too. Last
year, there was great controversy on the Princeton University campus. Princeton
has the Wilson School of International Relations. It’s named after Woodrow
Wilson, who was the university president before he was elected president of the
nation. He was instrumental in creating the League of Nations, precursor of the
United Nations. He was also a notorious racist, who fired African Americans
from government posts when he went to Washington.
Students
at the university learned this. They invaded the university president’s office
and protested with a sit-in. The conversation continued. What do you do? Do you
change the name of the Wilson School, or name it after Flip Wilson? Do you
recognize the great achievements of an outstanding president who had moral
flaws? What would be the fair thing to do?
The
controversy is still simmering. Last we heard, the school decided to keep its
name and put up a plaque that said something like, “President Wilson was a good
guy who had some issues.”[2] Can
you understand that people who have had to deal with discrimination all their
lives don’t believe that Princeton is really addressing the deep hurt that
lingers?
Whether
you are left-handed or dark-skinned or whatever else, you hunger and thirst for
fairness. Sometimes we begin to learn the lesson at our family tables.
The
father puts a fresh apple pie on the dinner table. Three kids lean forward and
lick their lips. Mmm, apple pie! Dad
says, “Wait a minute. It needs to be cut.” He hands a knife to the oldest child
and says, “You cut the slices, and the other two get to choose their pieces
before you.” She leans over that pie
and, with surgical skill, slices the pie. All the pieces are absolutely
identical. You can’t have the little brother complain, “Her piece is bigger
than mine.”
Now,
that’s a smart parent. It’s a replay of the golden rule: “do unto others as you
would have them do to you.”
So
we watch and hope for fairness, for the One who is not bribed nor swayed by
public opinion, but regards each person as a child of God, worthy of love,
worthy of justice. And while we watch and hope for that One to come, we can
pledge ourselves to live as if he is already among us.
The
best wisdom from a young girl named Scout, and her father Atticus. Remember
them from the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird? Scout says, “I thinks
there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” Atticus adds, “If you can learn a
simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along better with all kinds of folks. You never
really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,
until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."[3]
Good advice, especially when it comes to living out fairness for you and I and
all our neighbors.
Do
you know what would really make things fair? If only the Messiah could climb
inside our skin and walk around in it!
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