The Household of God

The people of Israel had a chequered history with kings; and the stories of their recorded history show their ambiguity towards the office. They weren’t supposed to have kings, but they wanted them. They should have been able to make it together as a community with the occasional so-called “judge” to rise up and deliver them from their enemies, but for at least some them, this situation was never enough. They wanted more certainty, well at least apparent certainty, than that—they wanted a proper ruler, a Lord, an owner, a Baal, like the peoples who lived around them who always seemed to have it so much better than they.

Now at this point, you are meant to respond immediately with, “But Yahweh is their Lord!” Indeed Yahweh, the saving One was their Lord, the one who had brought them out of slavery into a new land, a land flowing with milk and honey, at least according the stories of their recorded history. But the past always seems so far in the past, and it’s always so difficult to keep your mind in the right frame for the present. The overwhelming possibilities of the future weigh heavily. What if they were overrun, if a “judge” failed to rise up at the right moment, or worse still was defeated? The story of Samson is a salutary tale. The people wanted far more security than that. So they looked for alternate Lords.

The book of Judges tells the story. It lays out the pattern and relates the familiar story in rhythmic and monotonous regularity. The people looked for other “lords”, other gods; Yahweh’s anger was kindled and they came under the power of their enemies; the people cried out in repentance; Yahweh raises up a judge for them; the judge delivers them from their enemies and the land is in peace for the lifetime of the judge; when the judge dies, the people look for new “lords” and the cycle begins again.

What a cycle of domestic violence! No wonder the people want an alternative. Surely, a proper leader, a king is what is required, for Yahweh as their king is not enough to keep them safe.

So, we come to the story of Samuel, the last “judge” of Israel, the last charismatic leader of the tribes who serves to unite them and bring peace, the last non-hereditary wise counsellor and military leader of the people. And the people do not want the same thing to happen that has happened before. This time, they want a proper ruler. They want a king. And they are not going to let Samuel die before a king is anointed.

On behalf of Yahweh, Samuel warns the people that they do not know what they ask. Their proper ruler will rule by confiscating resources, not by inspiring people to live and work together. Their proper rule will keep peace by subjugation and not by inspiration. Their proper ruler will rule.

But the people want a king!

I re-watched the movie Jesus Christ Superstar over the Easter weekend; and I marvelled again at the wonderful tension that Andrew Lloyd Webber creates when Jesus is presented to the people as a possible king, and the crowd cries, “We have no king but Caesar.” This moment captures the irony of the history of the chosen people of God very dramatically—an alternative ruler is offered to them as their leader, but it is not enough, a proper ruler is demanded. And lest we think that this is only part of the Israelite story and not part of our own as the chosen people of God, we should recall the times when we have looked for proper rulers and failed to recognise that we have one already in Yahweh God.

The proper ruler Yahweh journeys with the people in slavery and the wilderness. The proper ruler Yahweh journeys with the people in the mundane and the everyday. The proper ruler Yahweh seeks to inspire and be in relationship, not to subjugate and subordinate. But somehow this never seems enough for us.

We want someone who stands out, who looks good, who rules with a firm hand, who seems powerful and makes us feel that we might be powerful too. We look for the magic quick fixes, and fail to understand that transformation is a journey. We think that there is always something better for us to be, and fail to honour the people whom we have been created. We want someone else to make the hard decisions, travel the difficult journey, fight our battles, and keep everything calm and peaceful at home. We have no king but Caesar.

The coronation of Saul is a time of rejoicing for the Israelites, but we have to hear within it the strange, bitter-sweet sounds of lament—not the lament of the people but the lament of Yahweh and of Yahweh’s prophet, Samuel, that the people of God have once again failed to honour the God who created them, and redeemed them from slavery and has journeyed with them ever since—a house divided against itself cannot stand.

A house divided against itself cannot stand; and the nature of the house is not determined by the ruler, but by the people and the choices they make, particularly not in the household of God where participation is not enforced and compliance not ensured through subjugation. In Jesus, we are offered a household of living and working together with all the ambiguity that is involved in that: the working through of conflicts; the working together for the welfare of all; the working towards the promised hope of transformation that comes about as we open ourselves to God’s journey further and further. This is the household of God—where unity is gift and goal, peace is not silencing each other but working through the hard stuff together, and our brothers and sisters are those who work beside us, not the ones who lord it over us—not for our sakes or for theirs, but for the sake of our proper ruler, Yahweh God, and the welfare of Yahweh’s good Creation.

So, let us remind ourselves again of the nature of the household in which God enfolds us as we affirm our faith…

Life in Old Stumps

[This sermon begins with a reading of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.]

Have you ever been to Fraser Island off the south-east coast of Queensland? It’s an amazing habitat of old, ancient and even prehistoric plants. The history of Fraser Island (human and non-human) is multi-layered. It has been a place of life for plants and animals and people for not just millennia, but eons. Its history, its geography, its botanical beauty is impressive. And it’s not just its present state that's impressive. It’s what it must have been like and what it still has the capacity to be into the future.

It's really quite difficult to imagine the height of trees which would leave stumps in the ground two and three metres across. Human endurance and ingenuity is attested to by the simple marks left in the stumps which once supported planks winding up the tree like a ladder for the timber-getters to climb. There are trees that must have stood for hundreds of years and still stand. There are species found on Fraser Island and nowhere else in the world—the best marine timber, the Fraser Island Turpentine; and the Kauri Pines and the Satinars. In the face of these giants, you can begin to understand how nations and empires would choose for their emblems a tree.

The cedars of Lebanon are a case in point: huge conifers that once populated the mountains of Lebanon; the legendary beams of King Solomon's temple; biblical symbols of majesty and strength but also of earthly pride bringing upon itself divine wrath.

In the reading from Isaiah for today, there is mention of two types of trees of great stature: the oak and the terebinth. But on this occasion the trees are not mentioned in order to describe the strength or majesty of a population. They are mentioned in order to ensure that the readers of Isaiah 6 and the story of call of Isaiah have received the message about the type of call it is. These trees are recorded as stumps.

In the stumps on Fraser Island you can see what time has done to the remnants of those massive trees. Some of them have been burnt. Some of them have rotted. Animals and other plants have claimed them as home and refuge. Subsequent upheavals have pulled them from the ground so that they lie sideways, their roots exposed unceremoniously waiting to decay.

The stumps in Isaiah 6 aren’t promised much better. The prophecy over these stumps is that even if they are all that is left of a once tall tree, still they will suffer the trial of being burnt again: exactly what happens to stumps which are left after a tree has been felled.

But these stumps aren't just the stumps of trees, not even the stumps of very great and magnificent trees. These stumps are symbols of what is promised to happen to the nation of Israel, the covenant people of God. And this is what the prophet Isaiah is being called to announce concerning what God is to bring about. God says to Isaiah (6:9b-10):

‘Go and say to this people:
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.”
¹⁰Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears, and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds,
and turn and be healed.’

For all intents and purposes, God is out against the people. And Isaiah has been called to be the prophet of doom. The contrast of the message announced to the prophet with the visionary experience of the presence of God could not be stronger.

The prophetic message of God given to Isaiah is saying that God does not want healing for the people. God does not want them to be victors. God wants them to suffer. God wants them to find themselves in the very heart of the wilderness. This is not the sort of God that we like to tell our Sunday School children about. This God is truly an awful God—an awe-ful God—a God to stand before in awe.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1)

It is an awe-ful sight—a vision commanding a sense of fearful awe in the face of such a mighty God. It is an awe-ful sight.

The king, Uzziah had died. He'd been suffering from leprosy a long time. His son, Jotham, and then his grandson, Ahaz, had been acting as regents for some time. Even so, his death was of some import. It marked a change in the political intentions of the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom of the Hebrew people. It left Ahaz free to implement his own plans in relation to the threat from the north, the armies of Syria and Israel (or Ephraim) in coalition against Judah in the Syro-Ephraimite War. Ahaz, himself, was interested in coalition with Assyria. Thus Uzziah's death was to mark the beginning of Israel's confrontation with Assyria and the eventual dissolution of both Hebrew kingdoms within a century and a half.

It is clear that by now the Hebrew idea of God had become much more coloured by their experience of kings than had their ideas of kings been coloured by their knowledge of God. So Isaiah envisions God as king in the manner of the kings which surround the Hebrew people—high and exalted above the masses, inflicting hardships and suffering upon the people. And God in true biblical tradition appears in a manner by which the people can understand the significance and truth of this revelation: a prophecy of doom from a King God which the people have made foretelling that they will not be able to return to the innocent faith of the Exodus until they have once again experienced the wilderness. And whom will this King God send with this message of despair—the prophet Isaiah says, "Here I am, send me." (Isaiah 6:8)

For God's sake, who on earth would want to go? Who on earth would want to take on a task like that? For God's sake, Isaiah does—for the sake of a God who loves the people and who wants to be in relationship with them but who is shut out by the images of their own making. For God's sake, Isaiah does: a prophet who sees his own part in the tragedy of the two kingdoms; a prophet who knows himself to be a part of the people who have banished God in favour of kings; a prophet with but one voice to speak into the clamour of the moment in order that the people of God might hear the still, small voice of God in the wilderness. For God's sake, Isaiah does.

For this God is not holy because God sits high and exalted. This God is holy because God enters into relationship with people, with the earth, with the whole of the creation. This God is holy because this God is the source and symbol and mediator of life. It's not just the people of Judah who are suffering in their self-inflicted affliction. It is God as well, cut off and yet continuing in compassion for the people who are part of God's very self.

When I first visited Fraser Island more than 20 years ago, I looked at the stumps there and the trees; and I wondered if God is not happier for us to see God as a tree, rather than as a king—a tree that can be hugged and touched and wondered at; a tree that is an integral part of the whole of the creation, breathing out and breathing in the very breath of life; a tree that is full of life and the ability to give.

And I remember the story of the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein—the tree who gave all that she had to become a stump for the love of just one person. And I remember the story of the Hanging Tree on which the Christ was crucified for the love of the whole world. And I remember the pain of a God groaning with all creation, waiting for the fulfilment of history.

And I know that God would rather be pictured as a tree providing shade and provision in the wilderness than a king, high and exalted above the temple barely able to touch the people except by the hem of a garment. And I know why the prophet Isaiah responded to the call of "Whom shall I send and whom will go for us?" with the words, "Here I am, send me". (Isaiah 6:8) And I know why Isaiah was able to speak those words that seem so harsh about even the stumps of the people being burnt. I know it was because Isaiah knew that God was really the tree.

God was inextricably bound up with the people. God suffered when they suffered without understanding the fate they were bringing upon themselves. God suffered when they chose to run after kings and hurt themselves in the process. God suffered when they ran farther and farther from truth and integrity and closer and closer to death and destruction.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts:
the whole earth is full of God's glory. (Isaiah 6:3b)

The whole earth is God's. The whole of creation is God's—everyone and everything—and when the people are hurt, so too is God. So God sends a prophet with a message of doom which is also a message of hope—a message that God is with the people no matter what they think or feel or say or do; a message that God is with them whether in victory or defeat; a message that is the very ground of their being—that even if only a tenth part of the people should remain, God would still be there to bring fire to the stump; to show that God was God in relationship with the people whether they did or did not want God to be.

Whom shall God send and who will go for the council of God? Surely, we too can only say, "Here I am, send me" in the face of a God who dares to be depicted as the remainder of a tree ready once more to face the fire for “the holy seed is its stump” (Isaiah 6:13b).

The people of Judah are ultimately dependent on God and so are we. Do we dare with Isaiah say, "Here we are, send us" to a God who would rather be a tree than king; who would rather be a stump in the wilderness with us than a high and exalted monarch sidelined from the lives of God’s people?

Love, like a tree,
sends its roots down deep
so when the storms of life abound
and the winds of adversity blow,
it shakes and bends
and goes with the flow
but doesn't break or fall.

And during times of drought
it drives its roots down deeper
so whatever comes and goes—
summer, winter, spring, or fall,
the good times and the bad—
it stands the test of all.

“Love” by Dick Innes, http://www.actsweb.org/wordsoflove/love.php