Delivered Sunday, July 17, 2016 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Charlottesville, VA.
Text: Isaiah 10:1-6
Manuscript:
Invocation:
Almighty God, grant that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts bring clarity to your word and glory to your presence.
Isaiah 10:1-6:
Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey! What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.
Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger— the club in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
I’d like to begin by apologizing to my mother.
I grew up in a family that loved (still loves) to read. This has, in many ways, benefited me greatly over the years. It was impossible to grow up in that house without also learning great appreciation for the written word. I like to think that this has made be a better writer, and, perhaps, a better preacher (if not, be gentle with me). It is, after all, said that good writers borrow from other writers, while great writers steal outright.
Whether I am good or great… (or neither), in order to borrow and/or steal from other writers, one must first READ. This is one of the best lessons I learned.
When I was (much) younger, however, I learned a number of different lessons.
One thing I discovered fairly early was that, if my mother was particularly engrossed in a book, she would only APPEAR to respond to what I was saying. Now, those of you who are parents, or who are sufficiently able to recall your own childhood, however, close or distant that might be, will likely know that children ask a LOT of questions. Many are relatively mundane (may I go play outside?…can John come over for dinner?…what are we having for dinner?…(hey John, what are your parent’s making for dinner?)…can I go over to John’s house for dinner?). My mother could, without breaking concentration on her book, answer these questions on a sort of auto-pilot.
As a result, I learned that, if there was something I wanted to do that was probably (ok, definitely) out of bounds, the time to ask was when she was engrossed in a book.
Despite my attempted cleverness (but Mom, you said it was ok), it NEVER worked out for me.
I had learned the wrong lesson.
It’s something we, as humans, are very good at doing.
Some twenty-eight hundred years ago, the Kingdom of Israel (also called the Northern Kingdom), and the Kingdom of Judah (the Southern Kingdom) had been divided for some time. Although both kingdoms were united in their worship of the One God, they were also in economic and political relationship with their neighbors, and were, occasionally in conflict with each other.
The book of Isaiah begins in such a time of conflict. The Assyrian Empire was entering a new age of expansion, had developed a professional standing army, and achieved technological advancements that allowed the capture of even walled cities. Israel and Judah were both relatively prosperous kingdoms, but both were too small to resist the military power of the growing Assyrian Empire. Israel (well, not so much Israel as her king) decided to join a military alliance with the Arameans to resist Assyria. They tried to recruit Judah, but the King of Judah was unconvinced. As a result, Israel and the Arameans decided to attack Judah in the hope of placing a friendlier king upon the throne.
As the Israelite and Aramean armies advanced towards Jerusalem, the Judean king decided to consult with the prophets, including Isaiah. Isaiah, as we heard a few minutes ago, is not particularly concerned about the threat from Israel and the Arameans. Isaiah assures the King and people of Jerusalem that they should NOT join this alliance because Assyria is coming to steamroll Israel—and will even do so with Divine mandate.
This is great news!
Crisis averted.
This was the wrong lesson.
The leaders of Judah heard what they wanted to hear from the passage we read today: the Israelite and Aramean threat wouldn’t last.
What they didn’t pay attention to was WHY God was going to use Assyria to bring down Israel.
God was not permitting the destruction of Israel because they dared attack Judah and were preparing to lay siege to Jerusalem.
No, Israel was going to be punished because of the way the wealthy were treating the disadvantaged. God was coming for Israel because the prosperity of Israel was not being appropriately shared. Because the leaders of Israel were making sure that they benefitted more than anyone else, and in doing so had ignored the scriptural commandments to ensure proper care was taken of those left on the margins: the widows, the orphans, the stranger, the poor. God was preparing to punish Israel because the system was rigged.
Sound familiar?
I live just outside D.C., so politics and polling are in the air. One recent New York Times/CBS poll stood out. The notable number: 69% of Americans think that race relations are generally poor—the highest that number has been since the Rodney King verdict 24 years ago.
I read that, and I can’t help but think that the percentage of people who are worried about race relations seems to track most closely with the percentage of white people who are forced to confront the experience of communities of color.
Over roughly the last 14 years, Philando Castille had been pulled over 45 times before the traffic stop that ended his life, racking up some six thousand dollars in fines. The majority of those stops followed the pattern set by the first: he was cited for violating his learner’s permit—something the officer COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN before the stop. According to NPR, of 46 traffic stops and citations, only 6 were for things the police could have known about before actually stopping him. His most common citations were failure to have proof of insurance and driving on a suspended license (his license having been repeatedly suspended because he couldn’t pay the fines…of course, if he just stopped driving, he’d have a hard time getting to work, thus making paying the fines even more difficult). His story is particularly recent and tragic, but I hope none of us think his was an isolated experience. Fines for failing to pay fines are but one common way of writing oppressive statutes to turn aside the needy from justice.
And lest you think that this experience is limited to the economically disadvantaged, last week, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, took to the floor of the Senate to share some of his experiences, including the fact that, as an elected official, he has been stopped by police 7 times in the past year. One of his staffers had been stopped, essentially for driving a Chrysler, so many times that the staffer just gave up and sold the car. Senator Scott even recounted a time when, after 5 years in the Senate, he was essentially accused by an officer of the U.S. Capitol Police of impersonating a Senator.
49 years ago, the Rev. Dr. King, speaking at Stanford University, said that “large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense, our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.” [quote begins ~24:55, but seriously, watch the whole thing]
Israel’s punishment wasn’t for traffic stops, but it was for the Bronze Age equivalent.
Further, as Isaiah knew, and surely as the wealthy of Judah should have known, Israel wasn’t alone in guilt. Isaiah may have been speaking ABOUT Israel, but he was speaking TO Judah. Isaiah’s words were preserved so that Isaiah could continue to speak through history.
Through that text, Isaiah continues to speak to us today. 49 years ago, Dr. King was speaking to us, and, like Isaiah, his words are preserved.
But Judah didn’t want to hear it, and so, they learned the wrong lesson, and instead of attempting to reform society and build something worthy of divine protection, Judah paid tribute to Assyria to ask for human protection.
Judah sought refuge not with God, but with military power.
Now, if Judah had, like us, only heard the part of Isaiah we read earlier, this may have seemed like a smart choice. The Assyrian military was, at this moment in history, unparalleled. They were the ONLY, perhaps even the FIRST superpower.
But that wasn’t all Isaiah said. Earlier, we heard verses 1 through 6 from chapter 10. In verse 7, Isaiah continues:
“But this is not what he (the Assyrian ruler) intends, nor does he have this in mind; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. For he says: “Are not my commanders all kings? Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols whose images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols what I have done to Samaria and her images?” When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride.” For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I have removed the boundaries of peoples, and have plundered their treasures; like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones. My hand has found, like a nest, the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing, or opened its mouth, or chirped.”
[God responds:]
“Shall the ax vaunt itself over the one who wields it, or the saw magnify itself against the one who handles it? As if a rod should raise the one who lifts it up, or as if a staff should lift the one who is not wood!”
Assyria may be the rod of God, but just because God CAN use Assyria doesn’t mean God NEEDS Assyria.
As Judah learned the wrong lesson from Assyria’s power, so did Assyria. The Assyrians learned that they were nearly unopposed, and so they took too much. Like Israel and Judah, they concentrated the resulting wealth and power of their expansion and might. And so, they, too, were brought down by God: this time using the Babylonians.
From the end of the Second World War through the 1980s, the world was divided between two superpowers. Since the 1990s, much like Assyria, the United States, our own country, has stood alone as the sole super-power.
Like Assyria, God can use our power. Like Assyria, God does NOT NEED our power. Like Assyria, we are judged on how we use that power.
And just to be clear, in case you didn’t hear it before, God’s concern is not for the people of Israel, or the people of Judah, or the people of any particular country. God’s concern is for God’s people. All of us, regardless of human borders. Iniquitous decrees and oppressive statutes are not limited to domestic policy.
I have a long history of being annoyed by Geico ads.
Their current campaign, however, intrigues me—it’s punctuated with the tagline “It’s what you do”
Currently, they are running one where a pirate captain has just taken a ship, and is preparing to seize the gold, when his parrot repeats his plans to hide it from the crew because they are all morons anyway. If you’re a parrot, you repeat things. It’s what you do.
With further apologies to my mother (and all other mothers), another involves a James Bond type secret agent (I assume) taking a call from his mother during a fight. “If you’re a mom, you call at the worst time. It’s what you do.”
If they were to read the prophets, particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah, they might make one “If you’re an empire, you fall. It’s what you do.”
Or, “If you’re a prophet, you say things people don’t want to hear, and watch, helplessly, as they learn the wrong lesson. It’s what you do.”
2,800 years ago, Isaiah spoke truth only to watch Judah learn the wrong lesson. 49 years ago, Dr. King spoke truth, and we learned the wrong lesson.
Today, thousands of our siblings of color are taking to the streets to tell us a truth. What lesson will we learn?
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Note: This Sermon owes much to Richard Rubenstein’s Thus Saith the Lord: The Revolutionary Moral Vision of Isaiah and Jeremiah.