Focusing
Christmas is over. We decorated, celebrated, enjoyed, and shared the day and the season as much as we could – the feast of God-with-us, the memory and celebration of God coming to dwell with us in all the happy / heart-breaking messiness of life in the world.
Now we enter Epiphany – both a day and a season of seeing, and of praying to see the light that has come, and that remains – seeing where and how God’s light remains with us, and for us, and within us, in all the happy / heart-breaking messiness of life in the world.
It’s a time to wonder. Where is God’s light in the world today? And how are we part of it?
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 42:1-9
Isaiah is preaching good news to people who are tired of bad news. The people of Israel are a broken, defeated kingdom. Losers in the normal politics of war and militaristic might, they are living in exile in the land of their conquerors. They are forced to serve the needs of their oppressors, and they suffer at the hands of powerful elites.
At one time, they trusted in their own leaders and elites to save them, and they thought the best answer was to find a stronger, more forceful leader.
But now, the prophet offers them a vision of God raising up a new kind of leader entirely. God’s kind of leader, the prophet says, will not simply beat their enemies at their own game. Instead, God’s leader will change what politics is about, and how it’s done.
The Lord says,
“Here is my servant, whom I
strengthen—
the
one I have chosen, with whom I am pleased.
I have filled him with my Spirit,
and
he will bring justice to every nation.
He will not shout or raise his voice
or
make loud speeches in the streets.
He will not break off a bent reed
nor
put out a flickering lamp.
He will bring lasting justice to all.
He will not lose hope or courage;
he
will establish justice on the earth.
Distant
lands eagerly wait for his teaching.”
God created the heavens and
stretched them out;
he fashioned
the earth and all that lives there;
he
gave life and breath to all its people.
And now the Lord God says to
his servant,
“I, the Lord, have called you and given you
power
to
see that justice is done on earth.
Through you I will make a covenant with all peoples;
through
you I will bring light to the nations.
You will open the eyes of the blind
and
set free those who sit in dark prisons.
I alone am the LORD for your God.
No other god may share my glory.
I will not let idols share my praise.
The things I told you before, have now come true.
Now I am telling you of new things even before they happen.”
Reflection
The word “shepherd” does not appear in the reading. But it is hard to imagine it not being in the background and in the minds of the people hearing or reading Isaiah’s message.
From the very start of their history as a kingdom, Israel lived with a tension between two poles of thinking about their king.
On one hand, they wanted a warrior-king – someone strong, mighty in battle, and able to win and maintain a place for Israel in battle against other kingdoms. Other people around them seemed to have strong warrior-kings, and in order to compete and have a place among other nations – if not above them, is why the first king Israel chose was Saul – a man who fit the bill, and ticked off all the boxes as a strong warrior-king. Except, he was almost immediately a disaster as a leader of God’s people, and he needed to be replaced as soon as possible.
The next choice was David, and David at his best was a shepherd-king. He wasn’t always at his best. He had his own quite significant and tragic failures and flaws. But in many ways David – the shepherd-king, became the alternate archetype or ideal of what a king should be.
And here, in this passage, the language Isaiah uses to describe the kind of king under whom God will restore the people seems to lean pretty strongly towards the side of the shepherd-king. The world is to be made good, and all will be made to live in peace and well-being, when we are led by a shepherd – or shepherds, who do what shepherds do: quietly and without fuss or fanfare caring for the sheep; giving particular time, attention and resources to those who are weak or ill; and taking care that none be lost along the way.
What are we to make of
this, though? The people of Isaiah’s
time knew all about shepherds. They were
part of their world. But what are we to
make of the promise of a shepherd saving us of our ills, and making the world
good? We're not so familiar with shepherds.
But I think I’ve come to know one.
His name is Terry. He’s the Canada Post mail carrier in my neighbourhood in Dundas, and for the longest time, that’s all he was to me. Until a few days after Japhia’s passing, when in with my mail was an envelope with just my name handwritten on it, and no stamp. Inside was a sympathy card from Terry, expressing his sorrow at my loss.
A few days later I happened to be home while he was delivering. I met him at the door to thank him for the card, and I asked how he knew about Japhia’s passing. He saw the notice in the paper, he said. It soon became clear he takes note of us who live on his route, he remembers the names on the envelopes he delivers to our door, and he honestly cares for our well-being.
I’ve talked with him a few times since, and I’m amazed at how honestly he cares for the people on his route, and how a lot of people know and love him in return as a kind and caring man, a friend-as-needed to us all. As someone who helps the world to be good in and through the limits and the opportunities of his place, his job and his relationships in the world.
He says his parents taught him and his sister to respect all people, and he tries to live that out as best he can, wherever he is. And he honestly wonders at how easy it should be – and how hard we make it, for the world to be good, for all people to count, for the wealth of the country to be shared with the poor, for the weak to be cared for, and for people to live in peace.
Every time I talk with him, the light of God glimmers gently and peacefully before me.
Now … Isaiah, of course, is talking about a shepherd-king, not a shepherd-mail-carrier. And no doubt, it would be good if our kings and our premiers, prime ministers and presidents had the Shepherd’s vision and spirit about them in the way they govern. If they did, the world would surely be governed more in accord with God’s will than it is, and the well-being of all would be better served than it is.
But the Bible is pretty clear, God does not pin a lot of hope on kings and princes to do that. In addition to what good they can do, and actually accomplish, God also knows the limits of people who become kings, knows the idolatries they serve and even reinforce, and knows the failings they bring to the big stage and make into public policy.
In Christian teaching, we believe the promise of a shepherd anointed by God for our healing is fulfilled in Jesus – the holy One of God who in his life among us and death for us, refuses to act as king or be made a king, who lives and gives his life instead as a shepherd for the serving, the saving and the well-being of all.
And I wonder, does Jesus see himself as the only shepherd – the one and only Shepherd above and apart from us all through whom God’s love for all is brought to life and shared, and who alone is the light of the world?
Or, does he see himself as One who has come mostly to show us the way of true life, and to call us to follow in it, and live it out ourselves? With the promise that as we do this – as we give ourselves to reaching out to others with a shepherding care and touch, from within whatever limits and opportunities we have in our place in the world, we find our own healing in bringing the chance of healing to others around us? That he comes to us as shepherd, by calling us to become shepherds for others – reaching out to others with the same kind and quality of love, of care, and of kindness that we have received ourselves?
I don’t know this for sure,
but a friend has told me that she learned from a friend of hers who is Muslim,
that a commandment of life that some Muslims follow, is to care for every household
in their neighbourhood and to take responsibility for their neighbours’
well-being in whatever practical ways are available to them. A commandment of God, to be taken seriously.
It makes me think of Terry -- who, I assume, is not Muslim, but who in his own way and in his job lives out that same commandment.
It makes me think of others in my neighbourhood who unbidden and quietly reach out in simple and practical ways of love and care to other households around them, and make the neighbourhood a good place for all.
It makes me think of people around our church in Winona – some of them members of the church, some not – who day by day, week by week, season by season, reach out indiscriminately in love to others around them, in whatever ways – big and little, are available to them.
They are shepherds living in the world with the same Spirit alive in them, that lived in Jesus, thus making their neighbourhood – their little place in the world, a place where the shared well-being of all is real, and where the light of God’s love really does shine in the midst of the happy and heart-breaking messiness of the world as it is.
And when people – you, me, so many others – accept the call to live in this way – to be as a caring shepherd to our neighbours, in our jobs, and in the varied networks that make up our life, as we ourselves have been cared for, the only thing really that limits the shining of God’s light and God’s love in the world as it is, are the limits we ourselves put on our answer to that wonderful question Jesus asks, of who really our neighbour is, and who it is we are called to see and to care for in this way.
In the season of Epiphany, we look for where God’s light is shining in the world as it is.
Maybe one of the questions to ask about that, is how others see
it shining in you, for them?
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