One Little Branch

Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72:1-7


Rockville United Church
Rev. Dr. Duncan D. Newcomer

December 9, 2007

The story of the birth of the baby Jesus is—so much—just a little story. A young woman, a lone man, perhaps the father, a longpath journey: these two people from their little home town of Nazareth go to O Little Town of Bethlehem where they must be registered and taxed by the big, big empire.

In the foreground of this short story is mother-with-child, man, and donkey. And in the background, framing and staging this most minor event, is the Roman Empire, something very big—the enormous political power of Rome, soldiers, law, and power. But in the Bible the empire is not the big background story. The prophet Isaiah is the big background story. So, familiar as we are with the advent of Jesus, very little of the big imperial trapping actually comes through around the telling of this little story.

Instead, it is the language of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah that gives a big background, a large stage and frame of reference, for our little story—Mary, Joseph, donkey and womb-swelling baby-child. It is not Rome, but the Hebrew prophet Isaiah’s visions of God’s greatness, also found in Psalm 72, that is the big stage for our little family drama. The Bible’s Isaiah, not Rome’s empire, frames our almost miniature Holy Family.

For the Bible, it is not Roman law and power but the larger, more true, more ancient stage, drama and play called: God’s justice. Not law, but God’s justice for the nation, and the nations of the world; God’s justice for Jerusalem and the kings like David who come from his roots, David and his father Jesse. Such is the theater of operations, the big picture, that titles and frames our little one act play: the birth of Jesus in a back cow barn, surrounded by a little cast of little characters, animals, shepherds, winged things, and three minor astrologists—coming “kings” on their way under a mysterious star.

And so it might, it may, mean something for us here today to see that the huge drama surrounding our little Christmas play is not Rome’s power but God’s justice: and God’s justice we find out very quickly is not about law, it’s about the spirit of God and the plight of the poor. “Give the king thy judgments, give righteousness to the king’s son,” says Psalm 72, “from mountains to little hills righteousness and peace shall come to the poor and the children of the needy.” All of this by the new king’s coming, so says Psalm 72. And from Isaiah, this vast, but odd, this beautiful, but simple vision, a new shoot from the chopped-down king-line of Jesse, David’s father. There will be a new justice, called righteousness, not law and order; and a spirit of wisdom for the poor, and then the full bloomed political restoration of the home-less-again Jews who are presently captive in Babylon, cut off from the roots and branches of all their lineage of past rulers. While we are oh so used to our humble little Christmas birth of Jesus story, it is oh so significant that the Bible frames the new hope of the kingdom of God coming not as a new theocratic empire, matching Rome, but as the emergence of a tender shoot from the cut down stump of a once and powerful lineage.

Now if you had a little picture of a man and a pregnant young woman on a donkey, what kind of a picture frame would you want to choose for it? Most especially, now, if you believed, or hoped, that this family contained the seed of the best king your people ever had—the once and royal David, how would you want to frame the story of that birth?

And if I were to give you a choice between a shiny gold frame with eagle’s wings (which would befit a Roman Empire, no?) or a frame just made of wooden printed letters, letters in Hebrew spelling out (and backwards at that!) words such as spirit, wisdom, understanding, poor, afflicted, righteousness, and peace, which would you pick?

We know, in this church and season, which one we know we should pick: the rustic wooden, not the shiny golden one. But would we? And more, have we? Do we frame our little life stories, and our seeds of hope, in gold or in wood?

Of course, sadly, we live by imperial gold, even if we still revere the old and simply carved words of Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Christmas narrative of peace and good will, and its eventual gospel in the words of Jesus, which he himself also took from Isaiah about God’s coming for the liberation of the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind and healing of the lame, and the coming free jubilation of the reign of God. God, not the emperor.

And it is so good and so important that we try—even in this season—to choose the old wooden letters of God’s word, not the big gold frame of imperial power. So good, but so hard to do.

When I preach that our faith is counter-cultural, this is what I mean—that we want to put our faith in the old wood-printed letters of Bible righteousness versus the big golden frame of imperial power.

And what, my friends, might such a humble picture of God’s coming, framed in such a prophet’s words, say to us today? Well, of course, this preacher’s hope is that many, many sermon-messages from the prophetic birth of Christ are born in you today. Sermon-time is seed-time and it’s never ever really important what you think of my sermon, but what sermons you receive during this our holy hour in this our sacred place. The tender shoot of Jesus’ birth, surrounded by the singing voices of the Hebrew prophets, surely can bring forth new life and love, new purpose and mission, in you. For we still note, lo, how that rose e’er blooms, from tender stem it hath sprung. Yes, of Jesse’s lineage by prophets sung, just as Isaiah told it, such roses flower bright.

Here’s one garden of Christmas roses—humbly inspired by Isaiah’s words of God’s righteousness for the poor. It’s just a little but amazing story I heard the other day. Here it is, a garden of Christmas-born roses you might find yourself in of your own cultivation.

There is a friend of this church, who will remain unnamed, whose husband over thirty years ago said to his young, young daughter: you need to give away a toy that you have for the poor. And so she did. There is a local branch in government here that, like so many, many organizations, collects and gives away toys and presents to the children of the poor. This is, of course, part of God’s righteousness called for in our Hebrew Bible, our Psalm 72: “he shall save the children of the needy.” But, it also says, and we will deal with this in the future, it also says, not just he shall save the needy children, but he shall “break in pieces the oppressor.” Break in pieces the oppressor.

The fragrance from this rose blooming will show God’s love aright—and he will “decide aright for the land’s afflicted,” striking the “ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips”—remember we prayed this morning in our call to worship for the breath of God to come—and so the prophet Isaiah says that with this emerging shoot that will blossom—“the breath of his lips…shall slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4).

More about that political change later. But for now, so this little girl did as her daddy told her—though I truly doubt that he quoted her Isaiah 11 or Psalm 72. And so it began. So began this yearly practice of this family giving, the collecting of toys and presents for the local government agency to give to the children of the poor. Year after year this happened. It became a habit, a habit of the heart. And like all habits, good or bad, it grew. Some years now, I’ve been told, the entire flight of stairs from the first floor to the second is rank and file with stuffed teddy bears. I’ve been told that whole fleets of bicycles have been donated. This good practice, the practice of goodness, attracts others, and more and more is collected and given. Now, no longer will a car carry the gifts, but a large truck is needed.

We need not know these people’s names. Obviously their goodness speaks for itself and is their own free advertising. We need only to get the message. And text the message to our hearts, and to our hands.

You see, my friends, this little wood-framed story is much more than just: be kind at Christmas. It is the Bible’s version of a competing kingdom. This shoot and sprout from the root system of Jesse and King David is the alternative reality to the empire—the Roman Empire of Jesus’ birth, the Babylonian empire of Isaiah’s prophecy, and, dare we say, the competing alternative to our own commercial and technological military complex, to paraphrase General and President Dwight David Eisenhower.

And we here are a part of that alternative kingdom, the reign of God, not the reign of terror. Ten years before that father we just spoke of instructed his little daughter in the ways of righteousness, some other little humble story started to be told. Forty years ago RUC, the awkward, halting, chaotic, imaginative, inspired church called Rockville United Church, was emerging in its merger of two stems of Christ. And over forty years an entire root trunk branch leaf and bud and blossom came. Now most here know something of this great tree called RUC. It is also the case that along the banks of the Chester River in Eastern Maryland at a church camp called Pecometh, there was a long standing tree, a kind of a willow tree I am told. And over several generations the children of this church played and were supported by the ever-loving—can I say—arms of that tree. But it was blown down last year, and the air around its stump is full of emptiness, if not also sacred memories.

My dear, dear friends, and also visitors and new members, something like that has happened here. While the tree we call RUC has in no way blown down, it is the case that twenty years of historical growth, thirty years of historical growth, forty years of historical growth are over. And while on any one day life can seem almost the same, the same as we, as you, grew to know it, the truth is that tree is no longer our tree. And we will not—and we all must know and accept this, we will not recreate another 20, 30, 40 years worth of growth in a day, a year, even five years.

While we surely have the greatly expanded and healthy vital root system of this forty year old venture, we are, in fact, at the stump place. And we are in need of the faith and the vision of Isaiah, where the new shoot emerges from the stump of Jesse and David, from Rudiselle, Kaseman, Dodds, Poole, Winham, Maccallum and Prugh.

And I have good news, two good newses. As we packed up to leave Camp Pecometh this fall, several of us noticed new shoots emerging from the stump of that old willow tree.

But I have better good news, more than the natural good news of regeneration. We have the good news of this Jesus Christ born in this rustic wood-framed story. By the end of the Bible, by the Book of Revelation, we have these words, words that take us from the ground to the sky, from the ancient roots of Hebrew tradition to the new covenant. For here we find these words: (Revelation 22:16)

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I [says Jesus] am the root and the descendent of David, the bright morning star.”

We are being lifted by the grace of God in Christ from root to branch, from branch to sky, from dark sky to a bright new star.

Our good news from our one little branch to our one great and righteous God.

Amen.