Isaiah 43:16-21 March 13, John 12:1-8 Watercourses in the Negev - Scriptures

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1 Isaiah 43:16-21 March 13, 2016 Psalm 126 Lent V Philippians 3:4b-14 Matt Moorman John 12:1-8 Watercourses in the Negev - Scriptures Isaiah 43:16-21 (NRSV) 16 Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. Psalm 126 (NRSV) 1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. 2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, The LORD has done great things for them. 3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. 4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. 5 May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. 6 Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Philippians 3:4b-14 (NRSV) 4b If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. John 12:1-8 (NRSV) Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor? 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. 1

2 Watercourses in the Negev There's a region in the south of Israel-Palestine called the Negev. It's a dry, desert region, not unlike parts of the American southwest. It's inhospitable and, aside from some parts near the sea, it's nearly void of permanent human settlement. Many scholars believe the writers of the Book of Exodus were referring to this region when they describe Moses and the Israelites wandering the wilderness for forty years. Which is interesting, since tradition holds that upon escaping Egyptian slavery, the Israelites didn't enter the promised land until after forty years of wilderness wandering. Yet there they were, already in the promised land, but still somehow lost in the desert. They were strangers in their own land. Where they should have found homecoming and hospitality--milk and honey--they instead encountered yet more exile and estrangement. In fact, this kind of exile, being in the land but not of it, was so common for the Hebrews throughout their history that much of what we now call Old Testament, or Jewish, religion assumes a starting place of exile. So we begin our journeys as strangers in our own lands. This reminds me of Northern Ireland. Historically, Northern Ireland is a country full of strangers in the land. From approximately 1968 to 1998, two Northern Irish groups engaged in a prolonged, violent ethno-political conflict there, known simply as "the Troubles." Throughout this conflict, over 3,500 people were killed, and nearly 50,000 people were wounded. And while empire certainly played its part, the Northern Irish Troubles were much more complicated than 2

3 just another foreign colonial power oppressing a native population, as happened so often throughout British history. In the 17th century, the British King James I sent tens of thousands of Scottish and English settlers --the majority of whom were Presbyterians--to "plant" communities in the north of Ireland--a region known as Ulster. While these Ulster Plantations were a form of economic colonialism, they were also the transplanting and intermingling of ethnically- and economicallysimilar groups, native to the Celtic Islands, where for the most part the only noticeable differences were religious and linguistic. The native Irish were Roman Catholics who spoke the Irish language, while the planters were exclusively Protestant by decree, who spoke either English or Scots Gallic. Other than these differences, they farmed, fought, feasted and fested almost indistinguishably. But that didn't stop them from murdering each other in the streets in the name of either loyalty to the United Kingdom or Irish nationalism. So we can begin to see that the conflict in Northern Ireland was not simply one of wealthy English gentry oppressing Irish peasants. It was a problem of two groups being in the land, but not of it. It was a problem, particularly as the generations passed, of two groups of people who were strangers in their own land. It was a problem of exile, experienced by both Catholics and Protestants. It was not a problem of natives versus foreigners--it was a problem of two native groups struggling with how to come to terms with who they were and how they should relate to their neighbors and their land. It was existential exile, and existential exile is just another word for sin. 3

4 And sin leads us back to the Israelites, who after wandering the wilderness for a generation, promptly started a succession of wars with the neighboring Canaanite tribes. The Israelites, it seemed, could be in the land, but not of it. They seemed destined to suffer the consequences and insecurities of such a problem. From the Egyptians, to the Persians, to the Assyrians, to the Babylonians, the Israelites routinely found themselves at war with their neighbors and at war with themselves, exiled not just from the land, but from their neighbors and from themselves. And this is precisely the moment the Prophet Isaiah comes onto the scene. In the midst of the death, destruction and despair of the Babylonian exile, the Prophet breaks forth with a word from the Lord: "I'm about to do something new. It's already happening now--don't you see it? I'm making a way through the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." The Negev, this desert region in the south of Israel-Palestine, being both mountainous and exceptionally dry, is bisected by dry riverbeds, or wadis, running through the valleys and canyons. On the rare days the region gets rain, these wadis suddenly transform into torrential rivers, irrigating the surrounding landscape for months and sometimes years. Surely the presence of these water sources would be a welcome relief to any travelers passing through the area. In fact, "watercourses in the Negev" became idiomatic for the sudden appearance of a grace within Hebrew culture. The Psalmist records a song which was liturgically sung by Jews on the road to Jerusalem for Passover pilgrimage. They would sing, "Restore our fortunes, o Lord, like watercourses in the Negev." It's a joyful song, one full of hope and promise. "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy." 4

5 And the Lord responds, by way of Isaiah, in a refrain that bursts forth suddenly in the desert of despair, "You don't have to live like this! There's a different way, a way toward peace and fulfillment. I will make the way in the wilderness!" There's a neighborhood in west Belfast called the Shankill, and to this day the curbs are painted blue white and red, Union Jack flags fly regularly and prominently, interspersed among liberallyhung blue, white and red bunting. On the gable ends of the red brick row houses you'll find mural after mural after mural. One says, "God save the Queen," with a painting of Queen Elizabeth's likeness in the background. Others have pictures of men in balaclavas, holding assault rifles, with the initials of loyalist paramilitaries underneath: UVF, UFF, UDA. One just reads, "Ulster says no," which refers to a famous speech made by loyalist leader--and Presbyterian minister--ian Paisley in No one in Ulster knew exactly what they were saying "no" to, but it sounds a bit like a line at a Trump rally. You'll even see Israeli flags placed prominently--because we all know you can't be a true Protestant until you support all the oppressive regimes in the world... At the southern edge of the Shankill there's a concrete wall with barbed wire on top, with more murals facing the neighborhood. On the other side of this wall is a strip of undeveloped land about 25 feet wide, and on the other side of this strip is another wall with barbed wire, and a different neighborhood on the other side. This neighborhood is called the Falls, and here you'll find green, white and orange flags flying from windows, street names and business signs written in the Irish language. Here you'll see different murals. One says, "Tiocfeaidh ár lá" (pronounced "chu-kee er law"), which means "our day will come" in Irish, and in the background is a painting of a closed fist held straight in the air. There are more pictures of men in balaclavas, holding 5

6 assault rifles, but these have the initials of nationalist paramilitaries underneath, in particular the IRA and its dissident groups. Here instead of Israeli flags you'll find the flags of various Palestinian terror organizations, like the PLO, because I guess you can't support violent terrorism in Ireland without supporting it everywhere else in the world... Over the last few decades, some of the mural artists from both the Protestant and Catholic communities in Belfast have begun to realize the negative impacts of memorializing violent sectarianism, even if much of it is a thing of the past. So they got together and started painting over the violent murals. There's a brilliant documentary about this process on Netflix called "The Art of Conflict," and I highly recommend it to anyone interested. These artists, instead of celebrating war and sectarianism, have started painting scenes celebrating their common ethnic and religious heritage, celebrating a future free from violence, celebrating the advent of peace and wholeness in communities that had none only a few short decades ago. And so the Prophet says, "See, the Lord is doing a new thing, restoring our fortunes, like watercourses in the Negev." But, you see, there's something I forgot to mention about these sudden, rapid rivers that spring up in the desert: while they're certainly a welcome relief to those who are thirsty, they're also incredibly destructive. This new way in the wilderness not only irrigates the surrounding earth, but also often destroys the vegetation and habitats in its way. The river gives life, but it also brings death, usually at the same time. And so we have Paul, who has every reason to hold onto his ethnic and religious privilege: a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of religious law--he was as perfect a Jew as any could hope to 6

7 be. He was ethnically "pure" and religiously exacting. He spoke the Hebrew language and he followed the law to the letter. It was quite easy for Paul to lean into his in-group, and to shut out everything else. But God did a new thing in Paul--God encountered Paul in the living Christ, and nothing was the same after that. All the things Paul had worked for his entire life were now, as he so poetically put it, excrement. Compared to this new thing happening in Christ, all the old stuff was a worthless pile of poo. And what is the new thing happening in Christ? Resurrection from the dead. In Jewish thought, resurrection from the dead was the belief that God would restore all of material, historical existence, that, along with individual human bodies, God is also restoring our eco system, political systems and economies. But Paul says this hasn't happened yet, so how can we participate in it? How can we join in with the new thing God is doing? How can we affirm the resurrection from the dead? According to Paul, we must "share in Christ's suffering by becoming like him in death, if somehow we are to attain the resurrection from the dead." This is massively significant: Paul is saying the way we know that God is doing a new thing is by participating in the suffering of this world. I don't think this means we should all go emo, paint our nails black and take frowny selfies, I think it means we should learn how to accept criticism and painful sacrifice. We can't paint a new mural without painting over the other one. With every good change comes the loss of something that came before it. We can't move past our insecurities and anxieties without first confronting and defeating them. We can't build a more just society without first tearing down the old one. We can't come into a new, more enlightened consciousness without first breaking the old one. We can't be resurrected if we don't first die. 7

8 John gives us this strange account of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus' feet. Here we have Mary literally dumping out a 12 ounce bottle of perfume on Jesus' feet. And this wasn't a cheap can of Axe spray either--it was nard, a rare perfume imported from the Himalayans, and a 12 ounce bottle of nard in first century Palestine would have cost the equivalent of $20,000, or a year's wages for a menial worker. If you're like me, you're probably wondering, like Judas, how many hungry people could be fed with $20,000. But Jesus doesn't join in Judas' rebuke of Mary. Instead he praises her. He tells Judas, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. What an odd thing to say to someone. Jesus here is criticizing the present system. He's saying the old way of doing things, the common purse, giving alms to the poor, is actually getting in the way of real justice. Charity to the poor is actually what is allowing these injustices to persist. And Mary, this first century Palestinian woman, is the only one who seems to get that the way to experience this new reality is by actively participating in the death of Christ--because no death, no resurrection, right? (It should not be lost on us here that Mary is also the first to witness the resurrected Christ later in John's narrative.) So she washes Jesus' feet with the most expensive thing she owned, and in doing so she sacrifices a year's worth of work. Keeping in mind this was also the home of Lazarus, who was previously dead, upon pouring this perfume out, the stench of death and rigor mortis is replaced by an overwhelming fragrance of love and devotion. So what does this mean for us? Does it mean we should stop all our charitable work? Not necessarily, but maybe a little: are there things in our lives that protect us from actually having to 8

9 sacrifice anything? Are there things we do and believe that, while perhaps well-intentioned, only serve to prop up the old way of doing and believing? There are times when we can't see the forest for the trees, and there are times when we can't see the desert for the sand. And it's those times, times of existential exile, when we most need a new thing, like watercourses in the Negev, springing upon us suddenly to break down the old ways and to point us toward a new way. The way of Christ. The way of sacrifice and suffering and death-which-leads-to-resurrection. I'll finish by saying, as the Irish do, "Dia duit" (pronounced "dia gwitch"), which means "God be with you." And I ask that you respond, per the Irish, "Dia is Mhuire duit" (pronounced "dias murra gwitch"), which means "God and Mary be with you." And, while I know the Irish are referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus, I'm going to be a Protestant and Protest a bit by suggesting it actually refers to God in Christ and Mary Magdalene with her $20,000 bottle of perfume. 9