Isaiah 11:1–10
Romans 15:4–9
Matthew 3:1–12
A stump! It all begins with a stump. Those burnt stumps left over after the California wildfires of this season. That stump that is left after the axe has done the work and cleared out the trees that bear no fruit as John the Baptist has just announced. But it is out of a stump that God will work newness. Out of a stump God will raise up a shoot and a bud. In the midst of great loss and devastation, when life has been squashed and lays dormant, God can and will breath his breath, his Spirit. If it is leadership that has become defunct, and the stump in Israel was dysfunctional leadership, then God will send his Spirit to endow new leadership.
We may only see a stump, something that has no life, something that has been cut down and whose life is over. But our God can see more and our God can breathe over what looks lost and restore it to life. And when God breathes his Spirit on leadership, we find that the new leader is all about justice and faithfulness toward the vulnerable, the weak, and the poor; those who have no one to defend them. This leader will have justice around his waist and carry faithfulness on his hip. This is what God-sent leadership is all about–restoring a community that has been burnt over so to speak; a community that has experienced power over service and consumerism over sharing of wealth.
We can shake our heads at such idealism in a leader. We can say the prophet is a bit out of touch with the harsh reality of our lives. Or how can this stump of our existence actually produce such a quality person? For us it is impossible, but God can do such a thing….and our prophet-poet has not come to the end of his poem once justice is operative again in the community….Once there is a restoration of members of the community, the prophet’s vision continues. Now there is a transformation of the natural world as well. Something new is happening there also. Old enmities, old appetites in the food chain, assumptions about the survival of the fittest–all this is turned upside down. Upside down according to our logic. But then our logic, our control, our way of keeping things in order is not necessarily that of God’s. The “peaceable kingdom,” as the vision of the calf and the young lion eating together portrays, is not just something romantic. It is the world and its habitants as it mirrors God’s view of what apparent opposites can be. If we shake our heads and say it cannot be, then perhaps we have stepped out of the poem, out of the vision and returned to the crowd on the banks of the Jordan. The crowd that hears John’s words calling out “think again, think new” –metanoia. But God and his prophets say, step into the way the Spirit filled One is laying out for you and you will enter into a new world. Turn around and know your roots in God, in the harmony of the original creation. Draw on the power and strength of service, respect, intimacy and love that are found in your roots in the garden, among its trees and in the conversation with the one who walked with you there.
Paul speaks plainly of what the Spirit filled anointed Son of the stump Jesse can accomplish in those who believe in. Being baptized in the Spirit one can live in a renewed community where you and I can think in harmony with one another, where with one accord we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul appeals to the community as a body making music together, each voice distinct and with its own color and tone but yet making harmony so that it is one–and singing in recognition of the Father who brought forth new life from a stump.
The vision of an animal world living in harmony is echoed in the human community now gathered around the one John will announce. The poet-prophet opens his description of a new kingdom by saying the wolf will be the guest of the lamb….hospitality is being exercised here. There is a welcome between the creatures we know to be enemies. There is a sharing of life style and above all there is a sharing of food, a sure sign of hospitality. Opposites live with one another in peace for opposition is not the norm but profound respect and a willingness to make harmony work.
But what does Paul tell the Christians, what conclusion does he reach for those who are in Christ: welcome one another. Minister to one another; serve one another for that is the way the Son of Jesse was among you. Do that Paul says and you will be wearing the waistband of justice, truthfulness and faithfulness with which God clothed his Son. What is the key to the vision of the prophet, what was at the heart of Paul’s words to the Christians in Rome? Hospitality, welcome: know that you are a guest and know how to be a host. In that way there will be harmony among you.
Advent is about getting in touch with the vision of God. It is a vision shared in the poetry of the prophet. It was a vision that entered the reality of our world in the One who came to us out of Jesse’s line. Now that it has entered our world, it falls to us to change, to fall into the way that the Jesse’s son and the Father’s Son has shown us—a way that in the end will be a way of peace, harmony, accord and hospitality that welcomes all, even seeming opposites.
~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB