On the fierceness of the New Testament and the gentleness of the Old!

 

Sermon. 4/12/2022. Advent 2 (Year of Matthew)

Isaiah 11.1-10

Matthew 3.1-12

 

There is no football in this sermon.[1] I am not proud of this. I am not ashamed of this.

 

Here’s a thing that does involve some shame. Here is an attitude I think it is hard for us fully to shake off. I mean that sense that

·        the god of the Old Testament is a god of judgement, anger, war, and narrowness;

·        the god of the New Testament is a god of forgiveness, love, peace, and inclusivity.

It is a contrast deeply if quietly embedded in our society.

Even if Christians are now a minority in the country (as we are told we do), some notions are still around.

I suspect that this is one of them.

Bluntly, the god of the New Testament replaces the god of the Old, and it is good that it is so.

 

I have already said that some shame attaches itself to this habit of contrast. So my criticism is implicit already.

Let me be explicit:

this contrast, this antithesis is not a Christian belief.

It has no place in authentic Christianity.

It is at very best an oversimplification a tired Sunday-school teacher might stumble into, on an off-day.

But put more simply: it is heresy, pure.

The Christian claim is that (GOD) is One, and Revelation is one, from Genesis to Revelation.

From Genesis to Revelation, (GOD), the One (GOD),

is faithful, creative, loving, forgiving, is for us, is with us.

 

That’s not all, of course.

Another side to this is that when we think of human beings’ relationship to (GOD), we have to say: “it is complicated”.

And so, again, from Genesis to Revelation,

there is much that is attributed to (GOD)

and even much that really does seem to come from (GOD)

which is sharp, harsh, challenging and dark.

I say again: from Genesis to Revelation. In both Old and New Testaments.

 

Why do I say this now?

If ever we wanted to invert the usual contrast (the tired and heretical contrast)

between the god of the Old Testament (furious)

and the god of the New Testament (fluffy),

we could do a lot worse than begin with today’s readings.

I am thinking of the Gospel

and the text from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament,

chosen to mirror, or echo, or anticipate, or match it, from Isaiah.

 

Even if you were not paying 100% attention to these readings, 

I think even at a headline level, the contrast was clear:

John the Baptist in the New Testament (the New) brings warning and judgement;

Isaiah in the Old Testament (the Old) brings peace and healing.

That way round.

 

Let us look at some details.

In today’s Gospel, John, the prophet of (GOD) comes and speaks of… sin. 

Worse than that, he addresses people like this:

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?... every tree… that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand… the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Stern stuff. It may be even sterner than we realise. From all that John says, we might want to rescue the promise of baptism in the Holy Spirit, and say that the promise of baptism in the Spirit is something good and hopeful and joyful. But I must ask you to curb your enthusiasm. We have to remember that the word for Spirit has a wide range of meanings. The Greek pneuma, like the Hebrew, ruach, means spirit, and it also means breath, and it also means wind. It is all about motion, about energy. So when John the Baptist promises one who will baptise with… wind and fire, he may actually be promising a fire fanned into flame, an out-of-control fire, a conflagration. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

Contrast all of this (if we call it a message of crisis and purification, we are being kind) with the utterly stately-majestic poetry of the First Reading. A different prophet (not John but Isaiah) promises one who

with righteousness… shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth… The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them… They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

No judgement, no wrath, no fire, but welcome, peace and inclusion. 

Transformation beyond your wildest dreams.

Who would not long for such a meeting with (GOD) on these terms?

Again, some details. Again, if anything, our translation understates the peacefulness and transformation of Isaiah’s vision.

Our translation says of the one to come: “with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked”. That’s the translators choice. Every bit as close to the Hebrew is to say “with the breath of his lips he shall kill off wickedness”.[2]

The underlying idea is clear:

whatever striking there has to be, it is his mouth which will do it

(speech not sword);

whatever killing-off has to be done, it is his lips which will do it

(words not weapons).

And that in turn is 

because of the spirit of gentleness (variously described in the opening verses) 

which rests upon him.

In Hebrew, the ruach (spirit, breath) rests (nachah) on this one.

Ruach – nachah.

The breathiness is there in the very sounds.

And I think the play on words is intended.

And actually the root words are ruach and nuach.

I have tried – and failed – to come up with a translation that captures this play on words:

The spirit spends free time upon him…

The air is at ease upon him…

The wind whiles away its time upon him…

The breath abides upon him…

None really works. I look forward to your suggestions later.

In any event, that stressed idea 

of rest, of restoration, of peace and ease, 

extends throughout our passage in ways that the English does not make clear.

I give my own translation of the ending. It says:

“This one the peoples will seek out. And glory will be his place of resting.”

Our translation refers to a “glorious dwelling”.

But the word translated “dwelling” is… menuchah.

Menuchah… from (yes) nuach. Place of resting,

A place of resting for the one on whom the restful spirit rests.[3]

No judgement, no wrath, no fire, but welcome, peace and inclusion.

Who would not long for such a meeting with (GOD) on these terms?

So let me say:

we need the fierceness of the Old Testament

and we need the gentleness of the New Testament.

And...

we need the gentleness of the Old Testament

and we need the fierceness of the New Testament.

The Testaments are not easily contrasted, 

and are not to be contrasted.

(GOD) is both fierce and gentle.

The life of faith exposes us to things gentle and fierce.

And it is good that it is so.

As for what combination of gentleness and fierceness will best suit the England team today, I keep my self-denying ordinance.

Amen.  

---

[1] That evening England were playing Senegal in the first knock-out rounds of the World Cup.

[2] Hebrew: U-ve-ruach sephatav yamit resha’ – resha’ is properly an adjective meaning a wicked person/thing.

Greek (LXX): kai en pneumati dia cheilion anelei asebe – “And with breath through lips he will destroy an ungodly [person].

[3] These language points are indebted to Robert Alter’s translation, ad loc.

Love (and faith and hope) in a time of Corona.

These things let me remember,  

and let me pour out my breathing-self within me: 

oh, how I went along with the throng,  

how I’d process to the House of Gd, 

with the sound of ringing shouts and thanks,  

a crowd keeping the festival.  

Why are you cast down, my own breathing-self,  

and in turmoil within me? 

Wait for Gd, for yet will I thank him,  

whose very gaze brings rescue.1 

Bultmann once said that all theology is “theanthropology”: we can at best attend only to the relationship between the human and the Divine. Rabbi Tony Bayfield has recently refined this point, in insisting that all authentic theology must start with autobiography.2 A large part of the discernment process of “testing a vocation” to ordained ministry in the Church of England is repeated articulation of one’s own story. I am in a time of flux, which involves me in telling that story at interviews. All in all, locating myself in the wider narrative of our days (warts and all, on all parties) should come easily enough to me. Yet here I am struggling.  

Am I primarily a weak, fleshly human being, indeed one who himself almost certainly has a very mild form of the virus, and so must self-isolate? Am I a witness-bearer and truth-teller in my neighbourhood? (On some counts, half my parish is the epicentre of the epicentre – Newham – of the epicentre – London – of my country.) Am I one waiting to be taken on as an emergency bank health care support worker, with very focused hopes and fears? Am I a Church of England minister, adjusting to a strict ban on all corporate worship, and learning to play my role in building up a “virtual church”, lamenting the loss and celebrating the surprising gains at once? Am I co-minister and friend of my priest-in-charge, who bears responsibility as chaplain to the staff of the principal emergency mortuary, in our parish? Am I a particular pastor, with very particular responsibilities: for D., M., A., V., etc; for those whose burden differently pains me daily: funeral directors, prison staff? Am I an unsettled citizen – or just maybe a struggling Christian prophet – reacting to what I can only see as evasions and the rewriting of history by powerful politicians? The UK government, after all, seems to be passing all responsibility – blame – to the people. Their literal command is: “Be alert; control the virus...”. We are encouraged to return to work, but mocked for entering crowded tube-trains. Am I one who prays to Gd (or intends to, who is more myself when I pray), who can most authentically comment on changes to my prayer life? Do I “find” Gd “here”? 

Of course, the answer to these questions is consistently: Yes. So not so much a network of concerns, as a child’s scribble-drawing, perhaps. Little wonder that I know not what to say. But then I note that I do speak. One of the first things I did, after the government banned public worship with the Church’s full support and blessing (our Archbishops’ strong guidance went further than the government’s, I think with prudence), was draw people to the Psalms (Tehillim). I insisted (as many do) that all human life is here – joy, praise, naivety, contemplation, bewilderment, rage, hate, despair – and so here is the assurance that there will be ways to pray through this. I drew attention to Psalm 42/43 (treating them as one unit), because it is, inter alia, a psalm of lament, from one who clearly misses embodied and large-scale worship; who mourns that they no longer go “along with the throng”; who yet insists that waiting upon Gd (maybe with tears or gritted teeth) is good, valid, timely, and possible. I wrote my own translation, seeking nothing polished or poetic, but just to see what a return to the Hebrew might throw up. 

There is one other thing about this psalm-unit. Since a discussion with my spiritual director just before I was made priest (2006), it has been my custom, more often than not, to recite these psalms before I preside at the eucharist. So, more than a decade before this crisis, I was taking all the distress and lament and lostness of humankind in it as the raw material that is turned into thanksgiving (eucharisto!), through the encounter with Gd in it. This was in the first place because of the line (43.4a): ve-avo'ah el-misbach elohim el el-simchat-gili - “Oh let me go to the altar of Gd, to Gd, the joy of my rejoicing”. But, as soon as I started reciting it, I realised it was as much because of the opening (42.2): ke-ayyal ta’araog al-afike-mayyim, ken nafshi ta’arog elekah, elohim. “Just as a deer will pant for water channels, so it is my breathing-self which pants for you, O Gd”.  

Frightened and needy and desperate thirsting for Gd and Gd’s help may well be norm for human beings. This is bearable. This is met with.  

1, Psalm 42.5f. This is my own translation. For the whole psalm-unit, see http://frpatrickponders.blogspot.com/2020/03/psalm-42-and-43-bloggers-translation.html. Here also is a defence of my novel translation of nefesh as “breathing-self”, which I find unpoetic and even ugly, but still better than “soul”, and of the deliberate defective spelling of “God” as “Gd,” which strategy is indebted to R. Kendall Soulen in The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Volume One, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 2011