A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — January 24, 2010
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Isaiah 61:1-6;  Luke 4:16-21;  Romans 12:14-21

…[the Lord] has sent me …to proclaim the year of the Lord’s
favor, and the day of vengeance of our Go. — Isaiah 61:2

…[the Lord] has sent me …to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. — Luke 4:18d-19

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for

I will repay, says the Lord.” — Romans 12:19

I’ve never forgotten the first time years ago when I heard the story of the very religious man who came back from one of those near-death experiences.  His family had gathered around him in the intensive care room and watched in shock as the traces on the monitor went flat.  But just as doctors and nurses rushed to his bedside in response, everything started up again and the man sat bolt upright with a look of horror on his face.  He’d had the stereotypical experience of moving through a tunnel of light and then out into paradise where he had come face to face with God.  But as he was telling his story he started shaking his head and saying, “No, no, it’s awful.”  His family tried to comfort him by pointing out that, having actually seen God face-to-face, he now knew the truth of his religious faith.  “Oh, but you don’t understand!” he cried. “I saw God, but… but She’s black!”

Face it.  We’re all caught up in a host of preconceptions about God.  And most of them involve imagining God as being rather like us—only more so.  Better than us, wiser, more powerful, all-knowing.  We imagine God to look rather like Michelangelo painted “him”—white, male, bearded, a long white robe.  Why, look at me—here I am.  But I wouldn’t do as God, not least because we usually imagine God to be comfortably far off.  Oh, God is on our side, to be sure, but far enough off that we are able to go our own way.  “Our Father, who art in heaven…”

 

We’re actually pretty selective about which human characteristics we prefer to magnify when we picture God.   There’s an old story of a saint who had the gift of speaking the language of ants.  Approaching an ant who seemed the scholarly type, the saint asked, “What is the Almighty like?  Is God in any way similar to the ant?”  The scholarly ant replied, “The Almighty?  Certainly not!  We ants, you see, have only one sting.  But the Almighty… well, the Almighty has two!” 

It’s so much easier for us to envision the fullness of the power of God than the love of God.  When it comes to power, we project our cravings for control onto God, and we imagine God in charge of everything.  Earthquakes and hurricanes are “acts of God.”  God is all-powerful and all-knowing and acts to enforce whatever God wants by threatening, punishing, or destroying whoever and whatever displeases God.  But it’s so much harder for us to imagine the fullness of the love of God where the sun rises to bless both the evil and the good and the rain falls to water the crops of both the righteous and the unrighteous, or the absolute forgiveness of God that seeks at any and all cost to restore relationships (even at the cost of God’s Son), or the steadfast compassion of God that longs to redeem all of creation and return every bit of it to wholeness—even those people we feel are most deserving of condemnation.

When we read Isaiah 61 and run up against the word “vengeance,” this dynamic comes into play.  We connect vengeance with power rather than love.  The people have suffered, and now God is delivering them from great tribulation.  When the prophet says he has been sent to proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God,” we expect some getting even here.  It’s payback time.  There is something very human about the thirst for revenge.  Our human understandings of justice seems to require punishment and retribution, that those who inflict or cause suffering should suffer themselves.  Indeed, based on the evidence of the Psalms—those parts we call the Psalms of cursing, which we almost never read in worship—the desire for revenge was allowed.  But only the desire for revenge, because any direct action was to be reserved for God.  “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord in Deuteronomy 32:35, which Paul quotes as “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”  Ok, so we’re supposed to let God do it.  But divine vengeance is not what we think.  The Bible makes a clear distinction between revenge and vengeance.

In the biblical perspective, divine vengeance had a positive rather than a negative connotation. It was to be a process of restoration to wholeness, a returning to proper balance of relationships and events that had gotten out of kilter.  Any repayment goes to restore the one who was damaged not for payback.  As it plays out in Isaiah 61 “getting even” primarily involves lifting up those who have suffered, not tearing down the former oppressors.  “[The Lord] has sent me,” says Isaiah, first “to comfort those who mourn,” then “to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.”  There is restoration and raising up of devastated buildings, rebuilding and repair or ruined cities.

What follows involves a redistribution of economic resources and power.  But the purpose is not punishment, retribution, or revenge.  Strangers and foreigners who used to be at the top of the economic heap are now participants in it.  And yes, they feed the people’s flocks, till their land, and dress their vines, but not as slaves.  It’s a come down for them, to be sure.  But in Isaiah’s vision, the restored people of Zion do not simply take the foreigners’ place as owners or rulers who now oppress their former enemies.  The people of Zion “shall be called priests of the Lord… named ministers of our God.”  As such they live under the admonition of Leviticus 19:34—“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself.”  Here are Isaiah’s people as servant priests, living out the final promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

How is it that God doesn’t simply act to remove from the picture all circumstances and people who displease God—the proverbial God wielding a bolt of lightning?  This question would be less puzzling to us if we recall that the primary watchword of God’s loving relationship with humanity is “compassion.”  The Hebrew word for compassion, rahamim, is rooted in a powerful metaphor for both birthing and a mother’s love.  For this Hebrew word rahamim is the plural form of rehem—the Hebrew word for womb.  God’s compassion is like the love a mother has for a child born from her womb.  Such womb love is creative rather than destructive.  The mother does not seek retribution, punishment, or revenge, but instead yearns for shalom for her children—that is, for the restoration of relationship and a return to wholeness, peace, and harmony.  Rahamin does not destroy but instead builds up—builds up both sides, restores both sides to wholeness so that there is true reconciliation and relationship.

Still, that word “vengeance” is so problematic for us.  Human nature is just too volatile to be involved in the process of divine vengeance.  So maybe that’s why Jesus left the phrase “the vengeance of our God” out in Luke—or maybe it was Luke who left it out in reporting the story.  In any event, the phrase “let the oppressed go free” appears instead.  And that is the primary concern of divine vengeance after all—the complete and utter restoration of wholeness and abundant life for the victims.  And the Creator-Mother-Father God is not just concerned with those who are oppressed.  The Creator-Mother-Father God is determined to set the oppressor free as well.  For the oppressor is every bit as trapped in the domination system as the oppressed.  I recently saw the movie “Gandhi” again, and scene after scene reminded me of how both sides are captive to the awful circumstances.

Human attempts to restore balance to any system of injustice and conflict are invariably subject to over-reaction.  All too often the two sides end up exchanging places.  The oppressed becomes the oppressor.  Or the oppressed party achieves power and ends up lording it over some other group.  “Violence breeds violence and repression brings retaliation.” (Robert Kennedy, Cleveland City Club, 1968).  Ultimately only God has the perspective to accomplish justice without excess.  So the apostle Paul suggests some strategies for those who would follow in the way of Jesus.  “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Live in harmony with one another.  So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Never avenge yourselves.  It is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’  If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  It is a tall order.  Left to ourselves, we are not capable of pursuing and carrying out God’s divine vengeance, but end up trapping ourselves in cycles of violence and revenge that only make matters worse for all concerned.  But with God we can accomplish what we cannot do on our own.

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye catches the spirit of Paul’s words in the opening words of her poem, “Jerusalem”—

I am not interested in
who suffered most.
I’m interested in
people getting over it.

In this week after the celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., we would do well to recall the words of Dr. King with which we began our Affirmation of Faith last Sunday:

I believe that there is an urgent need
    for people to overcome oppression and violence
    without resorting to oppression and violence. 
I believe that we need to discover
    a way to live together in peace;
    a way which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. 
The foundation of this way is love.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.