Sermon: Knowing and doing what is right

Isaiah 42 v 1-9, Ephesians 2 v1-10

If you listened to the Tuesday’s 10 o’clock news on Radio 4, you would have heard about the stand off between Russia and the Ukraine over gas supplies; Israeli interference in campaigning in East Jerusalem during the Palestinian elections; the search for the missing miners in West Virginia – this was before the tragic fiasco of the wrong report of their safety; the warning to America to brace itself for its worst political scandal in a century; the murder of the British student in Thailand; and the arrest of a man in connection with the kidnapping in Gaza. All stories that, 5 days later, are no longer headlines and have been replaced by new tragedies and crises. So much for a happy new year.

If you listened to the Christmas Day sermons of Church leaders you would have heard the Archbishop of York say that the way to overcome terrorism is to ‘out-imagine’ it with a compelling and imaginative vision of wholeness; the Archbishop of Canterbury warn of the dangers of loss of faith that allow the cruelties of the ancient world to creep back into society, instead of looking at the human world in a framework that Jesus Christ makes possible; the Archbishop of Wales comment that being able somehow to forgive is the only practical way forward, doing something positive about the root causes of violence and hatred, and the Pope appeal to the world not to yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement, even though the tragic reality of terrorism feeds uncertainties and fears. So much for Christmas being for children.

And if you listened to the first reading this morning, you heard the mission of the servant of the Lord. There is not time to explore the identity of this servant but Christians have generally applied these texts to Christ. We need to remember that, even if we do this, there is an historical context of exile in Babylon when hopes had been cruelly dashed and, still burning in the collective consciousness, were terrible memories of a bloodbath in Jerusalem and forced deportation to exile in an alien land. No wonder that the servant of the Lord is described three times in four verses as establishing justice in the earth and among the nations: that was what they yearned for. We cannot escape how political the mission of the servant is, it involves nations and peoples, and it is a mission of justice – a word that can also be translated judgement: something even more pointed as it doesn’t just make things right but condemns what is wrong, and may cost us dearly if we are acting unjustly. The basis on which God can commission the servant to do this is that God is the creator of heaven and earth, who gives breath to all people. This God has authority over the whole earth, and the biblical creation stories speak of a loving purpose behind creation unlike the malign or fickle purposes of the gods in the creation stories of other nations. So it is no surprise that God seeks to bring justice to the earth.

But this justice or judgement among the nations also involves very tender compassion for the needy. It is not a brazen display of power that sweeps all in its path, blotting out the wrong but also destroying much that is good. No, it is very quiet and personal engagement with the people who are suffering: the servant will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street, a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench. It is too easy to trample on a suffering and bruised person, to snuff out their last dimly burning flicker of hope. But the servant does not do this, instead he opens eyes that are blind, brings prisoners out from dungeons and places of darkness. This suggests very intimate, one to one engagement. And so there is a stark contrast between the national and international scope of the servant’s mission, and this very gentle, tenacious way in which it is carried out.

There is a strand of biblical interpretation which applies the role of the servant to the whole people of Israel, God’s chosen people who were called to reveal and bear witness to God’s justice and faithfulness among the nations. And yet we know that they failed to do this, because at the time of Jesus’ birth the people are described as still walking in darkness. And so Christians have come to see the servant’s mantle lying on Christ who opened the eyes of the blind and brought liberty to people in bondage. He takes on the prophetic mission of the people of God, and texts which spoke to Israel as a corporate people now also speak about Christ as the one who embodies the corporate identity of Israel. No wonder we hear this text today when the church celebrates the baptism of Christ by John, signifying his willingness to identify fully with the people of Israel in their turning in repentance to the God whom they had failed to follow faithfully.

But it does not stop there, because we have also heard an extract from the letter to the Ephesians which is a much less-worldly, more ecstatic declaration of all that God has done for us in Christ: made us alive with him, raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places, and has good purposes for us in the age to come. But there is a sting in the tail: ‘For by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God … for we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.’ If we are in Christ, then we are created for good works; by our baptism we are incorporated into the body of Christ and we share in his mission and ministry. His baptism and our baptism incorporate us into the ministry of the servant which was first given voice in the midst of tense and harsh political circumstances. So we can’t spiritualise it away but must express it in the face of the daily news, events that seem far too big for us and beyond our influence: what can we do about political corruption in the US, about deep rooted enmity between the Ukraine and Russia or between Israel and Palestine?

That’s where the Christmas messages of our church leaders come in: their answers may seem puny compared to the problems, but so did the action of the servant in Isaiah – why pay attention to a single dimly burning wick when there is a world of injustice? Why bother to avoid breaking a bruised read when decisive military action is called for? Why try to out-imagine terrorism or see the world in a framework that Christ makes possible when we can build a wall or imprison suspects without trial? Because God’s way embraces both world wide issues of justice and judgement, and personal engagement with vulnerability and pain. And it is that tension that we, followers of the one who was baptised in order to identify fully with the people in their need and in their vocation to be God’s servant for others, must learn to live with. How that works out is a matter for each one of us to discover in our own sphere of life and influence, whether that is influence over just one other person, or a department, a university, or a nation. That it must work out is an imperative if the world is to know the justice and the judgement that is it’s by right because God has created it. And so we must pray our Collect, and expect God to give us demanding answers, ‘grant that we may both perceive and know what things we ought to do, and also may have the grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’