Pleasant Planting of Justice
“Pleasant Planting of Justice”
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, August 18, 2019
Isaiah 5:1-7 Luke 12:49-56
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
Everyone likes to feel secure, and everyone has some sort of sense of identity, which corresponds to a worldview. While everyone lives out their worldview or the identity they cling to, most people are not self-critical or aware of how they come to know what they know. The ability to self-critique, or learn from criticism in healthy ways, is a sign of maturity. Sometimes people get pulled into a false sense of security or a misshapen view of identity that can only be dismantled through pain and difficulty, often resisted, even if the struggles take place within a larger context of love. When people are misguided, their actions affect others in ways that bring suffering. A transformed heart brings right action, justice linked with love as expressions of the heart. The story of the vineyard in Isaiah has elements of all of this, as God’s people, loved and blessed, fail to link justice and righteousness into a larger life of inclusion. We wonder why it sounds so harsh, as God brings briers and thorns and pulls down the protective hedge. It’s only in the next couple of verses where we find out the reason for this suffering involves a cleansing renewal.
The people put their vineyards and houses so close together that they intentionally erased the margins, leaving no room for the vulnerable or the foreigner. The people of Israel were taking their blessings and hoarding them, choosing to have beautiful homes, wonderful gardens, but exclusively, making sure there was no room for anyone else; actively blocking others. This is why the hedges are destroyed and why the people experience desolation. It is a cleansing judgment, because God’s love knows no such boundaries and seeks to share abundantly.
In the New Testament Gospel according to Luke, who also writes themes of inclusion and welcoming the stranger, we see chapter twelve’s teaching continue as Jesus shares about vigilance in the face of crisis. As the New Interpreter’s Bible puts it, “Jesus prepares his followers for the coming troubles by insisting on a twofold transformation: the one oriented to their understanding of God, the other in the arena of social practices. In fact, these are not two, but one, for a conversion in how one understands God and God’s practices leads into transformed practices related to hostility, possessions, social relations, and more.” (The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, NRSV, footnotes on Luke 12, Abingdon Press, 2003, pg. 1878).
As Jesus brings fire and lives into his baptism, he uses the metaphor of a family to show divisions and struggles, yet even within the discord there is an equality, and it’s laced with relational terms. Even in the generational strife there is an overarching unity, or an under-girding love. The way Luke writes, putting each party on equal footing in their opposition, it’s as if neither side is totally right or totally wrong, they just are, and although the divisions are real and have effects, they are also quite normal and expected, indeed, essential to growth.
The process of cultural evolution is similar, and can be seen through such models as Spiral Dynamics (linked to a PDF for download, describing Spiral Dynamics, including a chart), which talks about levels of development for societies and cultures, and we can also tie in stages of faith and spiritual understandings. At basic levels people are opportunistic and self-protective, focusing on self-interest, self-protection, and using others as means to an end. Might makes right at this level, so empire and power help exploit benefits in ego-centric ways. But this gets mellowed a bit when systems become more complex, enterprises become strategic and stability is needed to keep things in order. Scientific method that objectifies, measures, and creates laws that help goals and objectives come about predictably. The individual is championed as achievement is valued through rational, logical expressions. This works for a while, until multiple perspectives emerge and a pluralistic approach is recognized, which relativizes understandings of subjective reality. Social networks develop which try and maximize human potential and the unique experiences of individuals, even while recognizing multiple contexts. This level, fairly modern, tends to look on earlier levels with anger, wanting to throw out old patterns that are now seen as limiting or misguided. Eventually, higher levels stop throwing things out and learn to integrate various levels of development, seeing all of them as essential to cultural evolution, even as more harmony and connection is experienced and more holistic worldviews take shape, bringing individual and global renewal as people participate in their own ongoing creation.
There are other levels in the spiral, but you get a sense that as Jesus talks about three on two and two on three, and that he came to sow division, he is simply recognizing that people grow and change at different rates, and like Paul says in his letters, creation is groaning with birth pangs, and this is an evolutionary statement. Another way of saying this is, “God loves you just the way you are, but too much to leave you that way.”
It seems this morning’s passages can come across rather harsh, judgmental, and condemning as God punishes the Israelites, sending them into exile, and Jesus sets a fire and sows division even in families as people either follow him or choose to reject him. The passages can also come across as intensely creative, passionately loving, wildly supportive to help people through struggle that, in the long run, is actually beneficial. The interpretive difference involves what your worldview is like, what your paradigm is.
Most of us come from Christianity’s Fall/Redemption model, which is based on Augustine’s fourth century interpretation of the fall of Adam and Eve. This doctrine promotes what’s called “Original Sin,” and leads to a patriarchal, ascetic (self-flogging) style of Christianity where death is viewed as the wages of sin, Spirit opposes matter, and the church and God’s Kingdom is built up through personal salvation that emphasizes the cross with themes of guilt, shame, and redemption as we seek purity from the world and sinful humanity. Because faith involves thought and intellect, and rational decisions of doctrine and dogma, artists are viewed with suspicion and Christianity is exclusive as the way to God.
There are other interpretations, other paradigms to base faith upon which lead to very different outcomes. For example, as Matthew Fox shares about Creation Spirituality (links to an online chart), we see original blessing as the focus of a gender-balanced life that views suffering as part of the process of creation. Death is not punishment, but is a natural event, a prelude to rebirth, and rather than a dualistic approach of either/or, Creation Spirituality is dialectical, with a both/and orientation which sees Spirit and matter sharing communion as all things express Incarnation. Rather than humility used to despise oneself, humility involves befriending your earthiness, remembering the word “human” shares the root of the word “humus” or earth. Jesus calls everyone, as created beings, to awareness of their divinity, as humans share in the power to choose, to create or destroy. Spirituality calls us to compassion, justice, and celebration through a hopeful stance that shares healing which celebrate eternal life now.
As you can see, this paradigm of original blessing and creation spirituality is different than original sin as we’ve been taught and a paradigm of fall and redemption. Both of them have their reason for being, and both of them are part of the growth and development of Christianity.
The passages from Isaiah and Luke are very similar. God is calling the people to a life of productive creativity that reflects their deep identity as God’s beloved. Jesus is calling the people to change their hearts, to integrate all aspects of body, mind, soul, and spirit, where a face-to-face encounter with God’s Presence also leads to deeper meetings with others.
As we read these passages, may God continue to change our hearts, and our paradigms, to reflect God’s call deeper into healing, wholeness, love, and unity. May we receive the Peace of Christ as the core of our being, as we center ourselves in Christ. This center does not depend on favorable, outer circumstances, and nothing and no one can take from us the joy of this essential union. Even as we experience life’s troubles, undergoing trial by fire, Jesus is with us, and Christ is at work, helping our lives become clearer reflections of divine purpose, intent, Presence, and identity.
In the week ahead, ask God to help you self-critique, to offer your struggles as ways of deepening trust and letting go of false assumptions, to check your worldview and honestly explore what paradigms are really at work. Seek the deeper unity even in situations that are perplexing. Allow God’s love to find expression in your life, through wholeness, healing, and inclusive, expansive creativity. Look for beauty, and live in thanks and praise, sharing hospitality with all beings. And may God’s humble and vulnerable love be lived and shared, NOW, even as forever. Amen.