December 15, 2019: Go Tell It On The Mountain

Go Tell It on the Mountain!

Isaiah 35:1-10

  1The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
    the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly,
    and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
    the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
    the majesty of our God.

3 Strengthen the weak hands,
    and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
    “Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
    He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
    He will come and save you.”

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then the lame shall leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
    and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool,
    and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
    the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

8 A highway shall be there,
    and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
    but it shall be for God’s people;
    no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
9 No lion shall be there,
    nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
    but the redeemed shall walk there.
10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain joy and gladness,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

______

    Go tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere!
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born!

  Go tell it on the mountain! You probably know the popular Christmas carol, but do you know its history? “Go Tell It on the Mountain” was a slave song—born in the cotton fields of the American south. The song was first published in 1909 in a book entitled Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as Sung on the Plantations.[1] 

“Go Tell It on the Mountain” is replete with joy, as is appropriate on this third Sunday of Advent—the Sunday when we light the advent candle of joy. But it is difficult for me to wrap my brain around how a song of such joy emanated from the hearts and minds of those experiencing the horrors of slavery. The unbridled joy in this song is a testament to the strength and resolve of the human spirit—that even in defeat and trauma—even when we are outwardly crushed, our spirits can rise up within us and proclaim joy. “Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!” is at once a religious declaration and a song of protest. “You can shackle my body, but my spirit is free to sing!” “Go Tell It on the Mountain!”

  It’s this same kind of juxtaposition we find in our scripture reading today from Isaiah. The Hebrew people were in bad shape when this beautiful poem from Isaiah 35 was written. Scholars aren’t sure the exact date of the writing, but we can tell through reading the context that it was a time of “extreme danger, of imminent disaster, of vast hopelessness . . . it seems likely that these words are uttered in the face either of the imminent destruction of Jerusalem . . . or perhaps in the face of the pathetic attempts of the returned exiles to survive in the blasted hulk of the ruined city.” Whatever the situation, we can easily discern that “the puny people of God were staring disaster in its grim face, either in the person of real enemy armies or in the person of their destroyed homeland.”[2]

  The context from which this assessment is gleaned is the chapter immediately prior to our reading today—Isaiah 34. This chapter is one of those passages of the Bible that don’t show up in the Revised Common Lectionary or in the sermons of most pastors. But you folks are lucky. You have me. J Listen to some of the language from Isaiah 34 in which the prophet hopes for the utter destruction of the enemy nations:

“The Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their hordes; he has doomed them, has given them over for slaughter. Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.”

“The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood, it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has . . . a great slaughter in the land of Edom.”

“Their land shall be soaked with blood . . . for the Lord has a day of vengeance.”

  So how do you really feel, Isaiah? I particularly like, “the stench of their corpses shall rise.” No love for the Edomites from this prophet for sure. Though we don’t know the exact situation for the Hebrew people, we can discern it was bad.

  While we may not wish for the stench of the decaying corpses of our enemies to fill the air, we don’t have to go too far to find anger, fear, pain, suffering, trauma. Here in this room are folks who are grieving, facing a terrifying diagnosis, suffering from addiction. There are people drowning in debt, terrified of aging, or exhausted from the news cycle, the holidays, and the daily grind. There are people in this room who are struggling in a marriage, dealing with infertility, estranged from loved ones.

  If your extended family is anything like mine, there are enough strained relationships for two families. I have a cousin who likes to joke about our family’s need to celebrate Festivus, the parody holiday popularized by the writers of The Seinfeld show. Festivus is celebrated on December 23 each year as an alternative to the commercialism of Christmas. The holiday includes a dinner, an aluminum Festivus pole, and traditions like “feats of strength” and the “airing of grievances.” That would be great fun in my family. Festivus for the rest of us!

  It is into the brokenness of the human situation—the sorrow and the anger, the crushed dreams and broken promises—that the presence of God breaks through. We wouldn’t need a Messiah if not for the hardship that we know and live.

  And for the prophet trying to make sense of the destruction of his nation, he looks to a bright and hopeful future in which God redeems the utter brokenness of the Hebrew people. The prophet envisions the day of God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. The world is transformed:

·        From wasteland to garden (verses 1-2).

·        From weak to strong (verses 3-4).

·        From lame to leaping (verses 5-6a).

·        From drought to delta (verses 6b-7).

·        From wilderness to highway (verses 8-10).[3]

  I love that the prophet says even fools can’t lose their way on this highway. There’s hope even for me! And perhaps the most well-known part of the text today from verse 6b: “For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.”

  IRENE GOD WILL MAKE

A few weeks ago Irene sang “God will make a way when there seems to be no way.” Waters in the wilderness . . . Streams in the desert . . .

  Worth noting here, is that God doesn’t remove us from the desert. There is no promise of that. The hope is that God will make a way through the desert. The hope and the promise is that there will be streams in the desert.

  Several times recently I have been reminded of something Quaker author Parker Palmer wrote in his wonderful little book, Let Your Life Speak. He writes of an old Quaker saying, “Way will open.”

  When I . . . started sharing my vocational quandary, people responded with a traditional Quaker counsel that, despite all the good intentions, left me even more discouraged. “Have faith,” they said, “and way will open.” “I have faith,” I thought to myself. “What I don’t have is time to wait for ‘way’ to open. I’m approaching middle age at warp speed, and I have yet to find a vocational path that feels right. The only way that’s opened so far is the wrong way.”
After a few months of deepening frustration, I took my troubles to an older Quaker woman well-known for her thoughtfulness and candor. “Ruth,” I said, “people keep telling me that ‘way will open.’ Well, I sit in the silence, I pray, I listen for my calling, but way is not opening. I’ve been trying to find my vocation for a long time, and I still don’t have the foggiest idea of what I’m meant to do. Way may open for other people, but it’s sure not opening for me.” Ruth . . . said somberly, “. . . in sixty-plus year of living, way has never opened in front of me.” She paused, and I started sinking into despair. Was this wise woman telling me that the Quaker concept of guidance was a hoax? Then she spoke again, this time with a grin: “But a lot of way has closed behind me, and that’s had the same guiding effect.”[4]

One of the things the other preachers in the room would likely corroborate, is that part of the routine of the preaching life involves allowing the text—the part of the Bible you’re planning to preach on Sunday—to allow it to settle in and take root in your life throughout the week. Some weeks, inspiration comes early in the week. Some weeks, inspiration seems to take on a good southern “mosey.” One preacher friend told me this week that he has a rule for preaching: “if the Holy Spirit has something to say, she had better say it by the end of the day Wednesday.” Unfortunately for me, the Holy Spirit doesn’t seem to follow that rule.

  So it was sometime in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere between Wednesday and Thursday this week, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness—I had a lucid dream—a dream in which you know you’re dreaming and can control (to some extent) what happens. In the dream I came upon a big lion. (Note: remember the mention a lion in the text? There will be no lion on the highway to Zion.) In the dream, my initial response was fear with its quickening heart rate, preparing the body for fight or flight. But then I realized that I was in a dream, and I told myself there was nothing to fear. Instead of fight or flight, I gently walked toward the lion, and we turned, and began walking together on a pathway.

  To use the Quaker language, “way opened”—a third way. Not fight. Not flight. A way beyond fear. I can only presume the path the lion and I traveled was the highway to Mount Zion from the text with which I had been living.

  So maybe today you find yourself facing one of life’s many lions. Or perhaps you find yourself in one of life’s many deserts. You don’t have to fear the lion or the desert. Way will close. Way will open. Walk in that way, the way beyond fear, the third way—God’s highway—beyond fight or flight. The way that we find as we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Go that way, and as you go, tell it on the mountain!

[1]Jane Schroeder, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” December 3, 2015, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/09/go-tell-it-on-the-mountain

[2]John Holbert, “Rivers in the Desert and Stinking Corpses: Reflections on Isaiah 35:1-10 (Advent 3)

 https://www.patheos.com/progressive-christian/rivers-desert-john-holbert-12-09-2013.html

[3] https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/advent-3a-2/?type=old_testament_lectionary

[4] Parker Palmer, https://onbeing.org/blog/when-way-closes/