Week 21: A way in the wilderness: coming home?

Isaiah 35:1-10

35 The 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 traveller, 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.

A ‘cutting’ of tree wisdom (Genny Tunbridge)

“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope”

Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) was born in Kenya, and after periods abroad studying biology, returned there in 1969. She noticed on her return that the environment had changed for the worse, and learned from women in rural areas that their streams were drying up, their food supply was less secure, and they had to walk further and further to get firewood for fuel and fencing. Wangari recognised that this was due to deforestation. In 1977 she began encouraging women to group together to grow seedlings and plant trees: this would help to bind the soil, store rainwater and provide food and firewood, and the women received a small payment for their work.

From these small beginnings grew the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya to other African countries, working at grassroots level to plant - so far - over 52 million trees. Maathai saw early what many are only just beginning to grasp: how issues of environmental conservation could not be separated from those of human rights. Her holistic vision shaped a movement where tree planting contributed not only ecological sustainability but to democracy, women’s rights and international solidarity. Drawing inspiration both from her Kikuyu culture and her Catholic upbringing (including reading the prophets) she remained steadfast in the face of opposition, despite at times being beaten and imprisoned as she battled powerful economic forces and tyrannical rulers. Her vision and work were recognised when she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.[1]

Introduction to the theme (Al Barrett)

We’re now in the last of four weeks of this ‘Kingdom season’, where we’ve been both remembering backwards but also ‘remembering forwards’, excavating God’s past promises to her people (in the words of the Hebrew prophets) as promises with meaning for our future too.

Last week, with Jeremiah and the Jewish exiles in Babylon, we were caught in the dilemma of exile: do they sit tight waiting to go back home to Jerusalem, or do they make their home in Babylon and put down their roots there, however temporarily? God’s message, through Jeremiah, was that the people should do the latter: they should ‘seek the welfare [shalom] of the city’ where they found themselves, with the promise that they would find their own shalom (peace, justice, wellbeing) in that place.

This week, the focus shifts to the home-coming of God’s people, liberated by God from exile: ‘the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion [Jerusalem] with singing’. The promise is one of ‘everlasting joy … and gladness’, of ‘sorrow and sighing … flee[ing] away’. This is indeed a home-coming to be looked forward to, longed for.

But there is more. Through Jeremiah, God doesn’t just promise his people that home, when they get there, will be the place of joy and life. The journey home will be joyful too. There will be a ‘holy highway’ for that journey, through what had previously been arid, dangerous desert. The ‘joy and singing’ will not just be from the human travellers on the road home, but from the non-human life (crocuses, streams, reeds and rushes) that will spring up all around them as they walk.

And where is God in it all? Is God waiting patiently, back home, ready to throw her arms around the necks of her long lost children? Maybe. But God is also on the road with them, journeying home with them, listening to them telling again their stories of exile, and nodding along: ‘yes, I was with you there too’.

Reflection (Sally Nash)

‘The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go
as we are and not be questioned.’ – Maya Angelou

Our reading today was written to people in exile, they were not at home but these ten verses give them a hope of a joy filled homecoming.  Do you have any joy filled homecoming memories?  Perhaps as a child, or your first home of your own, or returning to the place you grew up.  Even at my age I still talk about going home when I go back to Reading.  How the people of Israel must have longed for, ached for a home that was safe, accepting and where they could again feel that they belonged. 

Brené Brown has written a book called Braving the Wilderness. In it she talks about true belonging.  She writes:

‘True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.  True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are, it requires you to be who you are.’

Our reading from Isaiah talks about us returning home together, rejoicing, hopeful.  In some ways it is an apt metaphor for the time we are in now.  We look to the day when we can return to worshipping together, fully able to rejoice and engage with each other.  But we need to be mindful too of the journey we have been on in this period of exile through lockdown.  I am mindful as I write of the significant learning that we have been engaging with over Black History Month and lament that some of our brothers and sisters have not always experienced that sense of true belonging in the body of Christ and I hope that as we grow and learn, repent and renew that each of them feel more able to be who they are, not feeling that they need to adapt or change to belong.  I hope that they feel at home, and that they can come as they are, that we all can come as we are.  There are many of us who perhaps find it hard to be authentically us at times because we are not sure what reception that will get.  The healing that comes in the middle of today’s passage is much needed. 

More generally, this passage, as the commentators say, is a message of strength and courage to those who may be fearful in heart (v4).  That is likely to be most of us at some time over different issues.  It is very human to fear but we have a God who encourages us to fear not (v4) and sometimes we need to dwell in the message of God and see the end game, see how it is all going to turn out.  One commentator suggested that the phrase fearful heart is better translated from the Hebrew as ‘ones whose hearts are racing’ which is a very embodied image and is the reality for all of us.  My heart was racing when I heard that a vaccine may be coming soon.  My heart races when I am going to see someone precious again…  We live through this pandemic in our bodies, our reactions may be fight or flight or freeze. We may have experienced the virus, mildly or have long COVID.  Our bodies are always impacted by what is happening around us. But the passage talks about our hears racing in hope… 

Digging again into the commentaries I am encouraged to find that the word vengeance which is a word I struggle with can be understood as Hendrik Peels argues, as closer to restorative justice, inherent in the Hebrew word nagam is the idea of retribution from a legitimate authority that brings liberation to the oppressed, freedom from need and restoration of justice.  That is an encouraging opening to this passage for people in exile.  Thus “Say to the people, God is here. Restorative justice is on its way. Hope now in God's dealing. Expect God's response”.

Beautiful images from nature abound in this passage.  Some will remember that last year we grew crocuses in church and many of us will see them in gardens, early signs that spring is coming, bright colour on often grey days.  The image of God turning a wilderness or desert into a garden is a beautiful one and certainly one of the biggest blessings of lockdown for us is our garden becoming a lovely place to look at and sit out in rather than the well overgrown wilderness it was.  That was a story of despair to hope just as our passage today is.

If you look at the whole passage you will see that it starts and ends with creation and God is in the middle with humanity – thus creation, humanity, God, humanity, creation. God saves God’s people, and the saving involves transformation of society, it isn’t a focus on individual transformation alone. 

As we journey together, let’s try to recall some of the stories of hope we have heard about recently. Let’s continue to thank God for the good things we are hearing about and experiencing and walk together, even though we are physically apart, as we look to a joy filled homecoming one day.  Amen

Reflection (David Walton)

Isaiah gives us a vision of transformation in a journey from captivity to freedom on a joyous journey home where even the desert is transformed as flowers appear like new life springing from the ground, in celebration, in hope as God works his purpose out. 

Some 20 years ago as part of a summer school in the Holy Land we spent a day in the Negev desert. We started our exodus experience at 4 am, arriving at the starting point for our trek just as the sun was braking over the horizon.  We needed to walk before the heat of the day became too much.  The desert seemed dead, lacking life, a harsh in hospitable place.  Yet when we looked closely, we found life all around us, giving a sense of hope on our journey.  Yet we walked in near silence, talking quietly if at all. Then arrival at an oasis, and the sudden transformation of the landscape, the lush green leaves of plants and trees, beautiful flowers, pools of water.  Tired and worn out we were suddenly filled with joy, renewed energy, and the urge to rejoice.  We were all talking, chatting, laughing, some singing. A joyous transformation.

In 1964 the sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term ‘gentrification’ to describe the rapid changes in urban areas where working-class residents became displaced by the growing numbers of middle-class who transformed what had been run down areas into highly desirable residential areas. In the process, Glass notes, “the whole social character of the district is changed.” It is most documented in urban settings, but the influx of wealthy middleclass retirees to some rural communities has completely transformed those communities in similar fashion. There is a positive to this transformation in the increase in financial capital within those areas, but there is also a negative in terms of decreased social capital that is difficult to regain.

While not wanting to labour the mixed illustration of gentrification, nonetheless there are times when an area is so ravaged that nothing, but a complete transformation will bring benefit back to the wider community. Such is the case with the High Line in Manhattan’s West Side—a piece of elevated rail track that was earmarked for demolition but that was saved by local residents who have transformed the mile long track to create a life-enhancing park space within the city. In essence, the doxology from Isaiah is also a celebration of transformation.

These verses celebrate and witness to a God who can transform even the most desperate situations in which people know abandonment, threat, and fearfulness. Much of the preceding chapters in the Isaiah collection are taken up with accounting for the predicament Israel found herself in. Here, with a nod back to 29:17-18 we find the affirmation that God can bring restoration. From the worst situations, God can bring nurture, new life, fresh vision, and hope. Even the life-threatening wilderness will become a place where blossoms abound. These verses, and particular 5-7, do not just talk about the promise of new life and new starts, however, they speak in terms of restored completeness: this is a hymn to wholeness. And, as such, this is wonderful, good `news for the broken and the hurt. It is, thus, no wonder that the gospel writers saw allusions to the incarnation of Good News whom they wrote about in this and other passages from the prophetic writing. Humanity will find its completeness and wholeness only through the glorious presence and action of God. Verse 8-10 describe a pathway of holiness, a righteous road (those purity laws were never far away), perhaps even a ‘high line’, and we might ponder what it means for us in 2020 to stand on this path during pandemic and looking forward to the preparation time of Advent.

There is much in this time of pandemic that leaves us fearful, feeling lost and abandoned in the barren wilderness, particularly those who have become isolated from family and friends or any kind of social interaction. But for too many being fearful, feeling lost and abandoned has been the way of life long before we heard of Covid-19.   As we travel in hot dry desert times of life can we also ponder areas of our lives are in need transformation and wholeness? In our communities, where do we see glimmers of new life and restoration, and where should our efforts as followers on the pathway of holiness be expended to bring wholeness?

What can we do, alongside creation’s witness as described in Isaiah, to witness to the glory of God?

There is much that the church and others are doing in this community to bring transformation, not by gentrification and displacement, but by community building and supporting one another, and beginning to see life in the desert, an oasis of joy, a high line of transformation.  In all this, we journey on, a growing crowd learning afresh that God can bring nurture, new life, fresh vision, and hope.  He can do all this, because he journeys with us.

Questions for reflection / discussion

As I read / listened to the readings and reflections for this week…

·         what did I notice, or what particularly stood out for me?

 

·         what did they make me wonder, or what questions am I pondering?

 

·         what have they helped me realise?

 

·         is there anything I want to do or change in the light of this week's topic?

A prayer for this week:

‘With joy you shall you draw waters out of the wells of salvation’
(Isaiah 12:3)

And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind

And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will

And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many

And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance

And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old

And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures

And then everywhere will be called Eden once again

Judy Chicago, 1979

Activities / conversation-starters with young (and not-so-young!) people

• Today’s reading talks about flowers blossoming in the wilderness. At this time of year, the landscape can seem to be looking a bit bleak, as plants die back for the winter. But there are still signs of life to be found! Go for a walk or into your garden (or if you can’t go out, look out of a window). What signs of life and hope can you find? Pause and thank God for them.
• In today’s reading we hear about God making a straight path in the desert. Make your own path out of footprints, either drawing round your feet on paper, or outdoors with chalk on a path or pavement. As you draw, think about your journey through life. Have there been times when you have wondered where God was? Have there been times when you have been particularly aware of God’s presence with you?
• In our reading today we hear about lots of things being changed and transformed. What is something you think needs to change? Draw the situation as it is now on one side of a piece of paper. Then turn over and draw the situation as it should be on the other side. As you draw, ask God to transform that situation. You might also want to ask God to show you any ways that you could be involved in changing things. 

 

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[1] You can read more about Wangari Maathai, including some of her speeches and lectures, on the Green Belt Movement website http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/ ; or listen to an interview with her on this podcast: https://onbeing.org/programs/wangari-maathai-marching-with-trees/