Black Type
December 05, 2010
Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 1:18-25
Carl and I were on vacation this week – we went to Oklahoma City to watch a horse show – a big, western horse show – in which my brother was competing. We had a grand time, and Jon rode well, so it was really fun to get to see that. And it was fun to get more of a glimpse into his world – my brother is a cowboy. He and his wife own a ranch in Arizona where they have a horse business – they buy and sell horses, they breed and raise horses, and for fun, my brother rides horses and competes in a particular type of precision Western riding called reining. While we were at the competition, we had the opportunity to go to a horse auction, which was certainly a unique experience for me. I kept remembering an episode from the old Dick Van Dyke show (by the way, did you know that Dick Van Dyke is a Presbyterian elder?) – an episode in which he and his staff visited an art auction and kept accidentally bidding on art, until they had bought something. So I sat very still, not even scratching my nose during the bidding, so that I wouldn’t accidentally come home with a horse. Anyway, my sister-in-law was explaining things to us about the auction, and showed us the catalog of the horses. And in each listing, there is something called ‘black type’ – a section of the listing that is in bold-faced print. Typically, it shows the achievements of horses related to the horse for sale, and sometimes it tells highlights about the horse itself. When my brother and I talked about it later, Jon noted that the black type doesn’t tell the full story of what a horse can be – he said, “Of course, what I like to say about genetics is, ‘My full sister is a Presbyterian minister, and I’m a horse trader…so obviously genetics isn’t everything.’”
I think the Bible would agree with my brother the horse trader on this – last week, we discussed the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel, and noted that in the lineage of Jesus there were several people who, for one reason or another, were at least ambiguous in the area of virtue and righteousness. Jesus, like most of us, came from a family including both saints and sinners, both insiders and outsiders – and we concluded last week that in God’s kingdom, even outsiders have important contributions to make to the mission of God. No one is disqualified.
And I found myself thinking this week about all the attributes that describe Jesus – particularly in the prophecies in Isaiah that we read during Advent. Some of them are sort of like the Black Type in the horse catalogs: they are more puffery than predictive. I’m thinking in particular about that marvelous passage from Isaiah 9 that also made its way into Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus: And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…. Or in today’s passage from Isaiah where, like in Black Type, the attributes of (who would be called in the horse world) his sire are listed in connection with him: The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. The sense is that because he is related to God, these attributes of God’s might reasonably be expected to be present in Jesus, too. Just as in the Black Type in the horse catalog, which lists all the achievements of the relatives of the horse…
But today’s reading from Isaiah puts the focus in a better place, for it opened, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots….” The reference to the stump is referring to a practice in the cultivation of olives. Olive trees live for hundreds of years, and during their long lives, they sometimes become unproductive. When that happens, the olive tree will be cut down, and new branches will grow from the stump, so that the tree will be fruitful again. The passage in Isaiah is referring to the lineage of King David. Although King David was the greatest king of Israel, his son Solomon’s reign resulted in both good and bad: the Temple was built, but the kingdom of Israel ended up divided. And the kings after Solomon were mostly worse. So this passage in Isaiah is suggesting there needs to be a fresh start in the lineage of David – and in the divine conception of Jesus, God provides such a fresh start. And the fresh start is shown by what he actually does, not by who he is related to: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth….”
Jesus himself emphasizes this in a passage that normally comes in next week’s lectionary – but we’ll be having the Sunday School pageant then, so let me just relate the story now. At one point, John the Baptist sends word to Jesus asking, “Are you the One we have been waiting for?” In other words, is he the Messiah. And Jesus responds by saying, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Jesus is explaining that you can tell who he is by what he actually does – he is doing the work of the Messiah.
It is a wonderful reminder to us – who we are is not who we came from, but is revealed by our own choices and actions. For example, many of us take pride in Frame Church’s long legacy of involvement in our community. But our pride is misplaced if it doesn’t result in our own actual commitment to mission – until very recently, the Mission Grants that Frame awards were totally funded from the interest on funds that were given by members long ago. They still have been largely funded this way, although last year and this year, Dan Mitchell’s holding a benefit concert here is providing some of the funding. Most of our members are very concerned about mission – and give generously when we try to raise money for disaster relief or the Holiday baskets – and that’s the giving that shows who our members really are. This is the reason that our Mission Committee continues to offer ways for our members to become directly involved in mission: through helping to serve meals at the Place of Peace or the Salvation Army’s Hope Center. It’s our own involvement that shows our commitment to mission – so there will be more opportunities in 2011 for our members to become involved in hands-on mission.
When we help support our youth group’s mission trips, we are supporting mission, and we are helping to provide an opportunity for our young people to discover the joy of making a difference in the world.
When we participate in the Take It to the Town all-congregation mission day in the spring, we have an opportunity to grow as a people who gathers to make a difference together in our community.
When our members are involved in Operation Bootstrap, or the Thailand Project, or Boy Scouts, or St. Vinnie’s, or Justiceworks, or Habitat for Humanity, we are finding ways to become personally involved in our community. We are making a difference – and our choices and actions show who we are.
Life is complicated, and it’s not always obvious what choices and actions are best. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the Christmas story from the perspective of Joseph. In Luke’s Gospel, we hear it from Mary’s perspective. Today’s story opens by describing Joseph as a righteous man. And then immediately, Joseph is given an opportunity to discern what it means to be righteous. The marriage customs of the Hebrew people were such that a couple became publicly betrothed, which we understand as engagement – but when a couple was betrothed, they were considered married. If the engagement would be broken off at that time, the couple would need a divorce. During the betrothal, a couple did not yet live together, even though they were considered husband and wife. It was during that period that Mary was found to be pregnant.
And our text tells us that Mary’s pregnancy is from the Holy Spirit – that same spirit which Isaiah described as the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Joseph has every right to divorce Mary under these circumstances – and such a divorce would bring great shame to her. So Joseph shows what he is made of by resolving to divorce her quietly – he will spare her the shame that would ordinarily come to her. But a messenger from God appears to him in a dream and tells him to go ahead and be married to Mary, that the child is of God. The rules of the time said he should divorce her, but he is being called to a righteousness that goes beyond following the rules. He was called to go deeper, to be led by God in discerning just how to live in these particular circumstances. And in following God’s leading, Joseph may be embarrassed – people may assume that he is either badly behaved or weak. Either he got Mary pregnant before they were living together, or he didn’t have the good judgment to divorce her and start over. But God calls Joseph to follow the way of love, despite how it may look to the world. And Jesus makes clear again and again that following God may not lead to public acclaim. Indeed, people may not understand our actions. The world has often been baffled by the ways of God and the people of God.
Jesus came among us as one of us, and showed us in his living that God is indeed with us. Jesus, called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us, showed in his commitment to prayer, in his own experience of being guided by God – Jesus shows us that God is with us, and that we can rely on God’s spirit to guide us, when we seek God’s mind in our discernment.
And Jesus also showed us that being with God and being with people are two dimensions of our faithful living. We seek discernment, we are present to God, and through God, we become more present to one another, and we are present, for God’s sake, to the community at large, and the world. And so we are not limited to what our background or our circumstances or our neighbors would tell us we are. We are not just the total of our genetic material, our degrees, our awards or even our mistakes. We are more than the black type would tell us we are. The God who was able to enter human history in a new way in Jesus Christ, is able to begin a new thing in us. We are who we are becoming in God: beloved, and learning to love; forgiven, and learning to forgive; transforming, and participating in the transformation of the world.
Amen.
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 1:18-25
Carl and I were on vacation this week – we went to Oklahoma City to watch a horse show – a big, western horse show – in which my brother was competing. We had a grand time, and Jon rode well, so it was really fun to get to see that. And it was fun to get more of a glimpse into his world – my brother is a cowboy. He and his wife own a ranch in Arizona where they have a horse business – they buy and sell horses, they breed and raise horses, and for fun, my brother rides horses and competes in a particular type of precision Western riding called reining. While we were at the competition, we had the opportunity to go to a horse auction, which was certainly a unique experience for me. I kept remembering an episode from the old Dick Van Dyke show (by the way, did you know that Dick Van Dyke is a Presbyterian elder?) – an episode in which he and his staff visited an art auction and kept accidentally bidding on art, until they had bought something. So I sat very still, not even scratching my nose during the bidding, so that I wouldn’t accidentally come home with a horse. Anyway, my sister-in-law was explaining things to us about the auction, and showed us the catalog of the horses. And in each listing, there is something called ‘black type’ – a section of the listing that is in bold-faced print. Typically, it shows the achievements of horses related to the horse for sale, and sometimes it tells highlights about the horse itself. When my brother and I talked about it later, Jon noted that the black type doesn’t tell the full story of what a horse can be – he said, “Of course, what I like to say about genetics is, ‘My full sister is a Presbyterian minister, and I’m a horse trader…so obviously genetics isn’t everything.’”
I think the Bible would agree with my brother the horse trader on this – last week, we discussed the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel, and noted that in the lineage of Jesus there were several people who, for one reason or another, were at least ambiguous in the area of virtue and righteousness. Jesus, like most of us, came from a family including both saints and sinners, both insiders and outsiders – and we concluded last week that in God’s kingdom, even outsiders have important contributions to make to the mission of God. No one is disqualified.
And I found myself thinking this week about all the attributes that describe Jesus – particularly in the prophecies in Isaiah that we read during Advent. Some of them are sort of like the Black Type in the horse catalogs: they are more puffery than predictive. I’m thinking in particular about that marvelous passage from Isaiah 9 that also made its way into Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus: And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…. Or in today’s passage from Isaiah where, like in Black Type, the attributes of (who would be called in the horse world) his sire are listed in connection with him: The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. The sense is that because he is related to God, these attributes of God’s might reasonably be expected to be present in Jesus, too. Just as in the Black Type in the horse catalog, which lists all the achievements of the relatives of the horse…
But today’s reading from Isaiah puts the focus in a better place, for it opened, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots….” The reference to the stump is referring to a practice in the cultivation of olives. Olive trees live for hundreds of years, and during their long lives, they sometimes become unproductive. When that happens, the olive tree will be cut down, and new branches will grow from the stump, so that the tree will be fruitful again. The passage in Isaiah is referring to the lineage of King David. Although King David was the greatest king of Israel, his son Solomon’s reign resulted in both good and bad: the Temple was built, but the kingdom of Israel ended up divided. And the kings after Solomon were mostly worse. So this passage in Isaiah is suggesting there needs to be a fresh start in the lineage of David – and in the divine conception of Jesus, God provides such a fresh start. And the fresh start is shown by what he actually does, not by who he is related to: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth….”
Jesus himself emphasizes this in a passage that normally comes in next week’s lectionary – but we’ll be having the Sunday School pageant then, so let me just relate the story now. At one point, John the Baptist sends word to Jesus asking, “Are you the One we have been waiting for?” In other words, is he the Messiah. And Jesus responds by saying, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Jesus is explaining that you can tell who he is by what he actually does – he is doing the work of the Messiah.
It is a wonderful reminder to us – who we are is not who we came from, but is revealed by our own choices and actions. For example, many of us take pride in Frame Church’s long legacy of involvement in our community. But our pride is misplaced if it doesn’t result in our own actual commitment to mission – until very recently, the Mission Grants that Frame awards were totally funded from the interest on funds that were given by members long ago. They still have been largely funded this way, although last year and this year, Dan Mitchell’s holding a benefit concert here is providing some of the funding. Most of our members are very concerned about mission – and give generously when we try to raise money for disaster relief or the Holiday baskets – and that’s the giving that shows who our members really are. This is the reason that our Mission Committee continues to offer ways for our members to become directly involved in mission: through helping to serve meals at the Place of Peace or the Salvation Army’s Hope Center. It’s our own involvement that shows our commitment to mission – so there will be more opportunities in 2011 for our members to become involved in hands-on mission.
When we help support our youth group’s mission trips, we are supporting mission, and we are helping to provide an opportunity for our young people to discover the joy of making a difference in the world.
When we participate in the Take It to the Town all-congregation mission day in the spring, we have an opportunity to grow as a people who gathers to make a difference together in our community.
When our members are involved in Operation Bootstrap, or the Thailand Project, or Boy Scouts, or St. Vinnie’s, or Justiceworks, or Habitat for Humanity, we are finding ways to become personally involved in our community. We are making a difference – and our choices and actions show who we are.
Life is complicated, and it’s not always obvious what choices and actions are best. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the Christmas story from the perspective of Joseph. In Luke’s Gospel, we hear it from Mary’s perspective. Today’s story opens by describing Joseph as a righteous man. And then immediately, Joseph is given an opportunity to discern what it means to be righteous. The marriage customs of the Hebrew people were such that a couple became publicly betrothed, which we understand as engagement – but when a couple was betrothed, they were considered married. If the engagement would be broken off at that time, the couple would need a divorce. During the betrothal, a couple did not yet live together, even though they were considered husband and wife. It was during that period that Mary was found to be pregnant.
And our text tells us that Mary’s pregnancy is from the Holy Spirit – that same spirit which Isaiah described as the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Joseph has every right to divorce Mary under these circumstances – and such a divorce would bring great shame to her. So Joseph shows what he is made of by resolving to divorce her quietly – he will spare her the shame that would ordinarily come to her. But a messenger from God appears to him in a dream and tells him to go ahead and be married to Mary, that the child is of God. The rules of the time said he should divorce her, but he is being called to a righteousness that goes beyond following the rules. He was called to go deeper, to be led by God in discerning just how to live in these particular circumstances. And in following God’s leading, Joseph may be embarrassed – people may assume that he is either badly behaved or weak. Either he got Mary pregnant before they were living together, or he didn’t have the good judgment to divorce her and start over. But God calls Joseph to follow the way of love, despite how it may look to the world. And Jesus makes clear again and again that following God may not lead to public acclaim. Indeed, people may not understand our actions. The world has often been baffled by the ways of God and the people of God.
Jesus came among us as one of us, and showed us in his living that God is indeed with us. Jesus, called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us, showed in his commitment to prayer, in his own experience of being guided by God – Jesus shows us that God is with us, and that we can rely on God’s spirit to guide us, when we seek God’s mind in our discernment.
And Jesus also showed us that being with God and being with people are two dimensions of our faithful living. We seek discernment, we are present to God, and through God, we become more present to one another, and we are present, for God’s sake, to the community at large, and the world. And so we are not limited to what our background or our circumstances or our neighbors would tell us we are. We are not just the total of our genetic material, our degrees, our awards or even our mistakes. We are more than the black type would tell us we are. The God who was able to enter human history in a new way in Jesus Christ, is able to begin a new thing in us. We are who we are becoming in God: beloved, and learning to love; forgiven, and learning to forgive; transforming, and participating in the transformation of the world.
Amen.