University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Carol Gregg                                                         

Isaiah 42:1-9

University Presbyterian 1-13-08

Apparently he did not learn everything he needed to know in kindergarten. Robert Fulgrum is taking dance lessons.

Robert Fulgrum, a Unitarian minister, is the author of All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, which was on the NY Times bestseller list in 1989. The book offers gentle folk wisdom, claiming that if we really would learn to share the way our earliest teachers encouraged, our world would be a better place. While it seems nearly impossible to disagree with such sayings, Fulgrum himself has demonstrated that he is still learning though he is long past kindergarten. Fulgrum is 71 years old and has recently taken up tango dancing. In October, he wrote:

“Tango is a recent enthusiasm. It's a complex and difficult dance, so I'm up to three lessons a week, three nights out dancing, and I'm off to Buenos Aires for three months of immersion in tango culture.

The first time I went tango dancing I was too intimidated to get out on the floor. I remembered another time I had stayed on the sidelines, when the dancing began after a village wedding on the Greek island of Crete. The fancy footwork confused me. "Don't make a fool of yourself," I thought. "Just watch."

Reading my mind, an older woman dropped out of the dance, sat down beside me, and said, "If you join the dancing, you will feel foolish. If you do not, you will also feel foolish. So, why not dance?"

And, she said she had a secret for me. She whispered, "If you do not dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying." Recalling her wise words, I took up the challenge of tango.

A friend asked me if my tango-mania wasn't a little ambitious. "Tango? At your age? You must be out of your mind!"

On the contrary: It's a deeply pondered decision. My passion for tango disguises a fearfulness. I fear the shrinking of life that goes with aging. I fear the boredom that comes with not learning and not taking chances. I fear the dying that goes on inside you when you leave the game of life to wait in the final checkout line.

I seek the sharp, scary pleasure that comes from beginning something new — that calls on all my resources and challenges my mind, my body and my spirit, all at once.[1]

Fulgrum sees his life as yet unfinished. As we stand on the brink of a new semester and a new year, we know that life is not yet finished. The year is yet before us: unknown, unfinished. And I think as we stand on this edge and if we listen carefully we can hear God’s call. God has unfinished business and summons each one of us. More than learning to dance, responding to God’s call is a “sharp, scary pleasure” that demands all of our resources.

Our scripture reading for today is from Isaiah 42. This passage is known as the first “servant song.” Scholars have give it this title because it is part of a poem, somewhat separated from its context, and yet other than the title there is much debate about this passage. There are questions about whether or not the passage was written as a whole or parts later put together; conversation about how it fits or does not fit into Isaiah as a whole; and most especially, there are diverse opinions about the identity of the servant. One scholar claims that the “problems of these ‘servant’ texts have defied the ingenuity of exegetes for centuries”[2] while another writes that the debates are simply “dreary.”[3] Don’t worry, I won’t try to summarize the scholarship, and I probably couldn’t do it justice if I tried.

One thing that is obvious about this passage is that it is the installation and commissioning of God’s servant. Here the servant is publically presented. God’s favor is clear. The Spirit is given. The task is articulated and it is no small task. The servant will bring forth justice to the nations and will continue working without complaint, without stopping, without being overwhelmed until justice is established in all the earth. I can’t imagine a grander task.

The justice that this servant is to bring is more than our notion of justice. The Hebrew word is “mishpat.” The term can refer to a legal decision, particularly one in which an innocent is vindicated, but more broadly it “refers to a social order based on justice that originates in the will and character of the deity.”[4] It is the order of compassionate justice which God wills for all. I imagine this justice as the undergirding framework, designed by God, which is to order all human interactions. If this is God’s intention for our world, then God’s work is unfinished. I don’t need to give you examples of the ways we as individuals and societies fall short; I’m sure you are aware of more than enough.

So, because God’s business is unfinished, a servant is commissioned to work continually for compassionate justice until the job is done. Isn’t it nice to think this calling delegated to the servant…unless of course that servant might be us?

I promised not to summarize all the debate about the identity of the servant, but we need to know who it might be. Some say the servant is Cyrus, the one who conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to go back to Jerusalem. Some say that the servant is the whole nation of Israel, called to be a light to the nations. Others look back at the text through the lens of Christ and see a prediction of the Messiah. It is no accident that Jesus’ baptism and this passage have similarities. All of these make sense. The servant could be an individual or a group. And is it also possible to see ourselves in that servant role? Of course the original context was not meant to be a to do list for any 21^st century Christian, but in as much as Israel was called of God, and Jesus was called of God, are we not also, as followers of Christ, called of God? Are we not servants of the Most High called to participate in God’s unfinished business?

I think it is hard to link ourselves to the servant described in Isaiah. The task described is so grand, important, and holy that we cannot help but feel overwhelmed or terrified by it. “I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations” (Isa 42:6) Who are we to think that that may describe even a tiny bit of who we are?

My guess is that most often we do not identify with such a grand calling. The university has started another semester. It is a new beginning, but it continues a routine. There are more books to read and papers to write. There are lectures to give and tests to grade. What difference will it all make in the larger scheme of things? Businessmen and women face a new year likely filled with familiar issues. There will be personal, environmental and bottom line concerns. Family life demands a succession of routines from changing diapers, to coaching sports to paying for college. Can we help but wonder how the activities that fill our days make any difference? I think one of our deepest fears, at any age, is that what we do does not make a difference. That there is little purpose. According to the book Quarterlife Crisis[5], young adults in their mid-twenties, find that they have achieved goals but still feel empty and fear there is nothing more. Robert Fulgrum took up tango dancing to disguise his fearfulness.

Fearfulness is not the end of the story.

Fulgrum invested himself in something new, claiming that he seeks “the sharp, scary pleasure that comes from beginning something new — that calls on all my resources and challenges my mind, my body and my spirit, all at once.” He knows that new demanding investments that require much of who you are can be exciting. It can be a wonderful adventure to pour yourself into something, not exactly sure how it all will unfold.

I appreciate his energy to start something new and to invest himself fully in life and I think we should do the same, but not because we are striving to stave off illness or boredom or even fear. In this new year, as in each new day, it is God who invites us to invest ourselves fully. With the gift of the Holy Spirit, God calls us to work for compassion and justice. It is a summons to participate in God’s unfinished business, a high calling given to each one of us, a calling which challenges body, mind, and spirit.

Does this mean that all of us will have a dramatic, public ministry which makes a noticeable change for good? Not likely, though that may be the case for some of you,and it may be the case for us as a congregation. But for every public accomplishment, there is a whole host of private accomplishments. Every presidential candidate affirms the role of innumerable volunteers who persistently make one phone call at a time. Every scientific breakthrough is the result of long, unglamorous hours in the lab. Responding to God’s call is more often faithful, humble, consistent acts of justice and service than it is some splashy event. If our daily activities, as ordinary as they are, can be lived with grace, compassion, and justice, then we are in fact responding to God’s call, contributing compassionate justice in our corner of the world. If “mishpat”, the justice of which Isaiah speaks, is a social order originating in the will of God, it is like a fabric which undergirds our lives. As we intentionally live with justice and compassion, we contribute to that fabric, mending holes, adding another section. Whether it is a routine task or a new venture, to invest ourselves fully and daily in living out God’s justice and compassion requires everything we have and more; it requires God’s grace.

And the good news according to Isaiah is this: there is no doubt about the outcome. The servant will most definitely, certainly, bring forth justice and will be a light to the nations. And it is the servant in whom God delights.

As we start 2008, let’s respond to God’s call to invest ourselves in God’s work of justice and compassion and enjoy the sharp, scary pleasure of that adventure.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.