“Garland for Ashes” (Isaiah 61:1-4)
May 11, 2008 – Mother’s Day/Easter 7
Jocelyn Wilson, Student Intern
In the gospel of Luke chapter four Jesus is in Nazareth at synagogue where he is presented with a scroll to read aloud. Christ stood up and read the words we just heard from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he as anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).
This is the Good News.
Last Sunday I looked up at the baptismal and the portrayal of Christ and I interpreted this image within the context of Christ’s proclamation in Luke 4. Christ, arms open and outstretched, is surrounded by the suffering – the oppressed, the spiritually blind, the captives – he had come to bring them good news. I looked at this image and saw that the people are suffering so much that they do not even have the strength to stand. They are gripping and they are clinging to Christ as he stands strong in their midst.
What the Good News gives to them is hope for a new day. They are gripping and they are clinging to hope.
Hope. It seems so simple but in a world in which we will inevitably suffer, hope is powerful. The gospel kind of hope let’s us know that God is with us when we suffer, God is on our side when we are oppressed, and God seeks to give us sight when we are the oppressor. Now it can make us feel uncomfortable to say that God takes sides but God most assuredly is not neutral. Christ did not come to make the powerful more powerful or the rich richer. Christ while forgiving, receiving, and reconciling himself to all wants to be black-and-white about what he stands for. So as he proclaims in Luke 4 and as we see here in this image, Christ takes a stand in the midst of the suffering who grip and cling to him. This is not to say that the powerful and the rich and the oppressors do not suffer or that Christ is not with them also, but only that when they receive the Good News which fills them with hope they have to be willing to stand with the poor and the oppressed as Christ did.
James Cone, a theologian whose offerings to the Christian faith often get overlooked because of the controversy of his popular character, has said “no one can be liberated until all are liberated.” We cannot escape God’s grace but lack of liberation effects how we interact as participants in community locally, globally and everywhere in between. When we unite as a liberated people who speak out against any powers that attempt to oppress in any form then we are able to come together in reconciliation, in love, and in peace. But when we attempt to unite as a powerful people together with an oppressed people we are unable to have genuine reconciliation with one another. Ultimate power possessed by any one person, or one group, or one country, always, always, always means that someone else is getting oppressed. The only way ultimate power can be ascertained is by stealing it and maintaining the system that enables it to be stolen and hoarded. This is oppression.
Right now in Burma a cyclone has devastated an already devastated region and people. A U.S. diplomat has recently estimated that the death toll could reach as high as 100,000; 100,000 human beings. The response of the military junta in power has been slow and lacking. Lack of clean water, the risk of epidemic disease, and food shortages aggrievated after the cyclone destroyed crops has only piled suffering on top of suffering for the people in Burma. In the meantime, the military junta is attempting to move forward with a constitutional referendum which would make permanent the military government which has oppressed the people of Burma for many generations.
Paw Naw, a Karen woman who worships with us and whom has given me authority to share her story, was one of many oppressed by this military government. Poe Clee and I went to visit Paw Naw one afternoon. It was raining that day and almost immediately after I sat down Paw Naw began to share the story of the birth of her daughter:
It was raining in the refugee camp the day her daughter was born. The military government attacked their camp that day forcing the entire camp to uproot and to run. Paw Naw told me that as they ran, literally, as they ran she gave birth to her daughter. She delivered the baby herself. She said she knew what to do because she had delivered her previous children and she explained to me with the expertise of a nurse the birthing process of a child. After the baby was born, and she was born healthy, they continued to run. I asked her how long she ran. I was thinking a few days maybe but Paw Naw said that they ran not for two days but for two months. For two months Paw Naw, her newborn daughter, her other children, and the rest of the camp ran from the military government. Everytime it rains Paw Naw remembers that day.
So today I do not feel uneasy saying that God takes a stand with the oppressed. God is not the force leading the military government to oppress the people. God stood with that camp the day Paw Naw and her children ran giving them the hope to keep running for two months. I can imagine that they could barely walk from their suffering like the people in the image above the baptismal but they kept moving forward with Christ gripping and clinging to the hope they had in him; hope for a new day. Maybe they remembered his words, “The Spirit of the Lord … has sent me … to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (v. 18). This is brilliant. That Christ would transcend into eternity but leave us with the irresistible presence of His Holy Spirit. This is brilliant because in our gripping and clinging to this irresistible presence when we are suffering, when it feels we can do nothing else but grip and cling to this presence, we move forward into that future into that hopeful eternity that Christ has promised to us. “Today,” Christ said, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21). This is brilliant because we have to do nothing else but cling to Christ.
The Spirit of Truth likely stood with the military government those two months as well but it was likely urging them to transform and to take a stand with the oppressed. The Spirit of Truth was offering them sight. As Christ said, “I have come to give sight to the blind.”
And today – on Mother’s Day – as we honor and uplift the women in our lives, we all remember that women as a community also have been oppressed and abused in the past and we all know that women continue to be oppressed and abused today by governments and powers for sure but also, and unfortunately, by those within their own homes.
The prophet Isaiah says in chapter 61 verse three “the spirit of the Lord God has anointed me … to comfort those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes.” Today, as Eh Kalu Htoo and Ngwe Kyi sing the hymn of response, Dear Mom, I invite you to come forward and pick up your garland, your hope for a new day, and to leave your ashes here at the table. If you don’t feel you have any ashes to leave behind, then I invite you to take a stand for someone else who is suffering.
So today as we honor and edify women, and today as we remember the people in Burma, and today as we remember our own suffering and the suffering of others, we don’t suppress our suffering as the military government of Burma suppresses the suffering of the people. The military government of Burma maintains its power by denying and suppressing the suffering of the people. If we interpret that image of Christ through the eyes of the military government then we would not see a Christ standing with and in the midst of the suffering, but a Christ who blindly walks through and over the suffering to get more power. It is our joy that we know a Christ who although he is sovereign and the possessor of all genuine power gets glory through the destruction of our fetters; from our triumph, through suffering by way of hope, to a new day.
But we do not stay in the suffering either. Today we recognize that it is important to acknowledge the suffering and to take a stand with those who suffer but then, but then we celebrate.
We celebrate the Good News. We celebrate the irresistible Holy Spirit that gives us the hope we need so much right now; that Spirit of Truth that whispers to us in the midst of our suffering and in the midst of our oppression:
“Yes, you can”
“Don’t give up”
“Today is a new day”
So as we come forward to retrieve our flowers we acknowledge the suffering, we take a stand against the oppression, and we celebrate a God who would trade us garland for ashes.
So now I invite you to come forward as Eh Kalu Htoo and Ngwe Kyi sing Dear Mom , retrieve your flowers and leave behind your ashes. If you do not have any ashes to leave behind right now, I ask that you, as you are able, would stand up while others retrieve their flowers and stand with those who do suffer and who do mourn.
