No one knew this better than Jesus.  These very words from Isaiah provided the biblical text for his first hometown sermon and provoked the congregation to hurl him off a cliff (check it out in Luke 4).  Jesus escaped, but the very people that watched him grow up didn’t sympathize at all with his message.  It’s safe to say the hometown crowd was not concerned with nurturing the sense of call of their native son.  Jesus was probably doing fine right up until he started telling the crowd what they didn’t want to hear:  that the most oppressed people of society were the very ones God preferred:  the weak, the widows, the lepers, and even foreigners.  

Here it was, Isaiah’s good news of justice and joy:  The spirit of the Lord is upon me…to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners…to comfort all who mourn…for I the Lord love justice…the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

The prophet’s lavish language, here, is heard first by Israel in their own Advent nights of Exile in Babylon (modern day Iraq, no less); waiting for God to come turn things around.  He dares them to dream that God is up to something new; that the political drama in Babylon cannot silence God’s own drama of justice.  And if you listen between the lines, you almost hear the servant in Isaiah choking out the story; you can feel the flow of human tears of mourning that will be water for the ground of Israel’s joy.  

Abraham’s seed is still the apple of God’s eye, which is plenty reason for joy despite their social and political circumstances.  The grace of being the chosen sons and daughters of God precedes the prophet’s call for Israel to wipe the dust off their clothes of mourning and robe up with righteousness.  This is not breaking news to the people; this is a reminder of who they really are, who they have been all along, and what their mission has been from the beginning:  to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.  

Isaiah’s message meant to move Israel to joy moved Jesus’ crowd to anger in Luke’s Gospel.

Why the difference, you think?  This is what Jesus’ audience didn’t like to hear:  that the reach of Isaiah’s vision was not for the sake of Israel only, but it was for the sake of Israel for the sake of the world.  Jesus comes along and puts flesh and blood on Isaiah’s vision, to get clear that God’s agenda is never about protections for the privileged few it is always about the promises of good news for the poor; it is always about drawing bigger circles around our ideas and expectations about power and confronting our temptation to leave out the very people God wants in.  Quite often we find God’s joy shining through the very circumstances that most upset us:  like the pain of feeling left out and looked over.

Poet and historian Carl Sandburg, was once asked in an interview, “What in your opinion is the ugliest word in the English language?”  During a long pause, Mr. Sandburg furrowed his brow in thought, repeated the phrase, “the ugliest word in the English language,” is EXCLUSIVE.    

We are all too familiar with the word.  When it comes to love, to be betrayed; when it comes to a job, to be rejected; when it comes to our gifts, feeling like they’re not enough.  When the circle is drawn small, we know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.  

Isaiah’s words are meant to sooth the souls of such people; those who feel more like the broken-hearted than the heralds of hope.  

Can you remember a time in your life when you felt like there could be no comfort for your grief; that nothing could possibly touch the depths of your disappointment?  Was there someone who welcomed you in; someone who helped you join God’s dance of joy again?   

When you need more help than you can give, God is waiting to give you good news.  This good news is something we tell about but only God can bring about.  The good news is that in the heart of God, joy is the greater power; grace gets the last word, and love runs deeper than pain.  There are times in our lives when we need to hear it, and there are times we need to tell it to somebody else; to come alongside them in their circumstance.

We are not prisoners to circumstance, because we know who we are; You could just as well go ahead and read Isaiah 61 and substitute us for me; the Spirit of the Lord is upon us…because he has anointed us…you see, Wilshire, Isaiah’s vision for Israel is Jesus’ agenda for the church; Wilshire is about the business of adopting Jesus agenda for the sake of the world, too.  

Kids Heart Africa is only one such way Wilshire is doing justice.  This summer many of you will know the joy of doing justice by building up a child development center in Kenya that will provide care for kids orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.  You will be heralds of good news to the poor who are at the mercy of those who have the moral will to make a difference.  

As we well know, by all the world’s standards, we are rich people.  And yet, our definitions of poverty are many times too narrow.  Poverty is defined in both economic and physical ways.  But poverty is also the plight of the rich who look after only themselves; ignore the rights of others, and who don’t want to be dependent on anyone for anything.  And thus poverty is just as much a heart condition, and maybe just as deadly, too. 

The Dallas Morning News ran a story this week about a Presbyterian missionary from Highland Park.  Hunter Farrel has spent the last several years in La Oroya, Peru.  Seems the biggest employer in La Oroya is a  St. Louis owned company called Doe Run.  Doe Run also happens to be the biggest source of pollution in Peru.  Doe Run is a leading producer of metals, and in Peru, they have been smelting copper and producing lead since the 1920’s.  Studies show that the harmful effects of toxic pollution are leaving children with dangerous levels of lead in their blood while thousands of these children are going without proper medical treatment. Brain damage, kidney problems, and seizures are only some of the physical effects of lead poisoning.   

Hunter Farrell’s concern for the children of La Oroya has become the focus of his mission work.  Thanks to the fire of justice burning in his belly, this mountain town in Peru is getting worldwide attention to find ways to do justice on behalf of the children there.  What does Hunter say about it?  “I’m just doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”  

Meanwhile, the New York billionaire who owns this outfit in Peru, lives on 63 acres of beachfront property in the Hamptons with a 100,000-square foot compound with 29 bedrooms and 39 bathrooms appraised at $185 million.  What’s wrong with these two pictures? (December 4, 2005, Dallas Morning News) 

The duty and demand we feel about Isaiah 61 is what concerns the heart of God.  And if we stic k w ith it long enough, the duty we feel becomes more like delight.  I the Lord love justice.  

Rich people like you and me will only be helped when we recognize our own poverty; when we too count ourselves part of the fellowship of the poor.  If the gospel of the coming Christ is meant to be good news for the poor, then we can only hear it as a message of joy in the revelation of our own poverty.

If our Advent joy is to truly be God’s joy, it will be so much more than happiness.  Happiness is subject to a person’s set of preferences, and when my preferences change, then my definition of happiness changes along with it.

The joy that may surprise us is Just joy. Not simply joy, not joy as a product of a consumer economy, but joy that is a product of the economy of God. That what causes Jesus’ worry is God’s worry; what Jesus hopes for is God’s hope; what gives Jesus’ joy is God’s joy. Joy is richer than money and gift giving and lack of time and in-law and diet issues, joy is hearing God’s heart gush when we find the freedom to love what God does:  I the Lord love justice. Think of it this way.  The painter sees the world in color, the sculptor in form; the musician perceives the world in sounds, and the economist in commodities.  The prophet is someone who sees the world with the eyes of God…perceiving the whole world in terms of justice or injustice.(Heschel, Abraham, The Prophets, pp. 270-271)

Along the way, there are personal questions to be asked: like is there anything that has you locked up?  What is it that has put you behind bars?  Are you drawing a circle too small around yourself?  What is keeping you from joy?  What is giving you joy?  

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, Wilshire…because the Lord has anointed us.  

And so there are honest questions to ask ourselves as a church, too:  What is the Spirit moving us to do?  What are the places where the prophet’s words are sharper rather than smoother?  Where are our own growing edges?  Are there ways we may be drawing the circle too small around ourselves?  Can we tell the truth we know even when we aren’t sure the world will hear us?  Can we be humble listeners to the truth others speak, even when it’s not easy to hear?  

And so, here’s to hoping we find joy in what God loves:  justice.  We find ourselves between the advent of what is and the advent of what will be; between our lives as they are and our lives as we long for them to be. 

And along our Advent way, the life we live in between is the gift of God who calls us to proclaim liberty and walk in wonder on our way to the manger, brimming with the joy of a baby’s cry.  Amen.