Sermon from First UMC East
Greenbush 12/7/25
When I was 18 I got my own apartment. I was excited to live
on my own, but it was lonelier than I expected. Preparing and eating dinner by
myself was not as exciting as I had pictured. One of my dear friends who had
moved away for college got me a plant. It was a tiny little thing in a tiny
little pot. She assured me it was easy to take care of. I was grateful for
another living thing in my apartment and enjoyed watching it grow. When I
graduated college and moved to New Jersey for Seminary I took my plant with me,
it had moved to a medium-sized pot and fit nicely in front of the window. After
Seminary, when I got married and moved into the parsonage of my first church,
it came along. It was much bigger and now in a much larger pot. It stood in
front of the sliding glass door and kindly let out a slight droop to remind me
when I had waited a bit too long to water it. It came along when I moved to my
next church and eventually shared its pot with a bright plastic flower that my
son stuck next to it. Eventually it became time for our next move, and this
time we were moving from Ohio to Colorado. What would I do with my big plant in
its big pot? It wouldn’t fit between the car seats and the movers said they
didn’t take plants. I asked again and the movers said they would put it in the
truck but since this was in January and the truck was not heated, they couldn’t
guarantee it would make it.
When
the truck arrived there was the plant and it was looking very sad. I tried my
best to help it as it became more and more shriveled but eventually it cracked
and fell and there was nothing I could do but put it in the compost. There the
empty pot sat, for some reason I didn’t immediately clean the soil out of it.
And after a few days or so, I saw something. Something small and green right in
the spot where the roots were left. I excitedly said to my husband “a shoot
from the stump!” (these are the kinds of references two clergy make with each
other). And sure enough, new life emerged. There was still life in that pot,
even after the death and decay, a fresh new sprout burst forth.
A “shoot from the stump” is a phrase from the Isaiah
reading that we read today. In order to fully understand it, we have to back up
a bit and look at the verses before it. In Isaiah chapter 10 verse 34 it says,
“He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its
majestic trees will fall.” This is referring to the dynasty of David. King
David came from the line of Jesse. He was the much anticipated, much longed for
king chosen by God. And now, that line of David was but a stump. A stump is a
dead plant from which nothing can grow and represents what Biblical Scholar Walter
Brueggemann calls the “deep failure of the Davidic dynasty.”[i] As Pastor Mary Beth shared
in her sermon last week, Isaiah is writing during a time of increasing power
and destruction by the Assyrian army and the decline of Israel. It was a scary
and uncertain time marked by lack of faith, injustice, corruption and
oppression. The days of David’s rule seemed but a long dead stump.
And then … we get this passage today. A beautiful poem
about hope and possibility. It starts with a shoot from a stump. Life out of
what was dead. A seemingly impossible situation, new life from death. A new
reality in which righteousness and faithfulness are the basis of rule. Where
the poor and oppressed are cared for. The vulnerable protected. And where “The
wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the
calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them.”
Impossible ... You might say. A lion and a lamb together in
peace? It goes against everything we know about the animal kingdom and animal
instincts. Impossible … there is no way a little child could bring about a
peace which has eluded wise and aged rulers for all time. Impossible … new life
coming from a stump, from hopelessness and despair.
How could this be? We are told in this poem that it is “the
spirit of the Lord.” It says, “the spirit of the Lord shall rest on him.”
Brueggemann says “The Spirit of the Lord
has the capacity to do what the world believes is impossible.” The lion and the
lamb together would mean a world not dominated by threat and hostility. A world
where the vulnerable are cared for. Where there is courage to trust. Where rage
and violence, revenge and hatred give way to love and care, bridge-building and
hope. Where safety, health and security are not only for those who can earn enough,
inherit enough, perform enough, but for everyone. True peace … for even the
vulnerable lambs. Can you imagine?
Isaiah asks us to. Imagine what the Spirit of the Lord can
do. What seems impossible. A child leading the way.
For us Christians, we believe that Jesus is the one who
comes. He comes from the line of Jesse, a shoot from the stump. One who rules
with the Spirit of the Lord. Who cares for the least, the lost and the lonely
and makes possible this impossible vision of a world ruled by love and peace.
It would be a long, long, long time between these words of
Isaiah and the birth of Christ. A long time of waiting.
I hate waiting. My husband teases me that I would rather
risk breaking my back to carry something heavy than wait for him to come help
me. I am always the one in my family of four sitting in the car waiting for
everyone else to get ready to go. And when I have to wait like in the long
lines at Disney World, or for the thermometer on the turkey to pop or repair
man to finally come or for even harder things like medical test results or word
that a friend or family member struggling is ok or for pain to end … it’s
agonizing. Waiting is hard. Sitting with uncertainty is hard. Trusting that
everything will work out is hard.
Eckhart Tolle writes, “Waiting is a state of mind.
Basically it means that you want the future; you don’t want the present.” And
if you think about it, it is true- the awareness that you are waiting is really
a state of mind. We may be in agony waiting for the plane to arrive and board
at the airport but then realize that even if we were at home we would be doing
the same thing- sitting there staring at our phone. Waiting takes us out of the
present moment and leaves us focused only on what will, could or might be. It
leaves us building an imagined future in our minds rather than receiving what
comes with openness.
And … if you think about it … we are actually living in the
long awaited present of those who have gone before us. We are their hopes,
their anticipated futures, their dreams. We are living after Jesus has come, we
know that God has made possible what was impossible. God has come, to be with
us, to bring love, peace and hope.
But the world is not perfect. We live in that space between
the birth of Christ and the day when all shall be made well and Christ will
come again. And we may find ourselves looking around at dashed hopes, cut down
trees, dead stumps and despair.
But Isaiah reminds us that the Spirit of the Lord has more
in store. This Advent, let us wait with trust, knowing that God makes all
things new. And that we can be the shoot, bringing all that we hope for into
the world. Living lives with righteousness and faithfulness, bringing care to
the lonely, bringing peace to those in fear and justice to the oppressed. We
can be a people who believe in stumps, even when it looks like there is no life
left in them.
Before Thanksgiving, I was able to join the youth group as
they went to Hawthorne Ridge and spent time with residents there. These young
people spent their day off of school sitting and talking with people they
didn’t know. They talked about what they are grateful for and listened as the
residents told their stories of gratitude. They prayed together and made crafts
and spent time in genuine connection. Young people leading the way with care
and love. Bringing shoots of a future hoped for to others.
But before I finish, I don’t want to leave you wondering …
how is my plant today. The one I got when I was 18 that has traveled all over
the country with me. Well, when it was time to make the trip to New York from
Colorado, the movers wouldn’t take it. After packing two kids a dog and
everything we needed for a 29-hour cross country drive into our Subaru, it
didn’t fit in the car. So I gave it to my friend Tanya. When I moved to
Colorado I knew I was going to be far from family and I prayed that I would
make friends in that new place. Tanya is one of those friends. One of those friends
who loves whole-heartedly and isn’t afraid to be the first to cry at beautiful
moments. She attended my kids’ preschool graduations and sporting events and
loved them as they grew. The kids often asked if they could sit with “Miss
Tanya” in church. She supported my
volunteer projects and always showed up for us with flowers (she is a florist).
She was one of the first people we told that we would be moving. And through
her tears and broken heart she hugged us and meant it when she said she was
happy for us. She was a shoot from the stump. When I moved to a new place where
I knew no one and felt alone, she brought love, warmth and a new possibility of
feeling at home. And so I am happy to know that my plant is there with her, in
that place of love. It reminds me to always trust, that the Spirit of the Lord
is bringing new life, and it’s worth waiting for.
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