“A shoot shall come out from
the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”
I've
been thinking a lot about family trees this week, partly because I spent the
first few days of it down in Exeter with my mother, catching up on a few things
that needed doing. Amidst those jobs was one which we've been putting off for
ages, a job which had just seemed too daunting to attempt. That job was to sort
through the vast quantities of – mostly loose – family photos she has
accumulated, as most of us do, over the years. There are photos from holidays she
took with Dad, photos of my and my brother’s childhood, photos of our families,
photos of her childhood, photos inherited from her parents, and my father’s
parents, photos of friends, and photos of people whose identity is a complete
mystery and probably always will be. We got there in the end, at least sorting
them into rough categories, but of course each of those pictures was far more
than a photo. They were full of memories and stories, pictures of people who
had in some way had an influence on my and my mother’s lives. Whether they were
related by blood or were friends, they had played some part in shaping the
people we were, part of our family tree in one way or another.
That’s
why the task had seemed so daunting. It
wasn't just the quantity of photos; it was the quantity of memories they
represented which loomed so large.
It
was a timely coincidence, then, that our Bible readings today are about a
family tree as well, the tree that “comes
out of the stock of Jesse” as Isaiah put it. Jesse was the father of King
David, and that made him very important to the Israelites; their line of
kingship started with him. At the time
Isaiah was writing, though, it looked as if that family tree was coming to an
abrupt and brutal end, as the Babylonian army swept across their land. The
family tree had been cut down. It was all over for the nation. But Isaiah tells
them that it isn't so. Just you can fell a tree in the garden, only to find
that new shoots come from its trunk – often more vigorous than the ones you
chopped down – so God would enable a new nation to grow, a new family tree to
spring up from the old roots.
Many
centuries later, the early Christians had an “aha!” moment when they looked at
this verse. Hadn’t Jesus fulfilled it? they thought. He was descended from the
line of David, born in David’s city of Bethlehem, and in him they’d found a new
family, a new kingdom. It was exactly as Isaiah had said.
 |
| Jan Mostaert, c. 1500, |
As
I said, the idea of the Jesse Tree came from that “aha!” moment which the early
Christians had, when they saw that the “shoot
that came from the stock of Jesse” could be seen to culminate in the life
of Jesus. He came at a time when, once again, the nation was under threat, this
time from Rome, and when many people felt that they didn't, in any case, have
much of a place in the “family tree” of Judaism. That’s why his message was
received so enthusiastically by those who were at the bottom of the heap;
slaves, women, the poor, those whose lives had fallen apart, those who were
looked down on by others.
But,
as John the Baptist said in our Gospel reading, God was an expert at starting
from scratch, capable of cutting down
that old, exclusive “family tree” and growing a new one. “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” he thunders at the Pharisees and Sadducees who
come out to see him – these are the ones who make the repressive rules which
keep people away from God, telling them they are unworthy. This new family tree
wouldn't be based on physical descent or being a religious insider; it would be
one with room for everyone.
But
what would this new tree look like? That’s where the analogy breaks down a bit
– you can only ever push these sort of pictures so far. When a tree puts out a
new shoot from its stump, the new growth will be genetically identical to the
old. It will have leaves, bark, flowers, fruit, just like the old tree did. It
may be a slightly different shape, like the coppiced trees which fill our
woodlands around Seal, with many stems instead of one, but otherwise it will
basically be the old tree all over again.
But
the new growth God wants to give us isn't just the same old, same old. Isaiah knew
that. The new nation he speaks about is one which looks very different from the
old. It is a nation where wolves live with lambs, leopards lie down with kids,
lions eat straw and little children are in the lead. That’s a very odd vision
indeed. The people of his time had never seen anything like it, and we probably
haven’t either.
In
the New Testament, the early Christians saw what God was doing in Jesus as
something radically new too, as strange as Isaiah’s vision. John the Baptist
talks about the axe lying at the root of the tree, the fire of the Holy Spirit,
the grain being threshed and winnowed. It is all change for those who want to
share in the new growth God offers.
In
our second reading, we got a glimpse of one aspect of this revolution. Gentiles
– non-Jews – were welcomed on equal terms; the old tribal barriers had been
abolished. The “family” wasn’t just for those who were genetically related,
part of the existing tribe. It was for anyone who wanted to be part of it. “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed
you,” says Paul, writing to a church where people are obviously struggling
to see the family likeness in some of those who are part of their fellowship.
Families
can be wonderful, but they can also be restrictive, abusive, forcing people into
moulds that don’t fit them, but Jesus challenged this stranglehold and set
people free to be who they were called to be. He drew his followers into
fellowship with people very different from themselves. Remember Isaiah’s vision of wolves living with
lambs, and leopards lying down with kids? Being part of Christ’s family, his
kingdom, means learning to see anew, making friends out of enemies, taking a
risk on trusting those you have viewed with fear. It means listening to those who might seem to
have little to offer – “a little child
will lead them”- paying attention to the wisdom that might come from those
at the bottom of the heap.
The
idea of that “peaceable kingdom” was, and still is, a very attractive one, but
the reality is that it is hard to live like that. We can’t do it in our own
strength, and we can’t do it if we aren’t secure that we belong and are
of worth to God ourselves. As Paul reminds us, we are only able to welcome
others because we have been welcomed by Christ ourselves.
Our
readings today, then, call us to look both outward and inward. We’re called to
look outward into a world which is full of threat and danger. Where we belong
and what we belong to has been a hot topic this year. A lot of old certainties
have been challenged. The EU referendum,
the rise of a new, sometimes rather aggressive nationalism across Europe and in
the US is shaking up old assumptions and allegiances. What does the future hold? No one knows but it’s
clear that it will be frighteningly easy for the weak to be swept aside, for
ugly prejudice to get the upper hand. We should never be complacent about that.
It’s a moment when it’s really important for us to be clear about what a
Christian vision for the world looks like - where wolves and lambs live
together, where those who are most vulnerable are most protected, where, above
all, we think of ourselves as part of one human family, the family of God.
Most
of us probably don’t feel we have much power to influence international events,
but in reality, the changes that matter most are usually local ones – they are
things that happen here and now. Our neighbourhoods, our nation, our world, are
made up of individuals – us - either loving each other or not. We’re part of
God’s work where we are, either building his kingdom, growing his family tree,
or not.
But
if we’re going to be able to look outward, and play our part, we have to look
inward too, into our own hearts, because that’s where the fears and hatreds that
warp the world begin.
Those
who flocked to John the Baptist in the desert were desperate for hope, and hope
was what they found, but it was hope that came wrapped up in challenge. The
same is true for us this Advent. Will we go out into the desert, into the place
we don’t know and make the real changes in ourselves that lead to change in the
world, or will we stick with the same old, same old, and wonder why it doesn't
work? Will we risk welcoming people we've been suspicious of, loving people we
fear, letting God form us into a new family, where all can feel welcome and
have a place? Our families are often precious to us, and so they should be, but
the most important family we can ever belong to is the family of God, whose
family tree is broader than any we can ever imagine.
Amen
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