A shoot shall come out from the stump of
Jesse… Isaiah
11:1a
I
came to serve as pastor with the people of Immanuel Lutheran Church when I was
in my early 30s. It was a real eye opener for me since I’d never been in a small,
rural church before; I learned about a whole different culture.
They
were so small you had to wonder how they were still around. When I got there,
on a typical Sunday, 7 people were at worship. On a good Sunday, there were 14.
In my time with them, we saw that number gradually creep up to something like
40 on a good Sunday, but still not enough to support a pastor.
Fortunately,
they were yoked to a healthy-sized congregation that was in a nearby town. So
on Sundays, after I preached at Immanuel, I hopped into my car and drove 9
miles, winding through the hills, to preach at the other congregation I served
in town. That was the church with Sunday school rooms, and offices, and bathrooms.
Unlike Immanuel.
Immanuel
was like a large barn inside, all one big room. And there was no running water
in the building.
They
shared a cemetery that was between them and the Methodist church and the graves
came so close to the building that they couldn’t dig a well there. At least
that’s what I was told.
We
had an outhouse against one of the outside walls of the building. On one side
of that wall there was a toilet and directly on the other side, stood the
altar. That never seemed to bother them the way it bothered me.
During
my time with them, we only had one building improvement. That was when the
Council took up the matter of the toilet paper falling onto the ground, and
they came up with a brilliant solution to the problem. Someone brought in a
contraption to hold the toilet paper, otherwise known as—a coffee can. It
really didn’t matter a whole lot though, because I noticed that whenever
someone needed to go, they ran down to the little corner store, which
thankfully was open on Sundays.
We
made do without running water. When we had a church dinner we used the hall at
the volunteer fire department down the road.
I really
grew to love the people of Immanuel. I couldn’t imagine all they’d been through
over the years. And somehow, they never gave up. They were a beacon of hope
sitting on that little intersection of two roads winding through the foothills
of the Appalachian Mountains. If ever someone in the community was in need,
they were right there with a meal, clothing, a caring hand. These are the kind
of people Jesus was talking about when he said, “You are the salt of the
earth.”
Well,
around the time I joined them, there was some new energy at Immanuel and they decided
that they needed to have a Sunday school again. So, they formed a few class
areas along the perimeter in the nave and then they went out and found some children.
Most of them were relatives. Suddenly, we had 12 children in the congregation.
We
needed to have something more for the kids, so I asked Elaine, the organist, if
she would be willing to play for a children’s choir if I directed it. She
thought it was a grand idea.
I
figured, if we can get half of these kids to come to choir, that would be 6 and
that’s enough kids to make some music. So we invited them to come and went to
our first rehearsal, not sure what to expect. Do you know how many kids showed
up? 12. Every single one of them. They ranged in age from 4 to 13, and they
were all there every week.
The
first time the kids sang in church I saw a few people in the congregation
crying. And it wasn’t because they sounded absolutely dreadful... Seriously, it
was hard to pick out the tune they were singing. But what they lacked in
musicality, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. I’m sure they could hear
them singing at the Methodist Church on the other side of the cemetery.
As
Christmas approached, I was rehearsing several songs with the kids to sing on
Christmas Eve. On one of them, I decided it would be cool to have a solo verse,
but I wasn’t sure who to ask. We had never actually listened to the kids sing
individually. So Elaine and I did a quick line of a song with each of the kids
to hear how they sounded. The first one came to the piano to sing and the poor
thing couldn’t match a pitch. It was awful. Elaine and I cast a knowing glance
at one another that said, “Not this one.” And then the next one came to the
piano to sing and it was the same thing. One by one, they sang for us and not
one of them could match a pitch. Not even close. They weren’t sharp, they
weren’t flat—they weren’t anywhere in the vacinity. Each time Elaine and I are
looking at one another our eyes are getting wider and wider. How was this
possible? It defied the law of averages. No wonder they sounded so terrible.
Finally,
Brandi had her turn, and she sang every note, perfectly on key, loud and clear.
Hallelujah!
Immanuel
had not had a Christmas Eve service in decades. It had been so long that they
had resigned themselves to the fact that it would never happen for them again.
So as the weeks of Advent went by, the excitement grew. I didn’t know what to
expect.
That
night, 75 souls from that little community gathered to celebrate the wonder of
“God with Us.” The children’s choir sang three joyfully cacophonous songs. When
we came to “God Tell It on the Mountain”, seven-year-old Brandi stepped forward
and sang with the voice of an angel.“Down
in a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born, and God sent us salvation, that
blessed Christmas morn--.” The other kids came in on the chorus, singing their
hearts out, “Go Tell it on the Mountain, over the hills and everywhere, Go tell
it on the Mountain, that Jesus Christ is born.”
The congregation erupted in
thunderous applause. I looked out into the pews and saw tears streaming down
their cheeks. Everyone lost it. Even the big burly men were crying big burly
tears.
This
little motley band of kids who couldn’t sing a tune in a bucket was, for them,
a shoot growing up out of an old, dead stump.
That’s
the thing about the image of the dead stump. One would never expect it to give
forth life again. It’s a stump of utter despair. When Isaiah spoke these words
he was speaking to a dead Israel. God said he would cut down the tallest trees
and the lofty would be brought low and that’s what he did. The trees, the
people, had been cut off.
I’ve
known that kind of despair, and maybe you’ve been there, too. I can’t help but think of the people who live
in and around the Smoky Mountains and the devastation they’re living through
even as we worship here in this place of warmth and safety today. I think of
people of Alleppo and Mosul. People enduring the North Dakota cold at Standing
Rock. I think of those who feel their country has abandoned them after the
election: Muslims, people of color, immigrants, the disabled, the lgbt community,
victims of sexual assault. I think of parents who have lost their children to senseless
acts of violence. Those who grieve the loss of someone they can’t imagine
living without. Little congregations like Immanuel who don’t know if they’ll
survive until next Christmas.
In
times of despair, we search for signs of hope. God’s promise to us is not grand
in its scope. The prophet doesn’t promise Israel that she will rise again. The
shoot will not become a mighty cedar. It wouldn’t be what the people were
expecting.
Later,
Isaiah writes: “For he grew as a young plant, and like a root out of dry
ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his
appearance that we should desire him.”
A
shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse… fragile, yet tenacious and
stubborn. It would grow like a young plant out of dry ground. It would push
back the stone from the rock-hard tomb.
A
shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse. Can you look at that old dead
stump and see it? Can you see God’s promise of hope?
Preached at Ascension Lutheran Church, Towson MD Advent 2, 2016
