“Neither
Breaking Nor Quenching,
Neither
Broken Nor Quenched”
The Reverend Thomas A. Sweet
The forty-second chapter of
Isaiah is one of the richest in the Bible. But
to understand it, it helps to know something of the background that is provided
in the previous chapter. The
historical setting is that
The poet pictures God as a consummate prosecutor pressing his case. He tells the gathered nations about the great acts of creation and salvation that the Holy One of Israel has wrought. He tells the Babylonians how the great Egyptian Pharaoh, like they themselves, thought he had an unbreakable lock on the Israelites before God sprung them loose under the leadership of Moses. He declares how the God of the Jews had called forth not only the stars in the sky but also the generations of people on earth. He exclaims how that same
God not only had set the sun in
its course but also harbors a secret heart for those whom the world considers
last, lost, least, and littlest. “I,
the Lord, have done all of this,” the divine prosecutor cries out.
Then he turns and says to the nations, “Now set forth your cases.
Make your claims for your gods. Present
your proofs of their potency. Tell
of what great things they have done. Let
us hear why people should put their trust in them.”
But the nations sputter.
This was the era of the great Babylonian and Assyrian empires.
It was the Golden Age of Greece.
It
is against that backdrop that Isaiah now reminds the exiles, in chapter 42, of
their relationship to God, putting these words in God’s mouth as he says of
the Jews:
Here is my
servant whom I lift up for you,
my chosen, in
whom my soul delights;
I have put my
spirit upon my servant;
my servant will
bring forth justice to the nations…
A bruised reed
my servant will not break,
and a dimly
burning wick my servant will not quench;
My servant
faithfully will bring forth justice.
My servant will
not grow faint or be crushed
until my
servant has brought forth justice in the earth…
What did God need
“A bruised reed God’s
servant will not break…” In
Isaiah’s day, the Hebrew children often went down to the riverside to play.
That is where the reeds – tall, thick, bamboo-like grass – grew.
One of the childrens’ favorite pastimes was to take strong, sturdy
reeds, hollow them out, and make of them gorgeous sounding flutes.
The riverbank was full of reeds so, if any of them were cracked or
bruised, the children simply broke them in half and threw them away.
There were enough reeds so that they did not have to accept any that were
not perfect. Bruised reeds were of
no value to the flute makers.
How often in the world people
are treated like that. As long as we
are healthy, productive, and useful, there is a place for us.
But let us become a bruised reed in any way, even if the bruising is not
of our own doing, and we no longer fit.
There is no longer a place for us in the mainstream.
We are expendable. We have
learned the lesson so well that we harbor all kinds of hurts within us, to our
great detriment, so that we do not reveal our brokenness.
But the servant of the Lord, be
it
It long has been a concern and
sorrow of mine that churches do not do that very well, that we are welcoming
only of those who keep the tacit agreement to be “nice” and “polite” and
who do not let their brokenness show. I
one time saw on a bulletin board outside of a church the claim that the church
is a hospital for sinners. But how
can that be if we do not allow ourselves and each other to speak honestly of
what ails and afflicts us? How can
it be if there is a conspiracy of respectability going on that makes the
admission of people’s pain and hurt and sin and confusion anathema?
It is not the rich that the church typically “sends empty away” but
those who are poor…in spirit, in acceptable morality, in their ability to fit
the dominant mold of social rules and roles.
I hope increasingly that it shall not be like that here among us.
The constitution of the Presbyterian Church says that the church is to be
the provisional demonstration of the
The servant of God treats
tenderly the fragile beauties of creation, for the servant sees in them an image
of his or her own soul. Therefore,
neither breaking nor quenching, the servant of God is neither broken nor
quenched. One of the horrors of war
is that those who are asked directly to participate often return home, if they
do, broken and quenched because they themselves have had to break and quench.
Likewise, when we in any way break the bruised reeds and quench the dimly
burning wicks in our midst, either by complicity in bad public policy or by our
own actions, our souls suffer as well, whether we know it right away or not.
“A dimly burning wick the
servant will not quench…” Hebrew
homes were not equipped, of course, with electric lights.
Instead, oil lamps were used that looked very much like “Aladdin’s
lamp.” The lamps were filled with
oil and contained a wick made of flax. As
long as the wick remained immersed in the oil, it would burn.
But, as the oil ran out, the wick smoldered and began to smoke.
The Hebrews then extinguished the wick and threw it away.
Isaiah is painting a
metaphorical picture of people whose flickering flame society is all too ready
to douse. Too old?
Extinguish. Too sick?
Extinguish. Too weak?
Extinguish. Too much of a
problem? Extinguish.
Too different? Extinguish.
Too costly? Extinguish.
Too fragile? Extinguish.
Too poor? Extinguish.
Extinguish. Extinguish.
Any doubt that God’s way is
different? When the woman caught in
adultery was brought to Jesus, did he break that bruised reed?
When the prodigal son came home a smoldering shell of the young man he
used to be, did the father extinguish that dimly burning wick?
When the one sheep strayed from the flock and got lst, did the shepherd
say, “Doesn’t matter. I have
ninety-nine more”? No, no, and no.
Doing justice is the moral crown
of God’s creation. It is, Isaiah
says, our only true worship. What we
begin in the sanctuary is completed, fulfilled, and legitimized by what we do in
the world. Caring for the vulnerable
ones, the despised ones, the ones that get pushed to the margins of our society,
those who are dis-advantaged, those who are down on their luck, and those who
are simply down – that was the work that “Isaiah’s servant” was given to
do, the servant in whom God delighted. That
was the work that Jesus did, the beloved Son with whom God was well-pleased.
And it is no less our continuing work as well…you good and
faithful servants.
Amen.
© Copyright 2008 First Presbyterian Church