Second Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 658 This is what the Lord says:
“As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes
and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it,
there is still a blessing in it,’
so will I do in behalf of my servants;
I will not destroy them all.
9 I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah those who will possess my mountains;
my chosen people will inherit them,
and there will my servants live.
Summer is upon is, and the books are starting to stack up.
We often discuss summer reading at some point in the season—what are you reading or what do you plan to read—but maybe it’s time to write something instead. So find your typewriter, grab some paper, and let’s get started!
In order to help this effort to write the next great Canadian novel, we should begin, then, with a review of structure—the basic outline of what you’re about to share with the world. Everything should start with a plan, and may as well follow convention, since finding ideas is hard enough without reinventing the wheel.
Act one is your set-up, like the girl who runs away with her little dog Toto, only to be carried off by a twister to the Land of Oz. It will help the story if you inadvertently drop a house on some wicked witch, since the first act is all about conflict, or setting the scene for conflict. There is a way to get back to Kansas, but first you have to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City.
Act two is where the real action happens. If act one is conflict, then act two is ‘complication,’ with twists, turns, and usually some flying monkeys. You and your companions may be given a task, and in the course of completing this task you may find some inner resources you didn’t know you had.
Act three, sometimes called ‘resolution,’ will solve or end the matter (nothing like a bucket of water to resolve your witch problem) and culminate in a moment called denouement, a French word that means denouement. Maybe you’ll get some random items to symbolize that you already had everything you needed to succeed. And maybe you’ll get some instruction on how to operate your ruby slippers, advice that would have been handy around the time of the flying monkeys.*
Conflict, complication, and resolution: three moves that give your narrative structure and might make you the next J.K. Rowling. So get to it, but don’t forget to share some of your millions with the church, and don’t forget that the same narrative structure that will carry you forward begins in the Bible.
Examples? God says don’t eat the fruit of that tree, they do it anyway, and they get hard work and pain in childbirth. (note: not every story has a happy ending). God frees the Israelites, they wander in the desert for forty years, and they finally enter the promised land. Jesus “lived briefly, died violently, and rose unexpectedly,” (Willimon), three acts that still give life.
So the movement of conflict, complication, and resolution can be found throughout scripture, but what about our passage today? Or what about the Book of Isaiah as a whole, how does it fit our narrative structure? First, and rather conveniently, most scholars agree that Isaiah is really three books, with three or more authors, and so we already have the beginning of a pattern.
First Isaiah, the first 39 chapters, is catalog of God’s anger at Israel, and the various ways God intends to punish her disobedience. In other words, conflict. Second Isaiah, chapters 40 to 55, “anticipates the restoration of Israel,” and the creative way this will happen.** Third Isaiah, the rest of the book (including our passage today), resolves the story by describing the New Jerusalem. Conflict, complication, and resolution.
Or is it? A careful eye will look at second Isaiah and question how the restoration of Israel could be described as a complication. And I wondered that too, until I realized that I was reading the book from Israel’s perspective instead of God’s perspective. The complication is God’s change of heart, or God’s willingness to “comfort ye my people” just a few verses after threatening destruction. Another complication is using King Cyrus of Persia to redeem the people from exile, the “creative way” I mentioned a moment ago.
So that’s the overview, what about our passage itself? It’s part of third Isaiah, but it mirrors the movement of the whole book. So here’s some conflict, the indifference that God cannot abide:
To a nation that did not call on my name,
I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’
2 All day long I have held out my hands
to an obstinate people,
who walk in ways not good,
pursuing their own imaginations—
3 a people who continually provoke me
to my very face.
God gets more specific, even attacking the new-age people who invent their own religions (“Keep away” they say, “don’t come near me, for I’m too sacred for you!”). But then something happens, and this complicated God relents:
“As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes
and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it,
there is still a blessing in it,’
so will I do in behalf of my servants;
I will not destroy them all.
And finally the denouement, the resolution that only God can give:
9 I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah those who will possess my mountains;
my chosen people will inherit them,
and there will my servants live.
Disobedience leads to planned destruction, God relents, and the promise of eternity resumes. So what changed? Or rather, what changed God’s mind, from destruction to redemption in just a few verses? As always, the clue is in the text, but first another complex three-part narrative:
When God saw a golden calf, carefully crafted in the time Moses was away, God burned with anger. ‘Look at what your people have done,’ God said, ‘so step aside while I destroy them, and make you, Moses, a great nation instead.’ But Moses decided to complicate matters. ‘These are your people,’ Moses said, ‘and imagine the shame if the Egyptians see that you liberated your people only to kill them out here in the desert. Perhaps, God, you should remember your promises instead.’
When Belden Lane recounts this story he points to that awkward moment when your child wins their first argument against you, and the mixed feelings you feel. A bit of sadness maybe, having passed from the “I’m the parent and I’m right” stage into something else. A bit of frustration, maybe, having been bested by something you created. And pride, mostly pride (I hope), having made a person who can sometimes surpass you in wisdom and insight. And that’s what happened at the foot of the mountain, steps from the golden calf. So back to our passage:
“As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes
and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it,
there is still a blessing in it,’
so will I do in behalf of my servants;
I will not destroy them all.
The complication is a God willingness to turn away from anger, hear words of life from the creature God created, and respond with mercy. A very brave Moses will challenge God and win, even if it means he will never see the promised land himself. A very human Jesus is dying on the cross and says “forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” And God forgives. The pattern is the same: conflict, complication and resolution, and the promise of eternity resumes.
The novel you write is your life, with twists and turns, conflict and complication, and your co-author is the Most High. Sometimes it’s an uneasy writing relationship, with doubt and recrimination, and more than a few pages in the trash bin. But other times the pages take flight, animated by gratitude and deep joy, and resolved with redemption and forgiveness. It’s a creative partnership, and the story you tell together will bring life to others, now and always, Amen.
*https://blog.reedsy.com/three-act-structure/
**Bruggemann, 2003, p. 171
posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 4:48 AM
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