Stubborn Dandelions and Tenacious Hope

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

Midweek Advent – Week 1 – December 3, 2014

Text: Isaiah 11:1-4, 6-9

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Of all the seasons of the Church Year, Advent is the season that focuses us on hope. In this time before Christmas, what is it that we hope for? A particular gift? For peace within family celebrations? For safe travel for ourselves or our loved ones? What else?

The first lesson we read together tonight, from Isaiah 11, begins with a word of hope for us: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Immediately before this verse, the prophet has spent quite a few verses describing the judgment that God will bring upon his people. The image he uses to describe this judgment is the almost complete destruction of a forest. And this judgment comes because of their arrogance and their lack of concern for the poor and the widows and the orphans among them – in other words, those at the bottom of society.

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” After the forest is wiped out, there is still hope, the prophet says. There is still hope because God’s will arcs to love and to life – and because of God’s love and life, a shoot springs up from the deadened stump, and then a branch grows.

Outside the back door of our home, there is a concrete walkway. It sits right next to our house, almost up against the foundation. And there, in the small little space between the walkway and the house, grows a dandelion - one ridiculous little dandelion plant that springs up. I pull it – it comes back. It’s a stubborn plant.

Hope takes tenacity. Hope must be relentlessly stubborn at times. Hope gets cemented over by the hard world we live in – a world full of every violent image that can stand opposed to the peaceful images we are offered in Isaiah 11 tonight. In our world, wolves tear up lambs and children get bitten by snakes.

But the words of the prophet offer us hope that busts through the hardness – hope that grows bigger and bigger – first a shoot, then a branching tree. It is a hope that reminds us that God has all things well in hand. As Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Amen.

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