Out of the Briers
. . . a critique of magical deliverance
When I was nine or so my grandfather bought for his retirement a long-neglected farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It covered seventeen acres, mostly woodland, and a farmhouse, barn, chicken house, and outhouse (for there was no indoor plumbing). An elderly couple had lived there, and for a long while they had been too frail to tend either the house or the grounds. After cleaning and painting the farmhouse, grandpa and my Uncle Bud faced the formidable task of clearing the honeysuckle and blackberry bushes from the space between the house and the woods. Bud would wade into this no-man's land, his hands sheathed in thick leather work gloves, swinging grandpa's heavy wooden scythe in earnest arcs, doing battle against the briers. After not much of this, he would emerge with bloodied arms, cursing the task. Even if you have never had my uncle's experience of clearing a brier patch, you certainly do know how annoying thorns can be when you are trying to get somewhere, how, for instance, prickly pears get stuck in your socks and make life miserable for a while. Briers are a universal symbol for hindrance and annoyance, as in the expression: So-and-so has become a "thorn in my side." Micah laments the deterioration in his society by writing that even the best of people had become like a thorn hedge. Today we speak of thorny situations or thorny relationships. Briers stand for whatever impedes or entraps us, because getting free of that something, whatever it is, brings pain.
I do not know what your briers may be. I invite you to think specifically about whatever impedes or annoys you by wounding you. Perhaps it is something huge, like a wildfire or the threat of global terrorism. Or maybe it’s something small and personal, like a painful relationship which, even after your best efforts, you can neither improve nor flee. Think about your briers, and then ponder with me what it would take to find your way out.
First, though, let's listen to some biblical quotes that all contain the mention of briers. See them at the bottom of this post.
In the first the prophet Isaiah tells the people of Israel not to worry about the threat from two foreign kings who are threatening to attack them. A child will be born to Israel, says he, a child who shall be called Emmanuel, God-with-us. This child shall be Israel's sign of deliverance. Before that child is grown, the land of the two threatening kings will be deserted and in briers. So, don’t worry! Attack will not come from that quarter. Israel's threat--and here the prophet Micah's words pertain to Israel's internal troubles-- the thorns she has mostly to contend with are those that grow up among her own people. Micah says that even the best citizens of the Israel of his day have become thorny, entrapping each other, and inflicting pain upon each other. As for himself, he says, he will look to God to get him free of the briers.
That's what Christians do, too. We are descended from those children of Israel who expected to be rescued from the briers by a special child, a child who would prove to be much more than a messenger from God, but rather, God with us. They hoped that the miracle child would get Israel out of the briers. A writer which scholars call third Isaiah voiced that message in texts that are very familiar to Christians during the approach of Christmas. Like this one:
"Instead of the thorn shall grow up the myrtle. . .You shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."
What a glorious image of deliverance! All nature shares in it. The briers are gone, replaced by lovely, flowering myrtles. The mountains and the hills sing for joy. The trees clap their hands. Beautiful, magical deliverance! Magical, because this prophecy did not tell how the miracle child would get his people out of the briers. As it turned out, he would do so by hanging on a cross, wearing a crown of thorns. That's ironic because his people expected just the opposite. They expected their Messiah to do the hard work, clearing away the briers for them, protecting them from the pain of getting free. So, how could submitting to the cross and wearing a crown of thorns deliver people from the pricks of their own thorns? What does Jesus' wearing of the crown of thorns tell us about our hope of being magically whisked out of our own brier patches? Was he telling us that there is no way out but through, no getting free of briers except by enduring pain?
Before we grapple with the meaning of Jesus' crown of thorns, please do hold that thought for a moment, the wishful thought that there can be a magical, painless rescue from the briers. I have one more brier text to thicken the soup, from the twenty eighth chapter of Ezekiel (24-26):
"And for the house of Israel there shall be no more a brier to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land which I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.”
There be some Jews and Christians who believe that that text is coming true right now. It began to come true—so they profess-- with the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, and everything that is happening now in the holy land is God's will. The gathering of scattered Jews from all over the world, the reclaiming of Jacob's former territory, the subduing of contemptuous Arab states and rebellious Palestinians, all this is God's will some say. However, the seizing of land not once belonging to Jacob, is that God's will? Is it God's will to keep encroaching on territory of non-Jews for the purpose of making Israel more secure? And is it truly all right in God's eyes for Israel to do ANYTHING she deems necessary to make herself more secure?
Extending these same sorts of questions to our own nation, does the presumption that America is special in God's eyes, because she is the "home of the free and the brave," the place of "manifest destiny" for peoples "yearning to breathe free," does that presumption somehow give her a divine right to become the world's policeman? Does the need to protect national security give Americans carte blanche to do whatever seems necessary, using her great wealth and armaments? Or will Jewish, Christian, and Muslim citizens here grasp the danger in such nationalistic, self-righteous thinking? In considering how we shall get out of the briers, shall we plumb the meaning of Jesus' crown of thorns; or, shall we dream of being magically delivered by a big, angry, Daddy God, justifying all kinds of self-interested, ruthless behavior under the pretext that this is Big Daddy's will?
Out of the briers. That's what this post has been about. What shall free us from prickly, painful, and sometimes frightening relationships? Shall the answer be a magical deliverance, sparing us much pain and suffering, but surely also keeping us from growing more mature, self-aware, and empathetic? The prophets did speak of that miracle baby as the answer to this question. With him the myrtle would replace the thorn, said one. Ah, yes, but Jesus would also wear a crown of thorns. What would it mean for us Americans to wear crowns of thorns in the "war against terrorism" instead of trying to bulldoze our way out of the brier patch? What would it mean for us, in the prickly relationships we experience, to wear crowns of thorns, bear some pain, instead of trying to find solutions to our frustrations that involve no pain? What child is this who laid to rest on Mary's breast was sleeping? Not merely a babe, meek and mild. Nor even a mighty, magical deliverer. But the one who showed us the way out of the briers is by wearing a crown of thorns.
Texts referred to in this post:
Isaiah 7: 10-14, 16, 23-25
Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, "Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test." And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel...Before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted...In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. With bow and arrows men will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns; and as for the hills which used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.
Micah 7: 1-4, 7
Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the vintage has been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig which my soul desires. The godly man has perished from the earth, and there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts his brother with a net. their hands are upon what is evil, to do it diligently; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. . .
Isaiah 55: 12-13
"For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off."