Isaiah 11:1-10
One of my absolute favorite prayers in the Book of Common Prayer is found in the baptismal service. It is a prayer we say over the newly baptized right after the baptism. We pray that the Holy Spirit will “give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love [God], and the gift of joy and wonder in all [God’s] works.”
It is the so-called prayer for the seven-fold gifts of the spirit. In addition to being a personal favorite of mine, it is one of the most ancient of all the prayers contained in the Book of Common Prayer. It is found in liturgies dating from the late 5th century. And it has always been associated with rites of Christian initiation. Generally baptism, but sometimes confirmation, but always acts of Christian initiation when new souls are brought into the fellowship of Christ.
Despite its long-standing association with Christian initiation, the prayer is drawn, not from the New Testament, but from the passage we heard this morning from Isaiah. We hear this passage in the lectionary during Advent, of course, because we hear in it a foretelling of the coming of Jesus. Isaiah writes: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” We identify that shoot, that new branch, with Jesus.
But when the prophet Isaiah wrote these words he was not thinking of a far off Messiah in some “dim and distant” future. He was thinking of a living king, a real human king, coming soon to rule the people of Israel. Isaiah is not describing a divine ideal; but rather a real human character. (Interpreter’s Bible). Isaiah describes the qualities that the spirit of God will bestow upon such a king to enable him to rule God’s people according to God’s will. God will grant the king:
A spirit of wisdom and understanding.
A spirit of counsel and might.
A spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.
These are gifts to be used in this world to bring about a kingdom characterized by peace, justice and reconciliation. Isaiah envisioned a Davidic king, fully human, but anointed by God, bringing such a kingdom to God’s people here on earth.
Somewhat ironically, I think we have pushed Isaiah’s vision off into the abstract. Such a kingdom and such a ruler are for us ideals or abstractions, unattainable here in our “real” world. It is ironic that Isaiah envisioned this outcome as realistic and concrete and we have transformed it into an abstraction.
It is ironic because we, unlike Isaiah, have heard John the Baptist reminds us that God’s kingdom is near. The kingdom of heaven is near. Near to us. We attest to the incarnation of God’s own self, God’s son into this world. We know the manifestation of God made very real in our midst. In Jesus the kingdom of God is breaking into our world.
Isaiah’s prophecy referred to a single person, one individual who was anointed to rule. A king who needed the spirit’s gifts to form and govern a kingdom. We say Isaiah’s prophecy, however, not at the anointing of kings, but at the anointing of every single person who is baptized. Each and every person who is baptized into the fellowship of Christ is given the gifts needed to create and maintain God’s kingdom in the world.
These days in the church, often when we speak of gifts of the spirit, we speak of how the spirit gives different people different abilities. Our task as individuals is to discern our particular gift. Some are good teachers. Some are good pray-ers. Some have the gift of prophecy.
The seven fold gifts of the spirit are different. We pray and affirm that they are bestowed on everyone at baptism. When you are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever, you are given these gifts. All of us are given all of the gifts in full measure.
But, as the Rev. Dr. A. J. Mason wrote in 1891 (modified slightly from a quotation in Massey Shepherd’s American Prayer Book Commentary):
The seven-fold gifts of the spirit are given to all, but none of the gifts are directly gifts of moral virtue. They are gifts which set us in a position to acquire moral virtues, and incline us to practice them; but they do not in any way supply us with virtues ready-made, or relive their possessor from the necessity of carefully forming right habits of action and feeling. It seems that the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is done by an inward teaching, which commends to us the true principles of moral choice or right action, and an inward strengthening, by which the forces of Christ are imparted to us, that we may act, and act perseveringly, upon the convictions which the Holy Spirit has wrought in us.
The seven-fold gifts of the spirit give us the capacity, the inclination and the strength to act with the forces of Christ. To act as builders and maintainers of God’s kingdom on earth. But we must choose to act. To actually affect the world in which we live, we have to utilize the gifts of the Spirit. They are tools. Give to us all, but we have to utilize them. To bounce off of last week’s sermon… just because somebody gives you a great oven, doesn’t mean the aroma of cooking will fill your house. To create a glorious meal, you have to cook. You have to use the oven. We have to use the gifts of the Spirit.
They are tools given to us so that we can participate in Christ’s own work of making God’s kingdom real in the world. Isaiah describes that kingdom, or society, in powerful and poetic terms. It is a human society where the meek know justice. Where the young do not know fear. Where exploitation and abuse are unknown. And where the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters that cover the sea.
