by Pastor Diana Holbert
You are walking down a grocery store aisle, filling your basket with things that are good for you, high in nutrition, fiber, taste. You go through the line, waving at the clerk as he smiles back at you as he says, “Bye! Have a nice day!” You walk out without paying because this grocery store is free! Wee!
That’s what this looks like in Isaiah 55.
Listen, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you that have no money, come, buy and eat.
Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Who is Isaiah talking to? It’s to a dull, depressed, worn-out, resentful group of ancient Hebrews. They’ve been in exile for years. The first Babylonian captivity was in 597 BC, and the second, tons worse than the first was in 587 with destruction of the homeland, and the dispersion of the leaders and professionals far away from home.
What on earth is Isaiah saying to these people, here in the late 6th century? Free food? Rich, good-for-you food?
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
And your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
Listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
“David? David who? He was years ago. What is the monarchy to us now in captivity? They let us down. Look where we are now. In Babylon!
“You talk about covenant, Isaiah. We don’t believe you,” the Israelites say. “You tell us WE will call nations and they will run to us? We are nobodies. We’re left behind with other leaders that we don’t understand and who don’t understand us. You call us glorified? In these rags?
Have you seen people like that? Of course you have. The forgotten. The pushed-away. The ignored. The voiceless. Yes. How can they believe that God has something good in store for them? What can be done?
Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts;
Let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them
And to God, for God will abundantly pardon.
I think that’s why I come to church. It’s not because I’m paid to come to church! I find God here in what we do. If I didn’t, I’d find another church or another place to be on Sunday morning. La Madeleine has pretty nice croissants.
I have experienced God here. As I have drawn near to God, God has drawn near to me. I have promised again and again in this place to do what Isaiah says: to forsake my wicked ways. To get rid of negative words and blaming thoughts.
I need a God to have mercy on me and to forgive me. And I need a God who will do the very same thing for you. For everyone.
- I’m concerned about the plight of endless poverty
- About homelessness literally right here on our doorstep. People using our porch for a hotel and a bathroom.
- I’m troubled about what happens to lives and families and churches in earthquakes
- About a cruel and broken system of health care here in the U.S.
- I’m distressed about the illegal immigrants who come to our clinic with enormous sores on their feet, desperate to try to find help.
I want hope for all God’s people.
I want them to experience the God of Isaiah who tells them that they have a future.
And I wonder why these bad things happen.
Then in verse 8 it says:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
Hmmm. What does this mean to someone who’s in trouble?
“My thoughts are not your thoughts.”
For some it means that you’ll never figure out why some people have it good and some people have it bad, so let’s just wash our hands from helping others because it’s “God’s will that this has happened to them. God helps those who help themselves.”
Nonsense! Do we believe that here at Grace? I don’t think so. God help us if we do. Last week we gathered $733 at the communion rail to send our representative, Christina Cavener, to Haiti on Friday.
We care about people here at Grace. No matter who they are. We care about ALL people. So for us, this sentence from God’s mouth isn’t about ignoring others.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts.”
This sentence is about a mystery.
It’s a mystery to understand what exactly God is up to.
And now we are at Lent. What IS God up to?
Let’s look at the mystery of Good Friday and Easter: God, as a human, dies a gruesome human death at the hands of other humans, and rises. That’s mysterious.
I know some of you have heard more sermons than you can count about these windows. But how blessed are we to have this beauty! Most churches can’t afford this splendor anymore. This isn’t some 1950’s church with plastic windows and fake beams. This is incredible.
OK back to the Mystery of God becoming human and rising.
What do you see Jesus doing in these windows?
First, what’s he doing with all those sheep?
Next, what’s he doing, kneeling by a rock and looking up?
Those are two very human things that we could do. They are earthly things. We almost need no mystery to know about a human being caring for animals and for kneeling and asking that you can quit your job. “Take this cup from me,” Jesus says.
But the third window?
Where is Jesus?
He’s gone. The tomb is empty.
The Mystery. Where is he? What is he doing? If he isn’t doing anything, should we stay at the tomb? Where should we be? How will we know?
We live in this Mystery now. There is no human Jesus walking among us, but…
- We have his stories, and his admonitions to follow him, to do what he did for others.
- Like washing dirty feet.
- Like touching very sick, infected people.
- Like treating prostitutes with respect.
- Like loving people everyone else loves to hate. Like tax collectors.
These two windows are the human, realistic, logical, provable part of Jesus. But there is this Mystery thing. The empty tomb. Emptiness. Loneliness. Beaten up. Forgotten. Like the ancient Israelites in Babylonian captivity.
And Isaiah tells them not to give up hope.
This is called faith. This hope. This Mystery. The only way I know how to stay in touch with that Mystery is to draw near to God and listen. To start each day by getting up earlier to spend 30 minutes, listening. To come to worship on Sundays and sing. To kneel and remember. To hear the ancient words.
I don’t understand the Mystery, and by God, I’ve tried.
I don’t know what prayer is all about.
I don’t know how God always acts.
I don’t know what God always wants from me.
If I did understand, I guess it wouldn’t be a Mystery.
Karen Armstrong teaches us about Mystery in her book, The Case for God: What Religion Really Means.
We’re simply too limited to be able to understand God. “God is not good, divine, powerful or intelligent in any way that we can understand. We could not even say that God ‘exists’, because our concept of existence is too limited.”
Behind everything we humans do is Mystery. We can only see through a glass dimly now. We only see from the corner of our eye. In shadows. In glimmers and glimpses.
I want us to guard this Mystery at Grace. Not to get stuck on thinking that we can explain God’s actions. We can’t. The closest thing we can do is what Isaiah tells us:
- Move toward God – put your stuff out there for God to examine
- Try to wrap your mind around what it means that God is making an everlasting covenant with us – that God will never, ever forsake us
I’ll tell you why this is important at Grace.
We have to know why we’re doing what we’re doing at Grace.
We have to look at our motives:
- “Will it benefit Grace or just make me look good?”
- Is what we’re doing — in our missions, our education, our fellowship, our staff, our use of money — a way of drawing nearer to God?
- Is how I think of others filled with grace – giving each person at Grace the benefit of the doubt?
- Am I praying for everyone here, especially the ones I get irritated with?
- Am I talking things through, to find a common ground, and to get to know a person, not just my perception of a person?
We have to draw near to this Mystery, even if we never understand it.
We have to become more prayerful about our decisions – in every movement we make here. Whether it be when we wait for communion or when we exchange ideas in a meeting or how we judge our church leaders.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts.”
God is beyond comprehension, but God is full of hope for God’s people.
I want us to imagine that everyone has a grocery cart here.
We’re not bumping into each other, miraculously.
Each person is getting what they need.
Sometimes, the packages of good, healthy food fall out of the baskets.
Look! Ted is helping you put it back in yours.
Look! Dale just opened the door and found an empty basket to fill with hope for the homeless man outside.
Look! Jean and Francine have found an extra coat to put in somebody’s basket.
And Mary brought some of her patients to get well here. Others are dropping into their baskets the medicines they need.
Look! Everyone is helping to make sure that every basket is filled.
This is what our Mysterious God can do at Grace.
Without seeing you, we love you;
Without touching you, we embrace;
Without knowing you, we follow;
Without seeing you, we believe.
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