Cut It Out

Matthew 4:1-11

Isaiah 58

I didn’t grow up knowing much about Lent. It wasn’t something we talked about much in my church, and when we did it was at a time less than convenient for anyone but the retirees in our beachside Florida community. In my senior year of high school, though, I decided to try to remedy the situation the best way I knew how - by skipping school. Legally, of course, but still skipping school.

My plan started with a trip to my vice principal's office. One day a few weeks before Lent began, I made my appointment with Mrs. Brennan and declared that I was looking for a religious excused absence from school, once a week for the next several weeks. I needed to attend Lenten worship on Wednesday afternoons. I had the required signed letter from my pastor in hand. It was my ticket to a new understanding, I thought. or it could have been that I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.

Miraculously this worked. My Latin teacher, whose class I was missing, rolled her eyes when I told her of my plans. She told me to add it to the book I should write on how to skip school with permission from the administration. I had developed a knack for that by my senior year.

I don’t remember too much about those sermons, and I can’t differentiate now what I learned then and what I have learned later, but it was my introduction to Lent. The next year I went on to college, and had a further education in the season when I met my new best friends who were all Catholic. They taught me about giving things up for Lent - - chocolate, desserts, pop, potato chips, pretty much anything that might add a few pounds to the freshman 15. I came to think of Lent as God’s diet plan for the college student.

Lent wasn't always about chocolate. In its earliest days, the season of Lent was a time of preparation for those who were to receive the sacrament of baptism. Baptisms of adult converts and their households were held on Easter Sunday, once a year, in the early church, and a whole year was spent in study, prayer, and preparation. The final forty days of that year were an especially intense and holy time. Those who were already a part of the Christian community who felt a need to rededicate their lives, who recognized that the way they were living their lives was not the best representation of the body of Christ in the world, would often join the new converts in their final preparations for baptism.

As such Lent became a time of repentance and penance as it is now often considered, but it was at the same time a period of great spiritual growth and rebirth. It was marked by careful devotion to biblical spiritual practices. In Shrovetide, the week before Ash Wednesday, believers would make their confessions to God. They would discover their own required penance to be carried out in the forty weekdays of Lent. The season of Lent would be marked by personal acts of piety that corresponded to the sins confessed, but also general disciplines, like fasting, acts of charity, and prayer. Probably the best known of these in contemporary portrayals of Lent (whether faithful or mocking) is fasting, but many of us still wonder about how to do it or what it is for.

There is a strong biblical witness to the spiritual discipline of fasting. Moses fasted on the top of Mt. Sinai when he remained there to record the commandments of God on stone tablets. For forty days and forty nights we are told in Exodus he refrained from eating food or drinking even water as he dwelled in the presence of God, receiving the terms of God's covenant with Israel. Daniel, after having been saved from the den of lions, fasted as he prayed and mourned in the Babylonian exile. One fast recorded was twenty-one days long, in which Daniel cut out meats, rich foods, and wine. Esther, a young Jewish girl chosen providentially to be a queen while also in exile, asks the Jewish community to pray for her and fast for three days as she discerned her divine placement in the king's court. And, of course, there is Jesus' fast in the wilderness which we heard today. Still wet behind the ears from John's baptism he is led out into the desert by the Spirit where is fasts, presumably from food and water, for forty days and forty nights and is tempted.

There is something to be said for the practice of self-denial. In cutting something out of our lives that we love and crave and, maybe without even noticing, depend upon, we are reminded each time we begin to miss it, to turn our attention to God. Friends of mine from all walks of life answered a question I posed this week about fasting. One childhood friend chimed in that this year he is fasting from coffee, a difficult fast for him as it would be for many who cling to that morning routine. For him it also removes a "taste of home" from his life as he lives and works in China where most other tastes are foreign to his tongue. My friend Chris wrote, "It's amazing how something so seemingly small can provide so much comfort -- comfort that should be coming from His Cup, not my coffee cup."

Fasting, denial of food or water, accompanied by prayer has a long and rich tradition in Scripture and practice. Those who participate in this practice speak of a renewal of spirit, a realization of their dependence on God in new ways, humility in the face of a struggle, a connection to the self-denial and self-sacrifice of Jesus in a new way. For thousands of years people of faith, people of MANY faiths, have felt challenged, encouraged, and blessed through fasts, but the prophecy according to Isaiah seems to be pointing to another kind of fast. It's not better or more holy or more correct, necessarily, but a different way of thinking about a potentially important spiritual tool, especially, I believe, for the church in our culture, our context, our world today.

Ordinarily we think of humility as a hallmark of faith. Jesus speaks often of losing our lives in order to gain them, of humbling ourselves, not thinking too highly of who we are, what we have, what we can do. But there in Isaiah the prophet, speaking for God, seems to be saying that a day of humility is not the only fast pleasing to God.

In Epiphany one of the first ways we heard of God acting on the loose in the world was in a story about Jesus preaching in the synagogue. While he was there a man with an unclean spirit arrived. The demon challenged Jesus, recognizing his source and his divinity when no one else could. Seeing the torment this spirit inflicted on the man, Jesus cast it out, cut it out of the man's life in order that he could be free from oppression, from possession, from that which kept him from God and his community.

What if this could be a different model for fasting? Not a replacement, not something better than what has served so many for so long, but a different model, an additional one, one that addresses themes in our culture that encourage self-service and self-indulgence over serving others, putting their needs before our own. What if a Lenten fast was undertaken that cut things out that not just please me, but cut things out that keep me from pleasing God, that keep me pleasing from others, even things that harm others.

A fast of this kind might not look like fish Fridays and avoiding chocolate. A fast of this kind would probably look totally different. It might look like turning the TV off for a while and spending our time volunteering with the food shelf, Networks youth ministry, or Grace Place. It might look like deciding with our children that no toys will be purchased during Lent, but as a family we will purchase teddy bears given to children at Turning Point shelter for women and children fleeing domestic violence. It might look like lowering our voices in our homes and among our families, honoring each other as precious children of God, instead of asserting our will and authority with loud and angry shouts. It might look like the fast undertaken this Lent by a good number of friends who responded to my poll this week. They are fasting from fast food or eating out at restaurants or driving through drive-throughs and setting aside the money they would have spent on these things to give to organizations in their community that are fighting hunger.

Another friend spoke of doing everything she possibly could to ensure that the products she buys and uses in her home are fairly traded, that the corporations responsible for them treat their employees fairly. Still another friend and her family have decided to cut out all non-essential spending during Lent. They will buy simple foods, pay their bills, and continue their tithe to the church, but anything else, an app for the iPhone, a song to download, an afternoon at the movies, a coffee on the drive to work, the book screaming to them from the shelves of the store, ANYTHING not related to day-to-day living will be set aside for Lent. The money they save from this fast will be given, above and beyond their usual church pledge, to the church and other causes that aid people living in poverty at home and abroad.

Fasts of this kind honor what God was saying through the prophet Isaiah. Fasting and repentance, often thought of as very personal spiritual practices, have a communal or social aspect to them, too. A fast means nothing, Isaiah tells us, if we’re looking out for our spiritual health on one day, but treating workers unfairly on the next. Denying ourselves pleasures we enjoy, but at the same time ruining the enjoyment of others by fighting, mistreating, and striking others with our words, fists, or attitudes makes for a fast that is displeasing to God.

Isaiah points beyond simply spending time alone with God to other faithful actions we can incorporate into our lives as important parts of a truly faithful fast. Look out for the workers we employ. Watch our angry words and attitudes. Loose the ties that bind the oppressed. Share our bread with the hungry. Invite the homeless into our dwelling places. Cover the naked.

Isaiah's community took fasting seriously. They are not chastised for their lack of piety. But in the context of this passage, the lack of wholeheartedness, the lack of a holistic view in their practice of fasting was evidence that God's people were more interested in looking religious than in serving God and their neighbor. Their half-hearted attempts at fasting, attempts that looked only within, instead of also looking around to the community, were evidence that God’s people were more interested in getting ahead in their own relationship with God, instead of also aiding others in their spiritual and life journeys.

This is not the fast that God desires, a fast that only looks inward and only tends to my personal needs. The trumpet is sounding, Isaiah proclaims, and we are called to listen up: the fast God prefers is the one in which the hungry are fed. In God's realm, the rich person's fast shall make the way clear for the poor person's feast.

This Lenten season, we have been invited to participate in a fast before God, a fast that brings us closer to God and one another. Consider your fast in a new way. Consider casting out those demons that are holding onto your life, that are holding you at arms length from God by holding you away from others. Accept Isaiah's challenge to fast in a new way - sharing what we have to feed and clothe the hungry, satisfy ing the needs of the afflicted, challenging the systems in our community and in our world that oppress the poor.

Then our lights shall break forth like the dawn; then when we cry the Lord will say, “Here I am”; then our lives and our fasts will show the glory of the Lord to all.

Comfort and Camel Hair

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

I was extremely grateful when Shelley popped in my office a couple of weeks ago to recommend that our congregation use some Advent material that she had found. I hope you have found it in the weekly e-mails, and you’ll see it in the newsletter that is available in the mailboxes this morning. There is a series of devotions for each week of Advent centered on Scripture each week. The Scripture is the same we are reading in worship and using at our candle lighting. The artwork for the materials is what appears at the start of our worship. The materials tie everything together in worship and at home, making our Advent season of waiting and preparation more than beautiful decorations in the sanctuary.

This morning the theme from the Advent materials and the words to our first hymn (one of my FAVORITE Advent hymns) was taken straight from the prophecy of Isaiah that we just heard. “Comfort, O comfort my people.”

“Comfort” was the promise of God to the people of Jerusalem and Judah, a promise that was actually surprising in its original context. Jerusalem and Judah are not exactly sympathetic characters throughout the prophecy of Isaiah. Personified here and earlier, the city and the nation are again and again recipients of the judgment of God, victims of the captivity of Babylon because again and again their disobedience to God left them vulnerable to outside forces. They didn’t heed God’s call, so God allowed what one parenting strategy calls “natural consequences” to occur. The enemy comes in, destroys the nation, and sends her people into exile.

Retributive justice. It was not only the going theory of criminal justice of the day; it was the going theology of the day. You get what you ask for and then maybe you get some more to make sure you never do it again. Punishment. Anger. Payback. What goes around comes around, but in a divine manner.

But here comes Isaiah speaking for God, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” In the face of cultures and theologies that operate on methods of retributive justice, a word of comfort spoken by God is completely unexpected, completely unheard of, completely gracious. A word of comfort spoken in a season that seems hopeless, seems empty, seems overwhelmed by things going from bad to worse. A word of comfort spoken to people who so desperately need it, but who can’t promise to always deserve it. “The grass withers, the flower fades…surely the people are grass.”

Comfort, comfort is a promise of the season of Advent. Comfort, God promises to people who sit in darkness. Comfort, God promises to those who are overwhelmed by bills. Comfort, God promises to those who grieve. Comfort, God promises to those who are lonely. Comfort, God promises to those who are imprisoned by their actions, their attitudes, their anger. Comfort, God promises to those who are so far over their heads they can’t even imagine a way out. Comfort, O comfort, God promises to bring on a highway cut straight through the wilderness of despair. Comfort and tenderness and gentleness. Grace…

And there’s this voice that also comes crying. Just like Isaiah said a voice would cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” There’s the other voice that comes crying out in the wilderness the voice of John the Baptist. When Mark begins his gospel he doesn’t have time for a narrative of Jesus’ birth. Mark is writing quickly, the earliest gospel after Jesus’ resurrection. He is getting the story down on paper as soon as he can after he heard it, and for WHATEVER reason, he doesn’t have time for a story of angels appearing to Mary and Joseph, shepherds in a field, or wise men from the east. He has to get to the meat of what’s going on, and the only preparation he offers to this story of good news that he has to tell, is the preparation of John the Baptist, a man who exudes feelings of anything BUT comfort.

His place of work is the Judean countryside. He doesn’t walk from city to city, town to town, or village to village. He wanders around in the wilderness where resources are scarce and comforts even scarcer. He wears clothes made of camel hair. My experience with camels is limited, but what I can tell you is this. If you find yourself riding a camel in the Israeli desert, make sure there is a saddle or blanket. That hair is dry, and prickly, and itchy. It is NOT good shirt material. He eats the bugs he finds in grass – locust, the bugs of the Egyptian plagues. Comfort is not his lifestyle, and really, as much as we want to hear it, comfort is not his message.

“Repent!” he cries out in the wilderness. “Repent!” he calls to those who are waiting for a savior, waiting for the Lord. “Repent, turn around, change your ways,” he calls to us so that we will be ready for Jesus.

This is about that time in my family’s preparations for the OTHER part of our Christmas celebration that we start to make our lists and check them once, twice, three or four times. Have we put up whatever decorations will make it up this year? Have we baked whatever we can in advance? Have we taken a family photo, bought cards, even thought about writing a letter (knowing that for the most part this section of the list will never actually get completed)? Have we bought presents for the kids, parents, nieces and nephews? What has been done to prepare us for the day that that is coming and what is left still to be done?

Hearing the ministry of John the Baptist in Mark’s gospel, really HEARING it and taking it to heart, forces us to check in on our other preparations for the coming of Christmas, the coming and re-coming of Jesus our Christ in our lives. What is missing in our relationship with God? What commitments and disciplines haven’t we made or have we let slide? Is prayer a part of our daily lives or is it something we just do when we gather on Sunday? Is serving others something we make time for not just at Christmas when the needs of the world are ringing in front of our faces at the entrance to every store in town? Are Scriptures more than just a tag line on the beautiful cards we selected or are they are part of our family’s conversations?

Are there too many other things in our lives, crowding out the necessary time and attention a REAL relationship with God requires? Is too much time spend clicking on the phone or computer, too little spent in study and prayer? Is too much energy given to attending to our own comforts, too little lifting up others who can’t even worry about comfort when they’re just worrying about survival? Is too much money being spent on extravagant gifts, too little spent making a faith statement about the causes of Jesus’ kingdom - - the poor, the outcast, those treated without grace and mercy?

“Repent!” John’s baptism proclaimed. Turn around, turn away, come back in the other direction. “Repent!” his preparation declared. Come out of the bustle of the city and town that you know into the blessed wilderness of life with Christ. Life that is unknown. Life that is dangerous. Life that is lacking the creature comforts and luxuries, but life that is dripping with the Spirit and presence of God. “Repent!”

Comfort! and Repent!

They seem like contradictory messages leaving us wondering how exactly we are to approach this season of Advent. The answer is one we probably each need to discover for ourselves. The answer is that our God has the grace and the mercy to come to us with both messages knowing that depending on where we are in our lives we may need either one or both. This may be a year where you are feeling the exile. This may be a year when you feel isolated, cast out, cast aside. This may be a year when the Lord’s presence has felt so far it feels more like the Lord’s absence and you are craving it to return and return soon. And to you, the prophet Isaiah says “’Comfort, O comfort my people,’ says your God…. The glory of the LORD shall be revealed…. Here is your God!”

Or this year may be another year for you. It maybe be the other side of the same coin, the reason John the Baptist quotes from this same passage in Isaiah, but in a different way. This may be a year when you are feeling a bit too comfortable. This maybe a year when things have been going too smoothly. This may be a year when the focus has been inside all the time, not outward to God and God’s kingdom and purposes in the world. This may be a year when the direction has been moving away from the divine, away from the Word, away from Christ who comes to guide our lives, save us from ourselves, send us out in his name. For us, the prophet John proclaims repentance, another direction, a time to turn to God, and for the very same reason, “The one who is more powerful…is coming….” Jesus is coming. Jesus is near.

Prepare the way this Advent. The God of comfort and the God of new beginnings is coming in Jesus. Prepare your way for the Lord.

In the Large and Small

Luke 13:10-13
Isaiah 40, selected verses

Twenty-one years ago Robert Fulghum’s collection of essays, All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, was published and pretty much immediately rose to the top of the national best-seller lists. It lived there at #1 for just about all of 1989 and much of 1990. The title essay spoke truth to so many of us, about how the simplest lessons we learn as children are really at the core of the lessons we need to master even as adults.

Well, our vacation this last week left me pondering a similar essay, “All I Really Need to Know about Human Nature I Learned By Watching 3 Year Olds.” We returned from our annual pilgrimage to the Anthony farm late Friday night. It was a great week of tractor riding, combine driving, corn picking, and Bobcat cruising, with gorgeous weather and even better company. Both of the big kids spent hours at Dad or Grandpa’s sides bumping along the rows and taking breaks to eat dusty sandwiches in the shade. A wonderful fall vacation.

The vacation also allowed the kids to play with their only cousin on Phil’s side of the family, Andersen, the son of Phil’s sister Kirsten. Andersen and William are only about 2 months apart in age, and we had a blast watching those 3 year olds finally really interacting with one another. Or at least most of the time we did. In watching these two little guys, both in their interactions with each other, and as they responded to the adults in their lives, I noticed some things they do that taught me a lot about what grown-ups do, too.

For example, if a 3 year old is being beckoned by an adult, like with that curling finger, an international sign for “Get. Here. Now.” and he does not want to be here, he simply closes his eyes or turns his back, or for a more dramatic effect, does both. If he can’t see it, it must not exist, therefore, he doesn’t have to follow it.

Likewise, when a 3 year old is being called by an adult to come do something he does not want to do, say maybe get his hands washed after eating a particularly sloppy Sloppy Joe, he will simply stick his fingers in his ears to block out the sound waves carrying that message to his brain. If he can’t hear it, it must not exist, therefore, he doesn’t have to follow it. To a 3 year old, shutting down the paths of communication is the same as running outside the realm of her parents’ control.
It’s that whole idea that if I can’t see them, then certainly they can’t see me.

Another thing 3 year olds try to do is to hide from the adults who are called to care for them. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to do what it coming, like go to bed. Sometimes it’s because they have done something they should not have, like taken a jelly bean from Grandma’s jar without asking. Sometimes it’s just because they want to do something ALL. BY. MYSELF.

You see these 3 year olds, full of human nature, like to test out their independence. Three year olds, full of human nature, have a tendency, just like the rest of us, to want to push the limits of authority. We have a tendency to want to live our lives beyond the reach of those who are in authority over us - - even when it is a loving, caring, providing, nurturing, challenging, encouraging, forgiving, authority, even when it’s the authority of a parent, even when it’s the authority of God.

We human beings, for whatever reason, from the very beginning, have this curiosity and this independent streak that drives us to try to live outside the reach of even God. Intentionally or unintentionally, we do it all the time. We close our eyes to avoid seeing the way the systems that are in place to protect our good fortune are the same systems that keep others down. We choose not to follow when God beckons us to make a difference on behalf of the poor in our own community. We put our fingers in our ears so we can’t hear God’s preference for peace over war, love over fear and hatred, mercy over revenge. We ignore the wisdom of Scripture, of saints of the past, of friends and loved one who speak for God in our lives today.

We even try to just run from God. We try to hide out in our jobs, our hobbies, our destructive habits, trying to live our day to day lives on our own power, our own authority. We try to work out our rocky relationships, raise our children win battles over our neighbors, and find meaning in our day to day lives all outside of and beyond the realm of God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. Like the Prodigal Son we believe we can make better choices with what we have been given when we are away from God than we can in the presence of our divine Parent.

Three year olds try to do it. Teenagers get pretty good at getting close to doing it. Adult attempt it and even applaud when they see it in others, admiring this characteristic they call self-sufficiency. Even the ancient kingdoms tried to live without God; they thought collectively, like us, that they could operate beyond the reach of God, saying “My way is hidden from the Lord.”

But the reality is that they couldn’t. We can’t. Like the psalmist in Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I feel from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in the realm of the dead, you are there.” No matter where we go, no matter how far we try to run, no matter how hard we work to ignore God’s leading and God’s authority in our lives, God is there. Who measured the waters in the hollow of a hand? Who enclosed the dust of the earth and measure the mountains on a kitchen scale?

God knows the ins and outs of every bit of creation, the physical land, the flowing water, the heavens stretched out above, and there is nowhere in this creation that we can step that is outside the realm of God’s love and God’s grace and God’s authority. If we put our fingers in our ears God can speak louder than they can block. If we close our eyes God can paint visions on the insides of our eyelids. If we run and hide in the best spot in the world, God will find us because God created that hiding spot and knows its very existence. The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, and the Lord’s care is for the large and the small of it.

The same God who folded the mountains and filled the seas is the same God who was present in Jesus, the same God who walked into towns and synagogues claiming the Scriptures for himself, healing the sick in body and spirit, restoring them to wholeness. With the spirit of God working in him and through him, Jesus sought out those who either tried to live apart from God or who felt their conditions left them separated from the divine presence. His presence on earth demonstrated God’s sovereignty, God’s authority, God’s interest not over just the big picture of it all, but God’s interest in the very details of our lives. While God is so majestic that foundations of the earth were put into place by the divine hands and we look like grasshoppers to the divine eye, in Jesus we discover that God’s care is for even the very intimate, very personal circumstances of our lives. There is no place we can go, no worry we can hide, no step we can take that is outside the love and the care of our God.

Armed with this knowledge, trusting in the constant presence and attention of God, our best response should not be to run away from God who seeks us, but to follow the lead of the woman healed by Jesus. Feeling his touch on her body, experiencing his presence in ALL of her life, she didn’t run to hide from his majesty and power, she didn’t close her eyes to his persisting presence. She responded immediately with joy and praise. She stood and worshiped God.

Ultimately that is what’s asked of each of us. We get caught up in a lot of shoulds and coulds in the life of faith, but ultimately all we are asked to do is worship God who surrounds us with love and mercy and forgiveness, who formed us and the dust of the earth we walk on, who provides for our needs, who heals us from all those things that keep us bent over, weighed down, burdened in this life. All God asks of us is that we worship the one who has this kind of love for us – worship God when the community is gathered, hearing Scriptures that teaches us, confessing sins that divide us, praying for healing to bless us, sharing concerns that plague us, celebrating joys that delight us, all so that we may delight in God who calls us together, giving praise and thanksgiving in all of it for God, who is above all and through all and in all.

We don’t gather here to fill up our spiritual tanks for another week on the road. And although it is a blessing when it happens, we aren’t called here just to fix our lives and spirits when we sense they are broken. We are called here, not to watch as others demonstrate faith and speak about its goodness in our presence. We are called here to work… together… all of us. We are called here to worship and give praise, to honor and celebrate, to recognize and show our delight in God from whom we can’t run, God whose care is for our whole lives. This is what we do when we gather to worship our sovereign God. Worship is NOT about us, our likes, our dislikes, our preferences, our tastes. Worship is about giving God, who is worthy of all praise, glory upon glory, praise upon praise. When we gather as a diverse community it is our responsibility and honor to make sure that all who are gathered can find avenues by which they can do just that with integrity and passion.

And just as God is attentive to our whole lives, we are also called to worship with our whole lives, even when we are away from this place. Worship isn’t the order we follow on Sunday morning or Wednesday night or any other time we gather as the people of God. Worship is what happens anytime and every time we please God by living wholly and completely as the children we have been called to be. Worship is when we tell God and show God our gratitude for the grace we have been given, not just with the words that come from our lips, but with the actions that come from our lives. Worship is when we praise God for an abundance of blessings by using those blessings for purposes God desires.

Living as the best parent or child we can be is worshiping God. Using the talents we have been given to their fullest is worshiping God. Enjoying the creation around us, caring for it with love and attention, working to heal it and protect as agents of Christ is worshiping God. Delighting in the care and company of others is worshiping God. Being attentive to the whispering of the Spirit in times of solitude and quiet is worshiping God.

Worship, for the people of God, is at the heart of what we do, both inside these walls and beyond them. Worship is our number one call in life. May all that we do and all that we say be our worship of God, our way of giving thanks for God’s sovereign grace and mercy.

Cleansing and Calling

Isaiah 6:1-8

I like to imagine this scene the way it might be directed in a film. The opening seems so familiar to me. A young man, looking a little tired, a little lost, mostly just aimless and disinterested walks into a cavernous, empty cathedral. The camera is high and way at the back, so really he enters the picture from the bottom. He kneels before he enters a pew, revealing his history with religion, even if his present status is more ambiguous. The young man slips into a pew, simply looking for anonymous place to pray, a place to be with himself, a place to be with God.

The scene doesn’t stay empty for long, though, at least not in the telling of Isaiah’s encounter with God. A sudden awareness of another presence forces Isaiah to look up where he sees the Lord sitting on a high and lofty throne. Actually, he doesn’t see the Lord, because the Lord is too big and too dangerous to see. Even the seraphs, the six-winged angelic creatures attending to God, had to cover their faces with their wings in the presence of God’s glory.

God is so big, in this vision physically and as a divine presence, that Isaiah can only see the hem of his robe which completely fills the temple. The temple fills with smoke, the accumulation of offerings made to God for centuries, and as the seraphs call to one another “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory,” the thresholds shook violently. Isaiah knows he is in the presence of majesty and power, holiness and perfection, righteousness and purity.

And suddenly, in the presence of that purity, Isaiah is acutely and shamefully aware of his own imperfection, his own impurity. He cries out in confession, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!” He realizes the incongruity of a sinful, imperfect human being dwelling in the presence of the King, the Lord of hosts. Seeing the righteousness of God, Isaiah becomes much more aware of his own unrighteousness. Standing in the presence of perfection, knowing God’s desire for him to serve, he sees even more clearly is own imperfection.

I see two possible responses that human beings often have to this realization of imperfection. The first is the response of making excuses. I trust that I am not alone in the making and hearing of these kinds of excuses.

You know this is really not a perfect time to encounter you God, to worship you. It is certainly not a perfect time to serve you. I am really busy with the kids. My career is just beginning to take off, and in a few more years I’ll have the status and position in which I can be more flexible with my time.

Or, the kids are gone and the nest is empty; once we spend a little time re-connecting with one another we’ll re-connect with you, God.

Or I’m too young, God. There isn’t much for me to do in your service at this point, but I promise that I’ll be ready to serve you someday when I’m old enough to do something that counts. The other side of that coin is this -- I’m old God. I have served my time and done my duty. It’s someone else’s turn to pick up the torch of service and carry it for a while.

If “place in life” excuses don’t feel quite right, what about these: I’m not good enough. I’m disorganized. I don’t know enough. I’m not faithful enough, Christian enough, or sinless enough to serve you God.

We make these excuses in the hopes that it will turn the asker away. We hope that will convince God that we can’t possibly serve, and God will move on to ask someone else, at least for now, and maybe for good. We will point out to God all that is imperfect in God’s choice and the burden of the call will be lifted as someone else is tasked with the call that was first made to us.

Sometimes we even make these excuses in full faithfulness because we intend to fix ourselves; we intend to make ourselves perfect and ready for God’s service. New Year’s resolutions are a perfect place to hide our excuses. They are a sign of our wonderful intentions to make ourselves better people so that we can live better lives. Yet even one month later, how many of us are still so resolved to make these changes in our lives?

The problem is that we can’t make ourselves better. We can’t make ourselves perfect and pure and whole and completely ready to serve God and God’s people. We do not have the ability to make ourselves holy and put ourselves in a state that is worthy of receiving and following God’s call. Not one of us will ever be ready on our own accord to dwell in the holy presence of the divine, to serve God’s purposes, to fulfill the Lord’s requests.

Isaiah realizes this. He realizes his own impurity and inability to make himself ready and perfect, and so his response is the one which God desires. Heartfelt and faithful, it is painful and difficult to do in private and even more so in the presence of God and a community. Isaiah confesses his imperfection to God. A man who is called to serve God with his words and his speech confesses that his lips are unclean. The most important tool he has for answering God’s call is the very source of his momentarily crippling imperfection. He confesses his impurity and lays it before the holy one in faith, for despite this impurity, Isaiah proclaims, I am seeing the King, the Lord of hosts!

Notice, though, how when Isaiah confesses his uncleanliness he is not told to come back later when he is clean. God does not send him away to go fix himself and rid himself of this impurity and imperfection. Isaiah is not off the hook because of his confession. God does not respond with a dismissing, “Oh! Well, nevermind. You’re lips are unclean. I’ll go find someone more perfect and more ready to serve for this task.”

Instead God essentially agrees with Isaiah. Without saying a word God tells Isaiah, “You’re right. You’re not clean. You’re right. You’re not holy, not perfect, not ready to serve me.” But with the actions of the seraph God’s full message is delivered. “I will cleanse you. I will make you more holy. I will get rid of your imperfections. I will make you ready to serve me. Only I can do it, and I will because I long for your service and your worship.”

God’s response comes in the form of a cleansing, purifying fire coal taken straight from the altar of God. Touching the coal to Isaiah’s mouth, the seraph declares that Isaiah’s guilt has departed and his sin is blotted out. That which separated him from God’s holiness has been taken away by God’s holiness. It is then, in this momentary experience of holiness that Isaiah fully hears the voice of God, not just the angels, and he hears God calling for one to be sent. Cleansed from his unworthiness and impurity, Isaiah is ready to follow God.

In Isaiah God did not call a perfect man to deliver a divine word. God did not wait for Isaiah to get his life in order and learn more and believe more and understand more and develop his gift more. God did not expect this servant to be the perfect package from the start, but God knew how to use him anyway. God knew how to take an imperfect human, confessing his faults and his impurities, and clean him up, purge his sin from him, and use him for a greater service in God’s own time, not according to his own calendar and sense of preparedness.

Not one of us lives in the perfect condition, worthy of serving God who calls us. But in calling us, imperfect men and women, young and old, God makes us ready for that service – cleansing us and forgiving us when we confess our imperfections, clearing our ears and preparing our hearts to answer the calling willingly and enthusiastically, “Here am I; send me!”

What's Your Name? - Sermon

Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

What do you know about where your name came from? Or what special meaning does your name have for your family?

There is a story to every name. Even if your story is that your parents found the name in a baby name book, a movie, a song, or a TV character, your name has a story, because names are important. We name what is important to us with names that have been passed down from generation to generation, with names that have been selected carefully for their meaning, with names that remind us of strong people, important virtues, or important stories, with names that simply bring joy to us as we bestow them on the ones and the things we love.

We name the significant aspects of our lives, as a colleague of mine pointed out, even those that are full of devastation. The names Katrina and Rita with remind us of storms and injustice for generations. We have Pearl Harbor Day and D-Day and 9-11. They aren’t memories of joy or excited anticipation, but even those events and parts of our lives that are full of devastation and violence have names, names by which we remember these life-changing times. Names are important. We name what is important to us.

Isaiah knew something about naming. God had taught Isaiah well.

The passage we heard begins with “But now” which should make any hearer wonder, well, what was before? What we heard today was a divine love song, but that love song is only made stronger and more poignant when we think about what came before it. Before it the people of God are reminded of the fury of God they have felt in exile. They are reminded of anger and justice that has been executed upon THEM when they would not hear God, when they would not walk in God’s way, when they would not obey the law of God. They probably didn’t need too much reminding of THAT part of their relationship with God, experiencing it every day as they lived in exile in Babylon.

But that reminder certainly perks up the ears of anyone who hears the words “But now.” Change is on the way. Hope has not been in vain. Before we have suffered and longed for the relationship we have had. Before we have cried out for a second, third, or fourth chance. Before we wondered if we would ever feel like God’s people again, but now… But now… Those words tell us in our deepest darkest experiences of pain and loneliness and suffering and questioning that but now, we will experience something different.

The very first thing God does for the people Israel is remind them whose they are - - remind them to whom they belong. They belong to God who created them. God who created them individually, and God who pulled them together into community with a common history, common ancestors, a common story. They belong to God who, even in the midst of the worst experience of their lives, redeems them, makes them whole, buys them back from the pain they are feeling and gives them worth in divine and human eyes. God calls them by name and claims them for God’s self.

Names are important. We name what is important to us. GOD names what is important to God. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, God promises, and I know you by name. When the rivers threaten to cover over your head, I will call out your name and lead you through them. When you walk through fire you won’t be burned and the flame shall not consume you because I will personally, and tenderly, and lovingly lead you by your hand, speaking your name to you, out of the terror your face. God will call us by name because very personally, very intimately, we belong to God. Names are important. God names and calls by name what is important to God. Isaiah knows this.

The gospel writers, especially Luke and Matthew in their stories of Jesus’ birth, know it, too. Before the telling of his birth in these two gospels God gives Jesus his name, several names, in fact. “Emmanuel” the child is called, God with us. Son of the Most High. Jesus, he saves. The angels delivered the messages straight from God of what this child would be named, because his name would tell the world who he was.

But now, God says, now that he is grown, now that he is about to move from obscurity to a whole new kind of existence, now that he is ready to move around and about in the world where God placed him to do what God has called him to do, now it is time for a new name. It’s a world full of names. The opening of the chapter, the part that gives us the setting for John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus’ baptism, starts like this:

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…” (Luke 3:1)

In that one verse no less than seven men are named. No less than seven men are called by their very important, very powerful names before Luke goes on to talk about how the word of God came to a virtual nobody, some John son of Zechariah, who was, of all places in the wilderness. And of all these people who are mentioned – emperors and governors and rulers and priest – of all these people of obvious importance to the world, the one to whom Jesus comes at the start of his ministry is John, the son of Zechariah.

Jesus has a pretty big name of his own – if not yet in renown at least in meaning. Jesus, “He saves” tells what he has come to do, but at that particular point in his ministry, at the very beginning, when he’s out in the middle of nowhere with John son of Zechariah, while the position and power and prestige of Tiberius and Pontius Pilate and Herod and Philip and Lysanias and Annas and Caiaphas are breathing down his neck, even “he saves,” from the middle of nowhere Galilee, needs a new name when he comes to the water.

Coming to John for baptism, not because he NEEDS the baptism of repentance, but because he wants to join with others, join with us in our need

Coming to John for baptism, not because his skin and his spirit need to be cleansed of his unrighteousness, but because God promised to be with us when we passed through the waters, even the waters of baptism

Coming to John for baptism, not because his submission was necessary, but because it was an act of solidarity with those of us for whom it is

Coming to John for baptism, Jesus, he saves, gets a new name. Jesus hears God’s voice as called out to him in his prayer. You are “My Son.” You are “The Beloved.” Tiberius and Pontius Pilate and Herod and all the rest may have the power of Rome behind them, but Jesus, God whispers in his still dripping ears, Jesus belongs to God. Jesus is God’s Son, the Beloved.

And so are we. So are we the sons and the daughters of God Most High. So are we, dripping with the waters of baptism, the waters that covered Jesus even when he didn’t need them, the waters that cover us because we do, so are we, dripping with these waters of his baptism, called and claimed and named by God. Because names are important. God names what is important to God.

The voice Jesus heard, that called out to him from heaven while he was praying at the side of the river, is the voice that speaks also to us. You are my child. You are my daughter, my son. You are my beloved, and with you I am well pleased. When Jesus joined us in the water, when he waded out into the river, when he was covered by the water and the love and the voice of God, he brought us right out there with him.

But let’s not get too comfortable sitting here with our old, new names. Yes, they are important names. God gives us important names. But let’s not try to fool ourselves into thinking they are safe names. Remember into which waters, remember into what world Jesus’ name came. It came into this world of position, of which he had none. It came into this world of power, of which he shared none. It came into this world of prestige, of which he could claim none. It came into a world that would challenge him and ignore him and resist his wide love. It came, our baptismal names come, in a world that may very well do the same to us when we try to walk in his way and love as he loved.

But even now, but even when the world… no even when WE resist God’s love, God’s grace, and God’s way, but even now God’s promise is still true – When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you walk through fire you shall not be burned. For I am the Lord your God, your Savior. You are precious in my sight, and I love you, my Beloved Daughters and Sons.