Sermon: Weldon
D. Nisly
TITLE: “Say to those whose hearts are frightened”
THEME: “That we might serve you without fear”
TEXTS: Luke 1: 68-79
Canticle of Zechariah
James 2: 1-5, 14-17
Isaiah 35: 4-7a
Isaiah 35: 4-7a NAB
A reading from the book of
the Prophet Isaiah.
Thus says our God:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened,
"Be strong, fear not! Here is your God.
God comes with vindication,
with divine recompense.
God comes to save you."
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a deer,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the [wilderness];
the burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water…
The Word of God!
God’s Word of Reversal from Zechariah &
James
There are times when I am
reluctant to add a word to the biblical Word of God.
There are times when it is
dangerous or even diminishing to elaborate on God’s Word.
The poetic and powerful
scriptures raise that possibility.
Nevertheless, I will offer
these words with the prayer
that God’s Word be truly heard in our hearts in and
beyond my words.
Early in Luke’s Gospel,
Zechariah’s Song burst forth from his lips when “his mouth
was opened and his tongue was
freed.” It came upon the birth of his
son John who
became the “Preparer of the
Way” for Jesus.
It speaks as powerfully to us
today as it did to Zechariah’s hearers.
Zechariah’s Song
Blessed are you, God of Israel,
for you have visited and redeemed your people….
As you spoke through the mouths
of your holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who oppress us;
Through the tender mercy of our God,
when the day shall dawn upon us from on high,
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Zechariah sings of the great
reversal coming in Jesus, a reversal of the way of
violence and domination to
the way of peace.
James’ charge
James’ pastoral letter
confronts the Church with the challenge that true faith will bear
fruit in life. Faith and works go hand-in-hand. James knows what Jesus meant in
saying “Just as you did it to
the least of these who are members of my family, you
did it to me” (Matthew
25:40).
James reverses the prevailing
“preferential option for the rich” with a “preferential
option for the poor.”
I can hardly resist referring
to a Horsey editorial cartoon from Wednesday.
A doctor
is taking someone to see a
patient. On the way he explains, “It’s
the strangest thing
I’ve ever seen. No matter
what problem is presented, his response is always the same.
The normal sequences of
rational thought seem beyond him.” They
arrive at the
patient’s room. The doctor opens the door and adds, “Here he
is…Ask him anything.”
The other person says,
“Millions of Americans are out of work. What should we do?”
The patient – none other than
the president -- emphatically responds, “Tax cuts for the
rich! Tax cuts for the
rich!” The questioner says, “I see what
you mean.”
(
That answer doesn’t sit well
with James. Or with Zechariah. Or with Isaiah.
James again:
Listen, my beloved brothers
and sisters.
Did not God choose those who
are poor in the world
to be rich in faith and heirs of God’s reign
that God promised to those who love God?
James too proclaims God’s
Word that reverses the prevailing order.
It is a
prevailing order not only in
the culture, but too often in the Church as well.
September
-- a new Season?
How do we hear God’s word of
reversal to the prevailing order in this season of life?
It is September and a new
season begins. Here in our church life,
the Sunday School
year resumes on this first
Sunday after Labor Day. We have asked
God to bless those
who teach us for we are in
need of faithful teaching leading us deeper in faith.
On this Sunday we also find
ourselves facing more than the resumption of a routine of
life at home, at school, at
work, and in the church.
Today we live with shocking
images and troubled memories of that day when “everything
Changed” two years ago on
came two thousand years ago
in the mysterium tremendum of a resurrection. All that has
changed with September 11, is
more fear and vengeance. Nevertheless,
9/11 is indelibly
stamped on our memories. In the national psyche it lives like
This week on September 11, we
face the second anniversary of that intrusion into our
collective
consciousness.
How we read the Bible and
what biblical lenses we look through makes all the difference
in the world in how see
September 11 and the world.
The prophet Isaiah saw and
spoke to a people going into exile.
Exile may be a necessary
lens to see where in the
world we are today.
The Coming Exile
David Hilfiker, who was with
us a year ago in September, has written a powerful word
in the line of the biblical
prophets called “The Coming Exile.” Here
David’s prophecy:
“Listen up,
There are consequences to
breaking the covenant that won’t be held off any longer.
You’re in for it this time:
even the kids playing with their Nintendos
and
the teenagers at their parties will suffer.
Whole families will be
destroyed; even the elderly won’t be spared.
You’re going to lose
everything you have, even your families, friends and lovers.
Don’t think you own
your houses or even your country.
The problem is you’re
greedy. Everybody from the kids to the
CEOs want more stuff
and more power, no matter
what. Nobody gives a damn about justice.
And everybody (from teachers
to doctors) is corrupt.
You pretend that the poor of
the Earth – these children God created and loved –
aren’t
really suffering.”
“Love and peace,” you preach,
but there is no peace without justice. (Jer.
Listen up, people of the
Earth.
Disaster is coming to
America.
Listen up America: this is
what’s going to happen to you and all your plans.
You’ve ignored justice and have
forgotten what love means;
You
refuse to offer forgiveness, even though you’ve been taught.
It doesn’t matter whether you
go to church or pray an hour a day;
You haven’t worked for justice for the world’s oppressed.
So, listen up: You’re going
to get trouble like you’ve never seen,
and
you’re going to fall, hard.
This will be real
destruction. Whole families, whole
neighborhoods will die together.
(Jer.
6:18-21: Hilfker) (Paper
given to me/version in The Other Side)
Isaiah’s prophetic Voice
Into such a time of exile and
turmoil many centuries ago Isaiah dared to speak a
prophetic word. To unpack the prophetic oracle of Isaiah 34
and 35 would take far
more than then these few
minutes in worship. But let me try to
put Isaiah’s word to
us today in brief context.
Isaiah’s poetic word comes as
part of two juxtaposed poems – one promising disaster,
the other promising
salvation. It may be heard as a
conclusion to the first book (ch 1-39)
of this Isaiah of Jerusalem,
prophesying doom and exile to come for Judah’s unfaithful
reliance on kings and
weapons. It may also be heard as a
transition to the second book
of Isaiah (40-55) speaking of
the liberation of the Hebrews from Babylonian exile and
a new future of radical
faithfulness to God (Gene M.
Tucker, The Book of Isaiah 1-39, NIB, 273).
This prophesy is spoken
boldly “to those whose hearts are frightened.” It is a message
of courage and hope to
discouraged and frightened people.
To tell the truth, Isaiah is
a tough and troubling prophet to hear.
Is there no end to
pronouncements of disaster
visited upon the foreign nations who are Israel’s enemy?
Divinely sanctioned doom in
Isaiah is often used as justification for one nation’s
warring against another
nation.
To hear Isaiah in Isaiah’s
day -- and in our own – we must recognize at least two
compelling forces. One is that we have “only to look around us
and look inside oneself
to recognize just how deep is
the desire for vengeance” upon those we consider to be at
fault and our enemies. An ethos of revenge inspired by religious
fervor permeates the
soul justifying all manner of
wars of good against evil (Tucker,
278).
Beyond the question of
vengeance, Isaiah’s prophesy raises the question of whether there
is enough “good” to go
around. “Must good news for some be bad news for others?
Is there only so much wealth,
happiness, security, and peace to go around?” (Tucker, 278).
Again those profound
questions are beyond our answering here today.
What is posed in
Isaiah’s prophetic poem is
that Judah does not gain from the enemy’s suffering and demise.
Today Isaiah speaks as
yesterday!
Thus says our God:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened,
"Be strong, fear not! Here is your God.
God comes with vindication,
with divine recompense.
God comes to save you."
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a deer,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the [wilderness];
the burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water…
These are words to diffuse
fear and redirect revenge so that we might be in the church
and in the world more
faithfully and peacefully.
Confronting September 11 with Isaiah
Yesterday, as on most days,
an article on the “war on terrorism” appeared in the
newspaper. The headline reads “FBI hunts for al-Qaida
operatives: Four believed to
be working independently on
new attacks” (Seattle PI,
9/6/03, A3).
The nation faces the second
anniversary of September 11, madly waging war on terrorism,
war on Afghanistan, waging
war on Iraq, war on those who violated sanctions and went to
Iraq, war on drugs, war on
any enemy who doesn’t join us in waging war on whoever and
whatever we name the
enemy.
You’ve heard the adage,
picked up by Sojourners last winter:
“When
all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
We had a similar saying when
I was doing plumbing work some years ago:
“Plumbers
never force anything; we just get a bigger hammer.”
September and September 11,
offers us an opportunity to stop and hear Isaiah’s prophesy:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened,
"Be strong, fear not! Here is your God.
Why? In the words of Zechariah’s proclamation:
that we might serve God without fear,
to guide our feet into the way of
peace.
Amen.