Tired of Waiting?, a sermon series for Advent, modified from a similar series at reformedworship.org, week 3 of 4, preached Dec 15, 2024
QUOTE of the Day
Who is one of the "strongest" people you know?
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Context
This Advent season, the four Sundays before Christmas, we are calling “Tired of Waiting
Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus tell us waiting is not passive, but active. We come together to wait… AND to get ready, to be alert and awake to what has happened and is happening, and to prepare so we can act instantly and instinctively with love, mercy, justice, and peace whenever the time comes.
Last week, Caitlan lifted up God’s light that has always been and still is present. She reminded us we come together to nurture God’s light already in us and among us, to recognize God’s light in other places, and to elevate God’s light into every corner of life… church, community, family, career, politics… so its warmth nurtures everyone.
Today, the prophet Isaiah helps us wait. Let’s pray…
Prayer for Illumination
Scripture Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort, you all, my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her
that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord;
in the desert make straight a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places, a plateau.
5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and ALL flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord will have spoken.”
6 A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said,[a] “What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass; their faithfulness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers; the flower fades, [[when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.”
8 The grass does wither; the flower does fade,]][b] but, the word of our God will stand forever.
9 (So) Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news;[c]
lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news;[d]
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”
10 See, the Lord God comes with might, and God’s arm rules for him;
God’s rewards are with him, and God’s reparations are before him.
11 God will take care of his flock like a shepherd;
God will lift the weaker lambs into his arms and carry them in his bosom
and gently lead the mothers still feeding young ones.
This too is the word of God for the people of God… (Thanks be to God)
Sermon Waiting for Strength
Once upon a time, the people of Israel were one under King David but divisions started. Under King Solomon, divisions became too much and the people split over personal preferences of religion and politics. Let’s not condemn them for that too sharply. The Methodists are going through that now, and Presbyterians have gone through it many times over issues like slavery, womens ordinations, and LGBTQ inclusion.
The northern kingdom became Israel, and its capital was Samaria. The southern kingdom was Judah, and its capital was Jerusalem. For hundreds of years, they anointed their own kings, practiced religion their own ways, and judged and resented the other from afar. Jesus will tell a story in the south about a northerner, a Samaritan who was more faithful. That’s like saying a Yankee atheist is a better Christian than a southern deacon.
Both kingdoms were warned by prophets to do justice, practice kindness, and walk humbly alongside God. They were reminded, you were once slaves in Egypt and wanderers in a foreign land, so show extra care to the poorest and weakest among you. Show extra hospitality to immigrants and strangers. The Prophets primary message was to ask religion and government to work together for God and build a just community, with stronger social safety nets. But even back then, religious folk didn’t like prophets meddling with their politics, and political folk didn’t like prophets stirring up religious folk against them.
The northern Kingdom, Israel, was conquered by Assyria in 722 BCE, and not long after that, the southern kingdom gets a new king, Hezekiah. Isaiah counsels the king and people of Judah how not to lose it all like Israel just did to Assyria. Honor God, do justice for the poor, service to the needy, community for the immigrant, generosity to children, compassion to widows and elderly. Isaiah imagines a leader who will do that… a shoot coming from Jesse… Emmanuel, God with us.
Then at the very end of Isaiah 39, the last words before today’s Isaiah 40, Isaiah is warning King Hezekiah, “you have shown off your big houses, big bank accounts, big temple, big military while the poor, the immigrant, the children, and many of your own people struggle. If you don’t rebalance things, your children and your children’s children will suffer and be conquered. Everything you’ve built and say you are protecting will be lost.” You know what King Hezekiah says to the prophet Isaiah? “Maybe, but that’s okay. At least it won’t happen in my lifetime.”
It didn’t. About 100 years after Hezekiah, around 586 BCE, the southern kingdom is conquered by Bablyon. Jerusalem is sacked, the walls flattened, the temple destroyed, and they are exiled into wilderness. They retell the old stories, and remember the warnings. They collect the stories and warnings and assemble them into a book. One story in the book remembers ancestors in the wilderness long ago for 40 years, and how one day, God would lead them to promised land. They hoped God would do it again, for them, send them a savior to help them escape wilderness and lead them home.
What we call Isaiah 1-39 was from way back, King Hezekiah’s time. Isaiah 40, what we read today, is from 150 years after Hezekiah, maybe around 540 BCE, the conquered remnant of people of Judah, wandering in the wilderness and exile. After 40 years or so of that, rereading the old stories and prophets warnings, someone dared to pick up Isaiah’s pen, and imagine what Isaiah of long ago might say to them now on God’s behalf.
Comfort. Comfort all of you, my precious people. Tell Jerusalem, she’s paid the debts of her ancestors, she’s paid double even. The road home seems steep, but God will level it. The way home seems treacherous, but God will clear it. Even now, God is gathering all God’s scattered and lost people, feeding and caring for them and protecting them like a shepherd, and doing extra care for those raising the next generation.
The earlier Isaiah preached warning to comfortable people that they would lose it all if they don’t set down personal preferences and privileges, and serve others with generosity, hospitality, and grace. But Hezekiah and the people chose to enjoy their comforts rather than serve God, neighbor, and stranger.
The later Isaiah preaches comfort to those who suffered exile, exclusion from the mistakes of those who came before them. They paid the price of their ancestors, and got tired of waiting, but hoped a messiah might let them try again to be God’s faithful community to those in great need among them and all around them.
I wonder, which Isaiah do we need today? Are we people who choose to protect our comforts, defend our preferences and traditions, even if it means what we have built will fall? As long as it doesn’t change too much in our lifetimes, we are willing to let it crumble under the watch of the future generations? Is that how we are doing climate change? Is that how we are doing democracy? Is that how we are doing church? If so, we need the Isaiah who warns.
But if we are the ones suffering exile and exclusion because of the leaders and traditions of those who came before us, and we have been on the outside of good community for as long as we can remember, then we need the Isaiah who comforts.
For me, as a young person, God was supposed to be loving, merciful, forgiving. But church was more judgmental or intolerant. Mom and I stopped doing church after my dad died. She never went back. Studies of why fewer people try church anymore and why many people who were once open to church no longer do so is because they perceive church as judgmental, hypocritical, or irrelevant. Church to some sounds like Hezekiah’s time, not interested in changing or using what it has been given for the stranger, the immigrant, the neediest. Church looks more interesting in protecting and enjoying its comforts until the last generations of church are dead and gone, even if that might mean there wont be church in the future generations.
I’m a bit of a wierdo. I came into church in my late teens and early 20s, while everyone else was going out. I didn’t ignore the hypocrisies or judgmentalality of the God many churches preach and teach, but I challenged church whenever it sounded like that. And I was blessed to find some amazing people, preachers and others, who didn’t take offense at my doubts, questions, skepticism, or misunderstandings. They allowed me to ask, and studied scripture and theology with me, not protecting God or church, but fearlessly going deeper with me into any question or concept I dared ask, and they sincerecly sought to hold us all accountable to the better community and better God we find in scripture, in Jesus and his teachings.
That’s why I still church. I find comfort from God in church when people are ready to hear God warn us, and change us, and teach us from the saints who came before us. I believe church is the place where God’s people can be most honest and vulnerable with one another, where we want to see what God sees, and to know what God wants, and then muster the courage to faithfully put those things into action rather that coast to the end and leave the younger ones to clean up our messes.
There are things beyond our control, that God may want and we can’t make them happen. For those, we wait. We wait for answers when questions, worry, doubts flood us. We wait for healing, wholeness, rest when disease haunts us. We wait for joy, laughter, peace to return should despair shroud us. While the world around us rushes forward with fake smiles or faux optimism, as if everything is fine, telling us fake it until you make it, or buy this and you will feel better, we are warned and comforted to be church, to be honest about the good and the bad, open to all, and humble servants of God’s coming kingdom.
Amen? Amen.
Charge
As we wait for Christ's promised community to come alive among us, live as people of hope. May hope in Christ’s coming home sustain you. May God’s peace saturate the world around. May the joy of Holy Spirit strengthen you. And may the love of the triune God encircle you this day, this night, this moment, and forever more. Amen.
— adapted from a benediction by Rev. Joyce Borger
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