Isaiah 50:4-9a
Presented September 13, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
In his novel entitled Life Goes On Quaker author Philip Gulley tells the story of Sam Gardner, pastor of the Friends Church in the fictional town of Harmony, Indiana, recalling his seminary days, particularly a time when it felt to him as if he had lost his faith. Sam confided in one of the professors, lamenting that he no longer knew what to believe; he couldn’t accept much of his childhood faith, yet yearned for the simplicity of that faith he held in his younger years. After listening to Sam pour out one frustration after another, the professor reminded him of some words spoken by Oliver Wendell Holmes, one-time Supreme Court Justice. Said Holmes, “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.” Sam’s professor recognized that Sam was in the midst of the painful process of letting go of inadequate images and understandings of God, while standing on the verge of embracing a deeper faith, a relationship with a God of far greater proportions, a God able to stretch Sam’s vision and faith well beyond that with which he had been raised. Indeed, the professor reminded Sam, “You’ve been stretched. Now you have to fill your mind with a grand vision. That’s why you’re here.”
It’s tempting—and often far more comfortable—to hold onto a static faith, a faith that provides easy answers. And yet ultimately, when confronted by life’s uncertainties and struggles, such a faith offers precious little to sustain us through those difficult times. In truth, a faith that does not impel us to stretch and to grow is no faith at all. Faith is a verb, a process and not a static reality.
You don’t need to be a seminary student to find yourself dissatisfied with simplistic answers and with an unquestioning faith. Many of us gathered in today’s worshiping community have faced unsolicited events in our lives that have shaken us, sometimes to the core. A crippling illness attacking your life, or that of a loved one; the disillusionment and despair that accompany a broken relationship or divorce; the loss of a job, often accompanied by a sense of having been betrayed by one’s employer, as well as a fear about making ends meet; the challenge of making a difficult decision that may impact the lives of others in both anticipated and unforeseen ways; an accident that forever alters how you see and experience life—these are only some of the experiences and events that can cause us to re-examine long-held beliefs and practices.
But it may not be a personal crisis that foreshadows our times of upheaval; instead, it may be frustration and dismay with the faith of others—a faith with which we no longer choose to identify. Diana Butler Bass is a church historian and social researcher who begins a recent book by recalling a dinner conversation with a friend. Her friend said to Diana, “I just don’t understand how you can still be a Christian.” Fumbling for the right words, Diana responded, “I know, it isn’t the easiest thing to be these days. But I just can’t get away from Jesus. I actually love Jesus and his teachings.” “Jesus?” responded the friend. “I don’t have any trouble with Jesus. It’s all the stuff that happened after Jesus that makes me mad.”
We understand much of what the friend could have in mind, don’t we? Crusades and inquisitions, heresy trials and justification for slavery, religious wars and anti-Semitism, bigotry and intolerance, a lusting for power at the expense of the poor and the forgotten—these have characterized far too much of Christian history, and as a result, many who recognize Jesus to be a peacemaker and a reconciler, a healer and an advocate for justice, are prone to reject the Christian faith wholesale. It was Gandhi, I believe, who once observed, “The only people who fail to recognize that Jesus was a peacemaker are Christians,” a sad commentary on the ways in which Jesus’ teachings have been distorted by many of his followers through the years. And William Sloan Coffin, in his book Letters to a Young Doubter, reminds us how hard it is to square Christianity with a heartless neglect of people in need, then laments, “Too much of what passes for Christianity substitutes emotions for morals. Too much is mere lip service.”
Nevertheless, must you and I reject that which we hold to be true, simply because others have twisted or subverted the spirit and teachings of Jesus? Or can we live and proclaim an alternative rendering of Jesus, one that focuses on generosity and compassion, large-heartedness and peacemaking, rather than the harsh judgmentalism and rigidity that mark so many of the more vocal “Christian” voices these days? By the way in which we live and proclaim our faith, can we remind others of the gracious and inviting love of a God who loves us with a love that will not let us go?
We Brethren began as an alternative movement, and have long taken it as our mission to continue the work of Jesus—peacefully, simply, together. Our Annual Conference theme this past year was based on a text from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, chapter five—that marvelous affirmation that God is in the business of doing something new. The old is gone; the new has come, the apostle attests. With that theme in mind, our newly-consecrated Conference moderator Shawn Flory Replogle, in his closing blessing, questions, “God is doing a new thing among us. How will we participate?”
It’s a crucial question, for God ever invites us to be God’s partners in ministry. God does indeed invite us to continue the work of Jesus—to seek to mend a broken world, to proclaim possibilities of peace, to work for justice, to correct oppression, to embrace community, to invite others to experience life in which we hear God calling us “the beloved.”
The Benedictine sister and social activist Joan Chittister once observed,
One of the most demanding, but often overlooked, dimensions of the creation story is that when creation was finished, it wasn’t really finished at all. Instead, God committed the rest of the process to us. What we humans do on this earth either continues creation or obstructs it. It all depends on the way we look at life, the way we see our role in the ongoing creation of the world.
In much the same way, how we live and proclaim the gospel of Jesus can serve as a continuation of the ministry of Jesus, creating deeper possibilities for peace and good will in the world around us. Or our living may in fact obstruct the gospel, negating the hope for justice, compassion, and peace. Which shall we choose? Shall we not embrace the call to partner with God, taking hold of the call to participate in the unfolding of God’s new creation?
Today’s Scripture lesson comes from Isaiah, chapter fifty: one of four Servant Songs found in the writings of a second prophet whose words fill the latter chapters of the book of Isaiah. Scholars debate the identity of that servant, with some asserting that the prophet is describing himself, while others are convinced that the prophet is reminding all of the people of Israel that they are called to be servants, to be light in a world of darkness, hope in a world of despair, peace in a world of brokenness, love in a world characterized by suspicion and fear. In either case, the Servant Songs serve as a reminder that God does indeed invite persons into partnership, living and proclaiming God’s new reality. The servant listens for the voice of God, and therefore is given “the tongue of a teacher.” Experiencing firsthand God’s gracious support, the servant in turn takes it as his mission to “sustain the weary” (v. 4), echoing the God who strengthens, not the strong or the self-sufficient, but the faint, the powerless, the weary, and the exhausted (see 40:28-31). In other words, the servant proclaims God’s word of promise to the very ones who were tempted to give up all hope—the exiles who found themselves living in a strange land, cut off from all they had known and loved. Yet it is in those very times of deep despair that God promises to do something new. As God leads the exiles back to their homeland, the very desert through which they travel will be transformed. And you and I, called to be God’s servants and partners, are to share in this renewing of creation, living in such a way that God’s new possibilities for all humanity are proclaimed.
In Diana Butler Bass’s book A People’s History of Christianity she interviews Carol Howard Merritt, a thirty-something Presbyterian pastor who serves a congregation that is not content to be identified with those who would narrowly define the Christian faith in terms of judgment and rigidity. Indeed, her members tell her that when others discover they are involved in church life, they always have to qualify it by saying, “It’s not like that!” Continues Pastor Carol,
There are some assumptions in our culture about what kind of person a Christian is, or what kind of person goes to church and still has the nerve to talk about it, and it is frustrating to be lumped in together with them. I’ve noticed that people who are deeply committed to Christianity will identify themselves as a “Christ-follower” or a “disciple of Jesus.” You can almost see them stepping away from Christianity in their reply. It’s their way of saying, “It’s not what you think. I’m trying to do something different. I’m trying to be someone different.”
My friends, doesn’t that describe what we are about as well, seeking to be and to offer something different, joining with those who reject a rigid and angry faith, those who assert, “It’s not like that?” Instead, as partners with a gracious and compassionate God, we seek to live in such a way that grace and compassion are extended to the weary and those who are struggling. Partners with a generous God, we seek to live generously, using our resources in ways that benefit rather than obstruct creation, extending hope for the healing of a broken world. Partners with a God of remarkably vast proportions, we allow our hearts and minds, our spirits and our faith, to be stretched; we grow, trusting the One about whom the servant could affirm, “It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?” (50:9). Or, as the apostle Paul questions in Romans 8, “If God is for us, who is against us?” And then follows that glorious affirmation, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life . . . nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:31, 37-39).
My friends, this is our calling, to be partners with God. Amen.