Isaiah 65:17-25
Presented November 18, 2007, by J.D. Kline
Thanksgiving Sunday
Some years ago I came across a brief book about the practice of spiritual direction entitled Inviting the Mystic, Supporting the Prophet. The authors, Katherine Marie Dyckman and Patrick Carroll, define faith as a verb, as an active process rather than a static reality. Write the authors, “Conversion is not simply a matter of prevailing arguments, of changing from one belief system to another, but a matter, rather, of our personal surrender to a living God.” Faith, the authors suggest, involves placing our trust in God and giving up the illusion of control.
You and I love to be in control, don’t we? Perhaps the greatest learning for me in the aftermath of my wife Janice’s accident and death was the stark reminder that much that occurs in life stands beyond my control or your control. The unanticipated death of a loved one reminds us in a most disruptive way that much of control is indeed an illusion. In my younger years I made a number of pronouncements about what I will and will not do in the course of my lifetime. Back in my early 20s, in my seminary days, I used to assert with some frequency that I would never become a pastor, and if by some chance I did decide to do so, it would never be in eastern Pennsylvania, where the Brethren have a tendency to be rather set in their ways. Nevertheless I did become a pastor—for some 33 years by now—and I began in eastern Pennsylvania. In those same seminary days, Janice and I made occasional trips between the seminary—then located in Chicago’s western suburbs—and our family homes in Pennsylvania, and again, with great conviction, I would announce to Janice as we traveled across the flat toll road through Indiana, that I would never live in northern Indiana. You guessed it—my second pastorate was in northern Indiana. And on those occasions when I came to the Church of the Brethren General Offices in Elgin, I frequently found myself asserting, “Here’s one place I certainly will never move to.” But of course, here I am. When we seek to listen for the promptings of the Spirit and to open ourselves to God’s leading, we may well find ourselves moving in directions we had not foreseen. We may well find ourselves giving up much of the illusion of control.
But there is one aspect of control we retain, and that is the determination of how we will respond to the variety of events that impinge upon our lives. In times of loss and grief, for example, we can choose the pathway of crippling bitterness, or we can choose to live in the conviction that our Creator God is indeed standing with us, even grieving with us in those most difficult and painful moments of our lives—whether we sense God’s presence or not. It is a matter of living in trust, of learning, as Brennan Manning suggests in his book Ruthless Trust, “to whisper a doxology in [the] darkness.” It is a matter of holding fast to the goodness of God—trusting, with Quaker author Parker Palmer, that there is a “hidden wholeness” in life, that behind the uncertainty and seeming chaos of life stands the alternative promise that God’s creation is indeed working for good. It is a matter of learning to live gratefully.
This morning’s lesson from Isaiah speaks of the promise of new creation. These words were not uttered at a time when all was well, but rather at a time when the ancient people of Israel had returned from exile in Babylon, only to discover that their beloved homeland continued to lie in ruins. The people’s hopes once again were dashed, as the reality of warfare’s destruction stood in stark opposition to their dreams for a new Jerusalem, a new creation. In the midst of their disillusionment and despair the prophet urges them to hold fast to their faith, to trust that there is more to life than what we now see.
In truth, the prophet is drawing the people out of their present world, setting their sights in the direction of a new world. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that the role of the prophet is to teach us to anticipate from God “what we thought God would not give, namely, a new way to be human in the world” (Hopeful Imagination, p. 6). It is a matter of learning to imagine new possibilities, to envision something radically new. Isaiah is not simply suggesting that the people fold their hands and await a ticket to heaven. Much more, the prophet is challenging the people to allow this vision of new creation to impact how they live in the present, how they live here and now. It is an invitation to embrace the risky work of trust, to stake our lives on the promise that God is indeed in the business of making all things new. For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, the prophet cries out for God. The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating (65:17-18). And what is God creating, but a peaceable kingdom in which there shall be no more weeping and mourning, in which the wolf and the lamb, natural enemies, shall feed together, in which all people shall live in harmony, in justice, and in peace.
And while we await this new creation, while we anticipate life being fully remade in God’s image, our task is to live faithfully, here and now, as God’s peacemakers, as co-creators of justice and compassion with God, as servants of our fellow human beings. The temptation before us is to make ourselves satisfied with far less than God has in store for us. But the vision of a new creation beckons us forward.
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist who made his fortune in the late 1800s inventing and producing dynamite. One day in 1888 he had an experience few of us have. He read his own obituary in the newspaper. Alfred’s brother Ludwig had died, but the editor had confused the two brothers, and ran an article about Alfred’s death entitled “The Merchant of Death is Dead,” in which he described Alfred Nobel as one who had gotten rich by helping people kill one another. Disturbed by this bleak assessment of his life accomplishments, Nobel resolved to use his wealth for a different kind of legacy. When he died eight years later, he left more than nine million dollars to fund awards for people whose work benefits humanity—the Nobel Peace Prizes.
The prophet Isaiah’s writings are often considered to be forerunners of the gospel of Jesus, pointing to the good news that you and I can indeed choose to live in ways that point to the promise of new creation; you and I can choose to live lives of gratitude and trust. Gratitude for the gracious love of our God; gratitude for the promise of new life; gratitude for the vision of a peaceable kingdom; gratitude for gifts of healing and wholeness; gratitude that arises from a deeply held conviction that all of life comes to us as gift; gratitude that is inextricably linked to trust. And, as the writings of Brennan Manning remind us,
The supreme need in most of our lives is often the most overlooked—namely, the need for an uncompromising trust in the love of God . . . . Trust was not some feature at the edge of Jesus’ teaching; it was heart and center.
As we celebrate the Eucharist this morning, we embrace anew this holy mixture of trust and gratitude that characterized the life of Jesus and that marks the lives of his followers, and we acknowledge the vision of God’s peaceable kingdom, not simply as an idle pipe dream, but as an awaited hope that alters how we live, here and now. Sisters and brothers, be glad and rejoice in what God is creating in us and among us—new life, new possibilities, new community, new hope.