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Vision of Hope Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle November 10, 2002, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Isaiah 43:1-7
It has been said by many a voice that there is a climate of fear in society today. Certainly, I think, we are more fascinated with fear. I think of so called "Reality Television" programs whose sole purpose is to push contest participants directly into the face of their fears, and so to push viewers indirectly the same. I think of media and politicians who play on our already exaggerated perceptions of fear, concerning say child abuse or crime and drug use, or the prevalence of particular diseases, while paying far less attention to the actual reality of risk that might or might not substantiate our fears. Such fascination, it seems to me, speaks to the reality of fear that you and I know day in and day out. It points to the presence and palpability of fear in our lives. On the one hand, it does so by teasing us with other's fears so that we can, in some sense, avoid confronting our own. On the other hand, it does so by pushing our buttons so that we cannot but take notice of our fear. In either case, on either hand, fear these days is undeniably real. And the ground for our fear these days is real, too. I am sure that throughout human history people have been as we now are so I mean not to isolate our fear and something entirely unique or never before known. Nevertheless, there is our fear. Across the globe, there is talk of weapons of mass destruction and chemical warfare. There are bombs aboard busses and hidden in backpacks. There are civil wars and ethnic cleansing in parts of the world we never hear about on the news. Here, we are a nation seemingly, and terrifyingly, headed toward war with little hope that the voices calling for peace will be heeded, with policy that seems more concerned with meeting the ends we define rather than relations with those who were once allies and friends, with an economy that no one can predict and that has left many of us, quarter after quarter, fearful of the future we once anticipated with confidence. And in these pews are individual lives marked by fear of a job's loss, a parent's aging, a child's illness, a family's self-destruction, a cancer cell's growth … all of which is to say that the ground for our fear these days is extraordinarily real. "But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine," we hear from the prophet Isaiah, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." It is tempting to open to such poetry on a Sunday morning and with this word alone attempt to mitigate all fear with simple promise and a call simply to trust. But, of course, yielding to such a temptation both denies the depth of our reality and cheapens the gospel. Much as a word cannot be spoken to us without a clue of our context, so it is that a word of hope and promise cannot be heard, really heard, with a clue to its context. These words of Isaiah come to the people Israel at a specific time and place, after years of exile in Babylon, after decades of discontent, after a time when there was no room or no permit for the Israelites to worship their God or to practice their tradition, after long days of fearing that hope in their God was for naught, and after resigning themselves to a limited Babylonian reality, and its limited hope, convincing themselves that there was no other available. Israel considered themselves now alone in the world without their God; their God was apparently silent, dormant and invisible, either powerless over Babylonian deities or punishing them for their faithfulness. They had seen the city fall and had suffered the loss of their entire world of faith. They were a people whose hope had vanished, whose sense of the future had crumbled, whose fear had become constant companion. And it is into this exilic fear that Isaiah's word comes, and to this exilic people. "This tiny, miserable, insignificant band of men and women," writes Westermann, "are assured that they- precisely they- are the people to whom God has turned in love; they, just as they are, are precious in God's sight." Such powerful and promising assurance alone had the power to open their imagination and gave those who would have courage to hope yet again the vision to see a future shaped by a different reality, a divine reality. So for us, if we are to make any attempt to understand these words as God's word to us this day, we would do well to consider how it is, as Christians in the world, as Christians existing in the context of American culture, we might be in exile, lest these words of promise become simply an offer of cheap grace which disappears as soon as it is received. Of the church's exile specifically, writes Walter Bruggeman, "the exile … is that we are bombarded by definitions of reality that are fundamentally alien to the gospel, definitions of reality that come from the military-industrial-scientific empire, which may be characterized as 'consumer capitalism.' In a variety of ways the voice of this empire wants to reshape our values, fears and dreams in ways that are fundamentally opposed to the gospel." If you and I cannot open our eyes to exile in which we stand, individually and collectively, then these words of promise make little sense or simply do not apply to us. Now I know that there are some who would disagree with Bruggeman's conclusions about exile, sensing no discrepancy between the values of the "empire" and Christian values, arguing that present day politics and power holders are finally trying to get us back on the right track. And I know there are more for whom the metaphor is strikingly uncomfortable, because it underlines that our fear is indeed very real, that the risk in which we stand, in which we live, is extraordinary, that the powers around us trying to reshape our values, fears and dreams much like the Babylonian powers would try to do the same for the Israelites, that the circumstances in which we exist are frightening indeed. That may be so on a communal or political level, but, on the other hand, I also know that the metaphor of exile is very real on a more personal level- for the one whose depression lingers in defiance of will, for the one whose alienation from family and friend is undeniable, for the ones who, search though they may, cannot seem to find a place to call home, for the one who has trouble imagining a better tomorrow. My intent is not simply to proclaim a word which guides us to understand ourselves as hopeless captives under the power of an evil empire or which suggests we really ought to be afraid given all that is around us. My intent, rather, is to proclaim a word that points to a power which alone can cast out fear and which alone can grant hope to the hopeless. But it is only when we dare admit our fear and dare confront the temptation of hopelessness, that, by grace, we can find courage enough to name the exile in which we stand. Then, and only then I think, will we find a real vision hope, the real vision of hope. But it takes our admitting. "Exile, " continues Bruggeman, "in the ancient world or in our own situation is not an obvious, flat social fact. It is a decision one must make … There must have been Jews in Babylon in the sixth century who settled in, made it home, assimilated, and did not perceive themselves as exiles. Such accommodation is a possible stance for faith, in ancient Babylon or in [the present day]." Understanding the depth and breath of Isaiah's words is dependent on our not accommodating, you see. It takes the recognition of our vulnerability and the understanding of ourselves as being in a dire a situation as those who first heard these words, uncomfortable though that may be. As in a few weeks the angel's song "Fear not!" will ring hollow unless we claim our fear, so it is with Isaiah's promise. So then, the word for us this day, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine." Set aside the fear which lurks within you that tells you you are worthless. Though much of the time you feel like a number and not a person, though much of the time you feel alone in a crowd, I know you each one by name and will not leave you stranded and afraid. You need not be controlled by your fear of the things that seem to own you, your job, your wealth, your complicated relationships, because you belong to me and to no one else. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." Though you may feel more alone than ever right now, though you may be more afraid than ever of the rising waters that threaten to overwhelm, or of the raging fires that threaten to destroy, this is my promise: I will be with you. Therefore do not be afraid. Without an honest appraisal of the fearful reality around us, we cannot begin to see the new reality, the new vision, the new hope, God's grace alone has the power to give us. Without recognizing the fear that is so very palpable and present in, if we are honest, every segment of our lives, the word that casts out such fear is diminished if not irrelevant and so we are left to do what? To continue in lives held captive to so much? Surely that is not what we were created to do. But there is more. We understand Isaiah's words as a new word spoken form the heart of God, a new turn taken in the heart of God, spoken to those who had been in the dark night of exile, and so a powerful word spoken to our own exile. But we have another promise. We have heard another word spoken. We have seen another light shine in the darkness and known a presence and a person who has entered the most threatening of rivers for our poor sakes, who has endured the most damaging of fires, for the likes of you and me. His name is Jesus Christ and in him do we find a hope that does not, and will never, disappoint us. It is not a hope that simply bids us set our fears aside and wait out the present darkness until we reach the sweet by and by. It is not a hope that requires us to bury our doubts as evidence of faithlessness. It is rather a hope that takes in our fears and our doubts and, in spite of them, grants us vision and imagination for the future and gives us courage to see things another way, to see a world where reason and responsibility are more important than power and politics. It is a hope that lets us understand things differently, to understand a job lost or a future altered as opportunity to reconsider what is most valuable in life or occasion to explore a passion long ignored. It let us imagine a different outcome, to look toward a day when a family's feuding might subside, when the belligerent child might become the sensible adult, when the illness might subside. And it frees us to begin to act in ways that may bring about a new future, to risk speaking up for justice and peace, to sacrifice a bit for Christ's sake that the hungry may be fed and the naked clothed, and to challenge those around us to do the same. Moments ago, we baptized little Nathan Greenhalgh. We confessed our faith in a God who knows him by name, who loves him and will be with him, day by day, come what may. And we promised to teach and tell him about that God and to show him, by what we do and say, that love. That translates, for you and for me and for all of us together, into pointing him, and all of God's children, including each other, toward a future shaped by the reality of God's grace and promise not by the reality of human fear. May we then be given courage, imagination, vision and hope enough to do that, for Christ's sake. Amen. |