Isaiah 43:16-21 "We Are 'Re' People"

         So often we think of prophets as being soothsayers, diviners of the future, crystal ball gazers – and even more than that –predictors of earthly doom and gloom and of worldly circumstances completely beyond our control.  Look at whom we apply that title of “prophet” to today – and listen to what they have told us. 

         Nostradamus predicted all sorts of wars and calamities.  Jeanne Dixon was certain that World War III would begin in 1958, and that Pope Benedict would be assassinated.  Edgar Cayce predicted that Japan would topple into the ocean, a tidbit among his larger visions of the world ending.  And Mother Shipton predicted floods, fiery dragons, and earthquakes heralding the end of life on earth.

         We do not need prophets like that, to be sure!  We have enough to juggle already without worrying whether life as know it will end with a bang today, tomorrow, or next week.  What the world needs now – and has always needed – are prophets of hope – prophets like Isaiah.         

         Most scholars believe that the Isaiah of the passage we just read emerged out of the years of the Babylonian Exile – those decades following the crushing of the fledgling nation of Judah by the military firepower of the Empire of Babylon, those decades after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, those decades when the little nation itself was divided, and the cream of the crop – artists, poets, civic and religious leaders - was deported to a backwater province far from the Holy City. 

         Old Testament scholar ‘Walter Brueggemann speaks about the role--and timing--of these poetic voices (of the prophets) in the life of Israel, when the people thought they had brought this calamity upon themselves by their faithlessness, or needed to be reminded about God's own faithfulness throughout their long history. When things seemed to be the worst they had ever been, God sent these prophets to sing a new song, to lift the spirits, expand the imagination, and solidify the hope of the people.” (Kate Huey)

         As Baptist pastor Heather Entrekin writes, “It is hope that Isaiah tried to instill into the people of Israel. They long for something they do not have — to be home again. They are far from home, far from free and far from hope.

For more than 50 years they have been in exile - displaced, disheartened. By now, some have adapted to the culture of their oppressor. They are blocked from Judah by an impassable desert. It feels like God has abandoned and forgotten them.”

         With that in mind, Isaiah begins the passage we just read by reminding the Jewish people of Yahweh/God’s faithfulness throughout their history, from the very beginnings of their community life together as God’s chosen people.  God does not abandon.  God does not forget.

         Isaiah looks to the collective past of the Jewish exiles to lift up their preeminent source of hope in this current time of hopelessness.  In doing so, the prophet Isaiah does something that Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, Jeanne Dixon, and Mother Shipton never thought to do. 

         Isaiah conjures up gripping memories of the most significant event in Jewish communal history to date – the Exodus, the time when the little band of Hebrews fled from slavery in Egypt, when God dramatically parted the waters for them only to have those same waters destroy their oppressors.  In short, Isaiah looks to the past in order to find hope for the future:

“This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses,
the army and reinforcements together,
and they lay there, never to rise again,
extinguished, snuffed out like a wick.”

         “Remember what God has done for you” Isaiah seems to say.  “Remember the faithfulness of God.”

         However, this ancient Biblical prophet does not stop there.  In the very next verses, he does something quite strange.  Isaiah changes his tune – and in a way he seems to pull the rug out from beneath his listeners. 

         Now that he has reaffirmed God’s faithfulness in the minds and hearts of the Jewish people by reminding them of significant past events – he tells them to forget the past. 

         He urges them not to dwell on what has already happened.  “Do not live your lives only looking backwards,” Isaiah proclaims.  “Focus on things that have not quite come into view yet.  Look to the future.”

“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?”

“God is still speaking,” Isaiah whispers.  “Can’t you hear the voice of the Holy One”

         As celebrity comedienne Gracie Allen once wisely remarked, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.”  God is still speaking – to us, today, in this church.  Can’t you hear the Holy One?

         Well, if we can not quite make out the voice of God, if church seems irrelevant sometimes to us but surely to the vast number of people who stay in their jammies and read the newspaper Sunday mornings, then perhaps it is because we expect God to speak in the same way that God has spoken in years past.

         Is God’s voice muffled by what some have called the last seven words of the church:  We’ve never done it that way before?  Or it’s corollary:  We don’t have enough time, money, people?

         What Isaiah was proclaiming to the exiled Jews, as UCC pastor Kirk Moore eloquently wrote, was this:  “The prophet was (not) telling the people to ignore this history.  The prophet was warning the people not to dwell on this history or to romanticize it or to expect that what comes next will be just like what had come before – in the glory days.        

         God says: I am about to do a new thing…There’s no comparison to the past possible….it (isn’t) going to be just like before.” 

         Our God is not about static immovability.  Our God is not about inertia.  Our God is not about nostalgia and living in the past – and our God certainly is not about scarcity and limited resources.  Our God is about “re.”  You got it – “re”:  restore, renew, rebirth, reconcile, resurrect. 

“I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out!

Don’t you see it?”

         To me, that sounds exciting – but that is who I am as a pastor.  That is my style.  Words like restore, renew, rebirth, reconcile, resurrect: the “re” words energize me. 

         I am not sure how many of you share that vision of the “re” words – or how many of you instead inwardly cower at the thought of them – or how many of you see limitations instead of possibilities.            

         However, the way I see it, as a church family, we have a choice here.  It is kind of like a crossroads.  We can choose to stay with a God and with ways of worshipping and relating to that God that we cling to from childhood – or we can look to the possibility of a God who expresses sacredness in new ways and in new forms.

         We can hang on to a God that, if we believe Isaiah, has undoubtedly changed (because God is always changing) and risk romanticizing and worshiping an empty shell. 

         It is like that Bruce Springsteen song, “Glory Days.”

“And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it

but I probably will

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture

a little of the glory of, well time slips away

and leaves you with nothing mister but

boring stories of glory days”

         Or we can open our eyes to a God who is reaching out to us in new ways, trying through us – this church – to do new things, who is revealing himself or herself in ways that might not be familiar to us.  Understand that, from my perspective as your pastor, that does not mean we throw out all of the old, but it does mean that we look at the old and seek to express the old in new ways. 

         We look at old stories from new perspectives.  We entertain the idea that maybe Jesus came less as a sacrifice and more as the embodiment of God’s dream of compassion and justice.  We reflect on the notion that Jesus really did not give a hoot about the afterlife in his own ministry but focused rather on living now on this earth. 

         We acknowledge that worship and church is less about passive comfort and more about active ministry.  We sing new songs about new themes, and we sing them with new instruments.  We embrace the thought that the role of the pastor is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  We recognize that church is no longer like it used to be.

         We talk a lot about wanting to grow as a church community around here, but we always seem to end up with the same question left unspoken but which creates a certain inertia all the same.  The question, of course, is this:  What changes around here are you willing to  - not just make, but to embrace?  And a corollary question is this;  What aspect of God’s new way of still speaking will you take ownership of, so that it finds expression here in this church?    

         Change and striding boldly into the future with a vision and maybe even the skeleton of a plan can be scary, but it is also exciting.  I believe that now is the time that we are called to quit making excuses and rather act in faith.  Because, you see, we will change even by not changing. 

         I believe too that each one of you remembers how God has been faithful to you – and to this church - in the past – just as the Jewish people in exile remembered.  This church has been through rocky times, but through the love of God and a lot of hard work by this congregation – we came out of it – maybe smaller but certainly stronger.

         Therein lies my hope for the future of our little church – that belief that deep down inside we are all faithful “re” people.  I trust that deep down inside we really are willing to place our unguarded hope in that faithfulness, in that sure and steadying knowledge that God will indeed guide us once again as we intentionally explore new ways of worship and mission, new ways through which we can proclaim that God is still speaking – and speaking with profound relevance - here in the Raymond Village Church.

by Rev. Nancy Foran

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 "A Tale of Tragedy and Comedy"

        A Sunday School teacher was reading the parable of the Prodigal Son to his class.  The children listened as intently as children ever do in Sunday School.  They heard about the younger son running away, the older son being the good doo-be and sticking around to work the farm, and the father joyfully welcoming the young wayfarer home, slaughtering the fatted calf in preparation for a celebratory banquet.

         When the teacher had finished telling the story, he asked the class, “Now who was really sad that the prodigal son had come home?”

         After a few minutes of silence, one little boy raised his hand and confidently stated, “The fatted calf.”

         Well, he is probably right in that the fatted calf was surely sad at the homecoming – knowing what its own fate would be.  Needless to say, that is certainly one perspective on this parable – this little story with a big point – this tiny tale – this Gospel in miniature - that is at once, as Presbyterian theologian Frederick Buechner noted, (like the Gospel message itself) tragedy and comedy – tragedy because of the loneliness and brokenness all three major characters experienced, and comedy because of the outlandish, preposterous, and bigger than life ending to it all.

         There is indeed a thread of tragedy that runs through this story, weaving its way through the lives of the younger son, the older son, and the father alike. 

         First there was the younger son who one day asked for his share of the family inheritance.  Now it is important to understand that he was not simply requesting an advance on his allowance.  Quite the contrary: What the younger son was saying to the father was this: “I wish you were dead.  In fact, you are dead to me. I don’t need you. I just want your money.”

         Their relationship is over, kaput, done for.  In one fell swoop, the younger son has burned all his bridges.  And, what’s more, he has also cut himself off from the entire village community.  He has rejected and in fact dishonored the whole lot of them.  He has a one-way ticket to whatever distant place he ends up in.  There is no safety net.  How tragic!       

         Then there was the older son.  He never wavered from his responsibilities to both his father and the community.  He kept his nose to the grindstone, worked his twelve-hour days in the fields, and came home night after night exhausted and spent – because that was what a son was expected to do. 

         On the surface, he seems the dutiful kid, the perfect child.  But underneath, he too is in a distant place – marked by seething resentment and bitter dislike for his younger brother – with a touch of downright jealousy thrown in for good measure.  How tragic!

         And finally there was the father.  He asked no questions and did not even get angry when the younger son took the money and ran.  The only emotion the father showed were the tears that trickled silently down his cheeks as he watched the young lad waltzing off down the road, not even turning back once to wave good-bye.  The old man sighed and walked back toward the house, feeling the resentful eyes of the older son boring into his back.  His family was dysfunctional.  His family name was a source of shame throughout the village.  How tragic!        

         The younger son, of course, anticipated adventure and high living.  He quickly puts as many miles as he can between himself and the farm, and the money from his share of the inheritance flows through his fingers like water through a sieve.  Wine, women, and song are just the start of it.  He buys new clothes and drives around in a slick Lamborghini.  He leaves big tips in the finest restaurants and always has at least one blonde bombshell babe on his arm.  He flips out that wad of benjamins every time he gets a chance.  He lives about the shallowest life one could possibly imagine.  How tragic!

         The older son anticipates only more of the same – goats to milk, fields to plow, produce to harvest, a father to obey.  It is like John Vannorsdall, Lutheran pastor and former chaplain at Yale University, imagines the Elder Son saying.  “Do you think that I had no moments when I wanted to leave? That I have no hunger for wine, women, and song? Do you think I was born a drudge? No, I
 was born an elder brother, son of aging parents who looked to me to share the responsibility of being an owner. From the day I was born I was reared to be accountable. “  He is mired in a life of such bitterness.  How tragic!        

         The father also goes about his work.  The tears flow less often now, but when they do, they flow for both of his sons.  He knows that each one resides in a distant place, and he cannot seem to build a bridge to reach either one of them.  Neither son is capable of comprehending the depth of his love.  How tragic!

         The younger son, of course, eventually runs out of money.  His credit is lousy.  His clothes are no longer new.  His Lamborghini is trashed.  The wine is cheap.  The women have all drifted away. He has no more benjamins to flash. 

         He needs a job – and has to stoop unbearably low to find one.  The owner of a pig farm hires him, and he slops the hogs twice a day and mucks out their pens.  Imagine – a kosher Jewish boy working with swine.  The younger son has hit rock bottom.  How tragic!

         The older son – well, not much changes for him - except the resentment that he carries now poisons everything.  He never smiles and is barely civil to his father.  “He still lives at home, probably still eats a meal or two with the old man, but there's hardly any conversation, the son eats quickly and asks to be dismissed. He never inquirers as to how his father is doing or asks for his opinion or advice. Anytime his father tries to start a conversation with him, he gives short, one or two word answers making it clear he has no intention of letting his father into his life.”  (website – http://lcrwtvl.org).

         All the older son can dwell on is that life has cut him a raw deal, and he is so resentful – of his brother, of his father, of his village, of the farm.  He has a chip on his shoulder and carries an enormous grudge against everyone and everything.  How tragic!

         And the father?  He just goes about his work too.  He watches out the window for both his sons.  The tears still flow for each of them.  He knows that each one resides in a distant place where he cannot seem to build a bridge to reach either of them.  Neither one is capable of comprehending the depth of his love.  How tragic!

         Then one day the younger son comes to his senses and knows he has reached the end of his rope.  One more day with the pigs will do him in.  And so he does the only thing left for him to do.  Having had enough of distant places, he heads for home – and this is where the comedy starts.

         .  What a preposterous and outlandish thing for him to even contemplate doing!  

He knows he can expect, as Methodist elder Alyce MacKenzie points out, “that the townspeople would conduct a gesasah ceremony on his return. This is not a reception in the fellowship hall with a "Welcome Home" banner and a sheet cake. This is a ceremony for a son of the village who had lost his money to Gentiles or married an immoral woman. They would gather around him, breaking jars with corn and nuts and declare that he was to be cut off from the village. His entry into the village would be humiliating as his townspeople expressed their anger and resentment toward his actions.”

         But still he heads for home.  He even has a plaintive and regretful “I’m so sorry” speech prepared for his father.  But lo and behold, as Alyce MacKenzie continues, “The father won't even let his son get through his carefully rehearsed speech before he begins issuing orders to the servants (“Put on the fatted calf on a spit!). 

         (The father) offers him a kiss (a sign of forgiveness), a robe (a mark of distinction), a ring (a sign of authority), and shoes (worn only by freemen). The father throws him a banquet, rejoicing in his son's return.” How preposterous and outlandish!  But that is emblematic of the comedy of the Gospel message itself.

         However, the older son does not understand it that way at all.  Frankly, he is shocked – and not only to see his younger brother back again.  He is also appalled at all the attention and hoopla the kid is getting.  The older brother is so angry and so bitter and so resentful that he cannot even refer to the young punk as his brother, but only as his father’s son. 

         “What am I?” he shouts at his father. “Chopped liver?  All these years when I worked and slaved for you, all these years when I did what I was told, and you never once gave me so much as an old goat to slaughter and feast on with my friends. This wanderer who spent all that money on whisky and beer and whores – and you say that he was dead and is now alive, lost and now found?  That makes absolutely no rational sense to me.”  And with tears stinging his eyes, he turned tail and headed to the barn to pitch some hay.

         The others, of course, went inside and had a no holes barred welcome home party.  And music filled the air, and there was dancing, and the parable is over.  Loose ends everywhere.  Nothing at all is neatly tied up.  Jesus – where are you when we need you to explain these things?

         Now - this is one powerful story – a tale of dysfunctional families, of seething resentment, of swallowing pride, of unbounded love, of forgiveness, and of the real meaning of grace.  It packs a lot to be sure. 

         However, I think that Jesus told the story for a simple reason. The point Jesus was making to the Pharisees who were on his case yet again about eating with tax collectors and other assorted sinners was this - that “God welcomes all, strangers and friends, God’s love is strong, and it never ends” (John Bell).

         That is what God is like, Jesus is saying.  Such forgiveness, such love, such compassion define the Kingdom of God.  Such preposterous, outlandish comedy as rebel children being welcomed home is the essence of the alternative social vision that Jesus proclaimed throughout his ministry –and echoes off the walls of his church even today.  God welcomes all……

         We are each in a distant place – you and I and everyone who did not venture into worship this morning.  As one blogger wrote, we humans are “lost to ourselves, empty of meaning, and starving for life, love, and hope”  (http://interruptingthesilence.com).  

And yet, no matter who we are, no matter what distant place has claimed us, God waits for us all to come home. 

         God forgives the best and the worst, the most and the least among us - and offers us grace upon grace.  Is it fair?  No.  Is it preposterous and outlandish?  Yes.  Is it the Gospel as comedy?  Absolutely.

         As Lutheran scholar Matt Skinner writes, “Both sons, each in his own way, misunderstand the workings of grace. The younger seeks to bargain or manipulate, while the elder cannot let go of sacred canons and grudges. The elder son crystallizes questions about who has the rights to enjoy benefits as a member of God's family.”  Yet, in the end, both are welcomed home - regardless.

         We do not know what happened to the characters after the parable ended.  We do not know whether the younger son strayed again. 

         We do not whether the older son ventured into the banquet hall a bit later.   I like to think he did.  I like to think that the father left the back door open to him – and then gave him a huge bear hug even as the tears ran freely down his cheeks. 

         And I like to think that the older son shook hands at least with his brother, because, in the end, he realized that he valued the young wanderer and decided it would be better to be in a relationship with him than it would to be right. But we do not know these things.

         However, we do know that, if we are really honest with ourselves, we too hesitate to enter the banquet hall. If we liken ourselves to the younger son, we have to ask ourselves if we would even venture back from our distant place – or would pride keep us away from home and banquet? 

         And if we seem more like the older son, we have to ask ourselves whether our sense of fairness coupled with our own personal brands of bitterness and resentment would allow us to pass through the doors for a hug and a handshake?

         And so, this fourth week in Lent, Jesus suggests that we ponder this overarching question raised by the parable:  Will we love ourselves enough – will we put aside the tragedy of our pride, our bitterness, our grudges, and our resentments long enough to accept the forgiveness God offers?  And will we invite others to do the same – here in this place - because that is what the church is all about? And will we delight enough in the amazing grace that we will surely find to, come Easter, enter the banquet hall and experience the comedy of the Gospel, freeing ourselves to be transformed, restored, resurrected, and birthed into new life?

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church

        

         

Isaiah 55:1-9 "Come Home"

Isaiah 55:1-9

         In their heart of hearts, the Israelites knew that they had crossed the line once again.  How many times can you anger your God before the Holy One disinherits you and drops you like a hot rock? 

         So many times, so many times over the centuries they had turned away.  So many times, so many times they had grumbled and complained.  “We don’t have bread.  We don’t have food.  We don’t have water.  The work is too hard.  Life is way too difficult.  We don’t want to go that way.  We don’t need you, Yahweh/God.”

         Surely God had turned a heavenly back on them for good this time.  History tells us that, once again, the Israelites had been defeated.  The military might of the Babylonian Empire had overrun them.  The tiny fledgling nation had been conquered. 

         But worse than that, the Temple in Jerusalem – the House of God - was in ruins.  It was little more than a pile of rubble.  But perhaps the worst of all, as a community, they had been divided and dispersed.  In the Babylonian way of gaining the upper hand, the brightest and best among them had been deported, shuffled off to the very backwaters of the Empire.  As a people, they were broken.

         At first, in despair and hopelessness, they had simply hung their harps on the willow branches by the edge of the streams and wept.  After all, how can you sing a song to God in a foreign land?  They grieved for this God who had punished them and subsequently seemingly vanished – given up on them in their iniquity, cast them out in their faithlessness.

         However, over time, this older generation of mourners died off, and the ones who remained adjusted to the new life and set down roots there in Babylon, outside of the Promised Land.  They ran businesses.  They farmed.  They married and had children.  They found themselves, for once, feeling rather safe in this fertile land, and many of them had become quite successful and wealthy.  There was a chicken in every pot, and all the children had IPads.

         One would think that, for once, things had turned out for the better for the Israelites. However, that was not so, at least according to the prophets, like Isaiah.  These human mouthpieces of God never stopped speaking. 

         Oh, there were words of anger, to be sure, but prophets like Isaiah also brought words of comfort to a people who deep down inside knew that their lives were empty and in the end deeply flawed and in need of healing, of salvation. 

         In the verses we just read, Isaiah’s beautiful poetry was like a love song meant to woo the Israelites, meant to bring them to their senses and most of all meant to bring them home, bring them home so they could get back to the work of rebuilding their Temple and restoring their lives once again in relationship with God. 

         And in the deep darkness that many no longer realized they still walked in, the words of the prophet glimmered and shimmered. The light of a deep hope that was grounded in a reconnection with God flickered in their midst.  “Come, come everyone, come to me.  Here is water if you are thirsty.”       

         A pastor once delivered a children’s message about hospitality and welcome. She began with a question to the youngsters gathered around her: “What is the first thing your parents say when someone comes to visit?”

         She was anticipating answers like, “Welcome!” Or, “It is so good to see you.” Or, “Won’t you come in?” However, one little boy spoke right up and replied. “Can I fix you a drink?

       But isn’t that the way it always is?  That is part of the ritual of forging community.  As one blogger wrote: “It takes your relationship to another level. Any child knows that when you share a candy bar with the new kid on the block, it is instant friendship. (And if you are offered food or a drink), even if you decline – no, thank you, I’m on a diet - you may have a persistent host who says, “Are you sure? How about a cup of coffee or one of these little coca- colas? I bought them just for you.” Really, I’m fine. “Not even a glass of water?”

         “Come on, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” says God to the exiled Israelites through the prophet Isaiah.  “Have a drink.  Come, buy wine and milk – and it will cost you nothing.”

         “Why?  Why?” the Israelites surely asked themselves.  “Why would God be offering the very best to us – water in the desert, a banquet table laden with such abundance – all you can eat and drink – and even more remarkable – all for free?  Why?  Surely we do not deserve this.” 

         Though the Israelites had forgotten their purpose, though the ephemeral things in life, the things that in the end really do not matter, had distracted them for too long (“Why do you spend your money on that which does not satisfy?  Why spend your wages and still be hungry?” asks the prophet), God still reached out a holy hand to them.  God will forgive them, Isaiah proclaims, if they will come home.   But why? The question still lingered in their minds –as perhaps it does in ours as well.

         “My thoughts,” said God in reply, “Are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours.  “For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think……Come, come to me, and you will have life.”  Come home!

         In a way, that is what God is saying to us right about now on our Lenten journey.  Come home!  You are half way there, and the way is dark.  But finish the journey.  Go the distance.  Get to the cross. 

         Keep praying.  Keep reflecting.  Keep looking deep into your own heart for the remainder of these 40 days.  Do not stop now.  Go even unto death, for that is part of the journey too.  Come home.

         I find it fascinating that this passage of hope and abundance and joy pops up in our lectionary in the very middle of the somber season of Lent.  When some of us are sacrificing chocolate, God offers us Ghiradelli truffles. 

         When I was in seminary, a small group of us on occasion would spend a weekend at a Benedictine monastery in upstate New York.  The brothers at St. Anselm’s were a conservative community.  They did not speak at meals.  Though male guests could join them, women had to eat elsewhere.  We could sit on stone benches around the periphery of the chapel but could not join fully in worship.  We could listen.  We could sing, but we could not take communion – even if we had been Catholic.

         However, one spring we were at the monastery in the middle of Lent – and were amazed to find that for that particular weekend deep in the season of repentance and sacrifice, all of these restrictions were lifted.  Communion was open to us, and we were invited to dine with the brothers.  As we sat with them over supper, they were drinking wine and talking up a storm. I remember one of them (Brother Peter, it was) got up from the table after the dessert that they generally never had and started playing jazz piano (with his sister who was a nun, no less) as entertainment. 

         For a monastery, it was blow-out party in the middle of Lent, the season of sacrifice.  However, I cannot help but wonder if the monks had this soiree – this scheduled break from the rules and routine - so that they could see beyond the darkness of the season to the light that would come in the end.  I cannot help but wonder if their partying was not a visceral reminder of the banquet that awaited them come Easter – the memory of it designed to get them through the even darker days ahead.

         These verses in Isaiah remind me of that experience.  In the darkest days of our journey, maybe we like the Israelites (and even like the monks), need to see the light.  Maybe we too need to see what it is that we are journeying toward.  Maybe we too need to be reminded of the goodness and abundance, the loving and forgiving nature of God, so that we have something to carry with us the rest of the way through the awful events of Holy Week and beyond to the joy of Easter.       

       As I read in one article this past week, “Lent tends to be a solemn season of introspection, remorse, and repentance but right smack in the middle of it we find ourselves confronted by this passage from Isaiah, bursting at the seams with joy and abundance. An all you can eat buffet, if you will, filled with the kind of stuff that is so good for you, you needn’t worry about eating too much.

       And not only will the food be good but so will the company – friends, family, even those we sorely miss. There will also be people from other nations, banging on the doors to get in and the doors will be opened and there will be plenty of room and there will be plenty of food and there will be plenty of space for the chicken dance and, by the end of the night, everyone, from the four corners of creation will stand in a circle singing...

         “That’s what grace looks like!” Isaiah tells us. That’s what’s in store for the Hebrew exiles thirsting for home. That’s what’s in store for those on a journey called Lent. That’s the destination. That’s what the cross was and is ultimately about...getting us to that banquet.”

         “You are so close,” the prophet seems to be saying.  “Do not be distracted now.”  And whatever you do, do not be like the young man who found a five-dollar bill on the street and who "from that time on never lifted his eyes when walking. In the course of years he accumulated 29,516 buttons, 54,172 pins, 12 cents, a bent back and a miserly disposition."

         Do not be distracted for the remainder of your Lenten journey, your focus being pulled this way and that by whatever it is in your life that in the end really does not matter and will never really assuage your hunger anyway – a damaging relationship, a warped view of success. 

         Do not be distracted, and remember where you are going – and what awaits you when you get there – living water, food aplenty, all you can eat, all the forgiveness you need, all the love you long for, all the new life you desire.  Keep your eye on the prize, so to speak – and trust, always trust, that the journey is worth it.

         “Come.  Come home!” the prophet whispers to us.  You are half way there, and the rest of the way will be dark.  But go the distance.  Get to the cross.  Keep praying.  Keep reflecting.  Keep looking deep into your own heart. 

         Do not give up now.  Go even unto death, for that is part of the journey too - because when you get there – when you get to Easter – you will find that it is as the ancient prophet said:  It is an all you can eat buffet.  It is free.  And you are home.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church