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