Isaiah 55:10-13 "Break Forth into Joy"

        Back in the days when even big downtown churches were full on Sunday mornings and eager children who were dressed in their Sunday best were in abundance, the church where I grew up performed an annual Christmas pageant.  I believe the script had been written in 1948, and it was used – unchanged - year after year. 

         For me, the pageant brings back wonderful memories.  Even to this day, the smell of cold cream, greasepaint theater make up, and somewhat musty costume clothing takes me back too many years to when I was cast as an angel or an incense bearer or was simply part of the Sunday School chorus that processed dressed in short waist-length white tops with bright red bows and carried long battery-operated taper candles.  In those years, I sat in the side balconies with the rest of the children to watch the performance unfolding below.

         My father was a prophet in the pageant for many years.  He was one of the two men who narrated the story of the birth of Jesus.  His lines, of course, were always the same because the script was never altered. 

         Yet, he would practice them occasionally throughout the year and almost daily come the first of December.  His opening line was “Break forth into joy!  Sing together all ye nations of the earth.”  I shall always remember his booming voice spontaneously proclaiming the joy of the impending birth as he rehearsed – in the kitchen, the living room, or even the bathroom.

         I did not know it at the time, but the Biblical reference for his opening line came – not surprisingly - from the prophet Isaiah.  You see, joy was a theme woven throughout especially the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah. 

         Joy was the promise the prophet held out to the ancient Jewish people in the decades after they had been exiled to the outer reaches of the Babylonian Empire around 587 BCE.  You see, at that time, their lives had been viciously uprooted.  The Babylonian army had overrun their nation in yet another war.  Their fields and farms were trampled beyond recognition.  The temple was burned to the ground.  The entire countryside and all that was within it was in shambles.

        The temple, of course, was the most shocking and devastating loss.  Ever since this religious epicenter – reportedly constructed by the great King Solomon – had been built, the people believed that in that very place God lived – simple as that.  The temple was God’s one and only home.

         So, when the temple was destroyed, could they believe anything else but that God had left, found a new people to live with perhaps, or simply disappeared?  For the Jewish populace, it was as if their national heart had been unceremoniously ripped out of them.  No wonder the exiled men and women sat in despair by the rivers of Babylon and dejectedly hung their harps upon the willows nearby.  What was the point of making music?  As the Biblical Psalmist tells us, there was no point, and so they wept.  

         It was into this scene of anguish and melancholy that the prophet Isaiah sought to provide a much-needed perspective, sought to help the exiled Jews see their broken world with different eyes.  Heaven knows: they needed a new vantage point!  They needed a reason to hope.  

        As Old Testament scholar Juliana Claassens notes, “The trauma of the Babylonian Exile they had lived through was too much to bear. After seeing their beloved city destroyed; families torn apart; houses demolished; their country lost, it was not surprising that members of the prophet's audience were not so sure anymore whether they still believed in the God of their ancestors. (And so,) the prophet (presents) these doubters with a word of hope from the Lord that has the purpose of transforming the exiles' fractured lives.”

         The exile formally ended some 70 years later in 538 BCE when the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to go home, to return to that place of warmth, freedom, and security.

         However, before that day became a reality, the prophet Isaiah outlined a beautiful hope for the Jewish people.  It was a hope sketched in vivid and deeply meaningful images.  It was a hope that is summarized in the verses we read this morning:

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
    and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
    producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
    not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
    they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

         In other words, God says, through the words of the ancient prophet, do not be afraid.  Hang tough.  All that you are facing now will not be forever. 

         Imagine, Isaiah declared to the Jews in exile, you who know only an arid environment:  Imagine the rain and snow falling upon the earth, providing much needed and cherished moisture in a desert land.  That is how God’s words of power will fall from God’s mouth – in lush abundance.  Just as the rain and the snow will produce bounteous crops for you to harvest and so fulfill your physical needs, so God’s generous and generative words will provide you with what you most desire spiritually.  And so, declares Isaiah….

^12-13 “… you’ll go out in joy,
    you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.

         And when that day comes, the prophet promises, all creation will rejoice with you - and it will be so good.  It will be a blessing:

The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
    bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
    exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
    no more thorn

bushes, but stately pines….”

         In time, Isaiah assures the Jewish exiles, in time you will dare to dance again, and it will be a dance of joy. What a wonderful image, one that reminds me of that brief poem by ee cummings:

I thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.

         The prophet Isaiah’s words were an invitation to the Jewish exiles.  They were an invitation to dance a dance of yes – even in the most difficult of times.  More than that, Isaiah’s words are an invitation that has resounded down through the ages even to us who live in what so often seem to be joyless lives lived in exceedingly trying circumstances as well, lives too often punctuated by “no”.

         However, as Unity Church pastor Ed Townley wisely noted, this Bible passage “tells us clearly that it is not God's will that we live in lack and limitation. We "spend our money" according to where we place our faith and our creative focus. (And this is important…) We choose through our thoughts what we experience in our lives. We can choose fear and lack—and that's what we will experience. But we can alternately choose to embrace the Presence and Promise of God—and our lives will joyfully and lovingly express that choice.”  Townley urges us to choose to dance again.

         What then is this dance of joy, this dance of yes that we are challenged to dare to dance?  Is it like the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat?

         “Why aren’t you out there fishing?” he asked.

      “Because I’ve caught enough fish for today,” said the fisherman.

      “Why don’t you catch more fish than you need?” the rich man asked.

      “What would I do with them?”

      “You could earn more money,” came the impatient reply, “and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish.

You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you’d have a fleet of boats and be rich like me.”

      The fisherman asked, “Then what would I do?”

      “You could sit down and enjoy life,” said the industrialist.

      “What do you think I’m doing now?” the fisherman replied as he looked placidly out to sea.

         Joy is not about affluence.  Happiness may be, but not joy.  Theologian Frederick Buechner reminds us that happiness has human origins.  “We work for these things (he writes), and if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can usually achieve them.” 

         Joy is something else.  In the end, joy is a mystery because it comes only from God.  Joy is more like that which a wise old woman intuitively understood. 

         You see, she was once traveling in the mountains and found a precious stone in a stream. She carefully picked it up and put it in her bag. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime.

          However, a few days later, he retraced his steps in order to find the wise woman again and return the stone. “I've been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable this stone is, but I want to give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious.” 

         He paused for a moment before he spoke again.  “Please give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this precious stone in the first place.”

         The wise woman could relinquish the stone because she had something far more precious.  She had joy in her heart, and she did not need riches to give her that joy – nor could she give that joy away because joy is divine.

         Joy is where we end up when we let the Spirit lead us in dance.  Joy is when we close our eyes and allow the pulsing rhythm of love and the throbbing beat of “yes” move our feet. Joy is when we as Christians let ourselves be uplifted by Jesus and all he stood for in a pas de deux that brings tears to our eyes even as it brings courage to our hearts and strength to our souls.

         Where do you find joy?  Where is the “yes” in your life?  Where does this church find joy? What is our “yes”?  Those are the questions I would urge you to wrestle with this week because they lie at the root of who you are as a Christian and just what this church is all about in its ministry.  I do not know the answers to those queries.  I do not know where each of you finds joy, where you can shout out “yes”, and I do not know right now where our church finds joy.  I am not sure where our “yes” lies.  However, I know we need to find out.

         Will we as a church find joy in establishing strong partnerships with groups like the Raymond Arts Alliance and the Library?  Will we find joy by more intentionally connecting with our community through purposeful hands on outreach initiatives?  Will we find joy in forging generative and life-giving relationships with the elderly in our town – or with younger families seeking a spiritual grounding and strong moral values?

         I do not know, but I do know that, as a church, we will not find joy if we are content with a murky vision and unclear direction.  I know that our “yes” is somewhere beyond our Sunday morning worship – though worship may certainly be a part of that “yes.”

         I also know that joy has something to do with what Mary Oliver once wrote in a poem:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There [is] . . .

much that can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. . .

It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. . .

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

         The dance of joy, the dance of yes is meant to be danced with wild abandon.  The dance of joy is in no way stingy! 

         And finally, I trust that we – all of us - are made for joy.  We are made to shout out yes.  And I know that when we as Christians have found joy, it will be because we will have experienced Jesus and all he stood for.  It will be because we will be doing our small part in realizing God’s dream for the world founded on justice and mercy and peace. 

         As a church community, we must let the Spirit lead us toward something about which we can shout our “yes,” about which we can break forth into joy, about which we can dare to dance again!