Community Church Sermons

The Eighth Sunday After Pentecost – July 14, 2002

"Breaking Free Of Earth”

Isaiah 55:1-13

 

 

What do you do when life falls apart at the seams?

 

This is the question being posed in our Scripture lesson today.

 

When your world collapses, and your foundations are shaken, and your life is in shambles, and you’re facing what seem like insurmountable problems, what can you do?

 

The people asking the question back then were the chosen people. God had formed them into a nation out of nothing, really – an old impotent man, and an equally as old, post-menopausal woman, and their unlikely little baby whose God-given name was Laughter. God had given them an identity, and over the years increased their numbers, and led them through lots of dangers, toils and snares. God delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, and brought them into a promised land flowing with milk and honey. God had given them Moses, and the Ten Commandments, and King David and his successors, and the glory of their reign. Their Temple in Jerusalem was one of the wonders of the world, their nation was strong, the economy was good, and the future was safe and certain. All of God’s promises were coming true. Life was bright and full of joy!

 

But you know what they say. Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of the oncoming train. Suddenly, the bubble burst. Tragedy struck. The light of joy and hope turned into the darkness of sorrow and despair.

 

Babylonian armies swept in from the east, laying siege to Jerusalem. Thousands were killed. The city was burned. The trees were chopped down to make sure it was never built again. The Temple was destroyed. The survivors were uprooted from their homes, and taken away as slaves to live in exile.

 

And there – in the sadness of their Babylonian exile – they began to wonder what good it did to follow God. If their faith in God was powerless to prevent tragedies like these, then what good was it? If God cannot be trusted to protect us from our enemies, and insulate our lives from disaster, what good IS he?

 

We’ve ALL asked questions like these during our own personal experiences of Babylonian captivity. When our sense of safety and security has been shattered. When our families have been torn apart. When we’ve faced problems that are much larger than our ability to solve them. When we’ve experience the loss of things – or people - that we value and love. When our heaven turns into hell, and life has little or no meaning, what good is God?

 

And why should we continue to place our trust in God?

 

In the verses leading up to and including today’s Scripture lesson, the prophet Isaiah rises up among that group of battered people. He offers them hope! He calls them to not give up on God! And Isaiah presents us with what I think are four very profound reasons for anchoring our lives in God when responding to the difficult challenges life throws at us. And if you’re going through such a time right now, or know someone who is, these are reasons worth taking hold of.

 

Here’s reason number one to anchor your life in God when the storms of life come.  Verse 3 says, “Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”

 

In other words, when we turn to God as we face the difficult realities of life, God stirs up in us inner resources that often lay dormant. “Give ear…come to me…hear me, THAT YOUR SOUL MAY LIVE.”

 

I was reading in The Christian Century this week about the work of Princeton philosopher Peter Singer. Singer comes from a philosophical position known as utilitarianism which holds that moral behavior is that which increases happiness and reduces human suffering. Now, who could argue with that? But Singer has taken utilitarianism and applied it to some of our more pressing ethical issues in the 21^st century. The worth of a single human being, according to Singer and others, is not to be considered if that life gets in the way of increasing the well-being and happiness, or of reducing the suffering, of the larger community. So for Singer, it would sometimes be okay to kill babies, or old people, or to withdraw support from Alzheimer’s patients because the money could be better spent reducing suffering elsewhere.

 

John Buchanan, the editor of The Christian Century, rejects this philosophy by telling us about Rachel. He writes, “Rachel rescues me from philosophic abstraction by her utter joy in being alive and her absolute delight in her piano lessons, in her backyard swing, and in seeing her grandparents. Her father, coincidentally, is a Princeton graduate, and his disagreements with Professor Singer are more than philosophical. Rachel has Down’s Syndrome. She is MY granddaughter, and I cannot imagine the world without her.”

 

Now, I’m not interested in arguing about utilitarian philosophy here, but I do want to share something I’ve observed about many church families I’ve known who have had babies born into them with all sorts of physical difficulties and mental challenges and other monumental life issues. Somehow – and I believe it is God who does this – previously unknown inner resources seem to be stirred up in these family members, producing the capability to love at levels far above most people, to be strong in ways they never believed possible, to do things and understand things and perceive life’s meaning differently than ever before. One of our church families has a grandson who was born a short while ago with several physical deformities. A week or so ago, they showed me some pictures of the little guy, and along with the photos, I saw another beautiful sight – the love on their faces, the pride in their eyes, the hope in their hearts for this little boy! I suppose, at first, his challenges took them by surprise and may have seemed like a tragedy. But now, although his physical situation has not changed, there is something powerful stirring in the heart of his family, and they experience him as a miracle, as a beautiful gift to them from God..

 

“Give ear…come to me…hear me, THAT YOUR SOUL MAY LIVE.” God can stir up in us  power, wisdom, strength, patience, love, hope, understanding and a million other life resources that we may not even think we’re capable of right now. So reason number one to respond to your difficulties by turning to God is because God will bring to life gifts hidden in your soul!

 

Reason number two to turn to God when facing hard times. Verse 7 says, “Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

 

Have you all been following the sad, sad story of baseball’s Splendid Splinter? The children of the late Ted Williams are fighting about what to do with his body. His daughter believes her father wanted to be cremated, and his ashes scattered on the waters off Florida where he loved to fish. The son wants his father cryogenically frozen – and evidently has done that - so that he can be brought back to life someday, although some say his real intentions are to sell off Ted Williams’ DNA to people who want to genetically engineer little Ted Williams’ for themselves. Talk about “designer children”! Now, this son of Ted Williams has taken a lot of criticism for this entrepreneurial enterprise. This week, I heard someone on the radio describe him in a series of adjectives that ended with the word “idiot.” Then, the person said people should keep that in mind if they’re thinking about buying any of this DNA because the kid’s got half of it already!

 

Well, it’s a terrible mess. Family disputes always are. So how do you work your way through them?

 

Well, God knows that one of the first steps in facing up to the problems in our lives comes when we are willing to take a fearless moral inventory of our own lives to see where, how and why we may be contributing to the problem. You know, you and I can’t control outside forces and other people. Darn it! But what we can do is become responsible for the role we play. Sometimes our own failures, weaknesses, character flaws, and sins contribute to the problem, and we cannot get to the task of healing until we first contend with what we can control. And God can help us do this. When we turn to God, we turn to a life and to a standard of rightness that is higher than ourselves. When we relate with Jesus, we see a role model of what a healthy life looks like. So anchoring ourselves in God helps us begin to identify the things about ourselves that are not healthy and need to change. And Isaiah promises that God does not look at us with a look of condemnation, but rather through the eyes of mercy. God wants to help us get disentangled from our sins, help us get out from underneath our guilt, and move on to tackle the problem in a constructive way. And that holds true for family problems, societal problems, international problems. I think that’s a powerful reason to turn to God.

 

Reason number three to confront your troubles by turning to God is found in verses 8 and 9. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

 

In other words, God can help you think higher thoughts, and to discover ways of dealing with your problems that you’d never come up with on your own.

 

You know, next week we will be away in Pittsburgh for the Annual Conference of our International Council of Community Churches. One of our colleagues there is a very interesting black man who spent his entire career as the pastor of one of Baltimore’s most powerful churches. Now, most of you know that our Council consists of almost equal numbers of African-American and Caucasian churches. When we come together, our worship is always very colorful and lively, especially when one of the black Gospel choirs begins to sing. We all start clapping, and tapping our feet, and saying “Amen”, and carrying on like we wouldn’t dare do back here at Tellico Village Community Church. Why, you wouldn’t even recognize Steve Nash for all the carrying on he does!

 

But here’s something interesting. This black colleague of ours doesn’t participate in that stuff. Doesn’t like Gospel music. Never allowed the choirs in his church to sing it. Doesn’t like the clapping, and the foot stomping, and the yelling out of, “Thank you, Jesus!” No, in his church, they sing classical music. The choirs present some of the great masterpieces. People don’t shout out with emotion, but listen to extremely provocative and mind stretching sermons. And there’s a reason for all that. What is it that holds people back but stereotypes? What is it that sets people free, but crossing cultural borders and engaging new ideas? You see, here is a man whose ministry was built on thoughts much higher than most of our thoughts, and on ways that are far different than most others. Here is a man who listens to the thoughts of God!  And you can see the power of those higher thoughts and ways in the character of many of the people in that congregation.

 

Isaiah tells us that one of the reasons it is good to turn to the Lord when facing life’s challenges is because God will lead us to thoughts, and to ways, that are higher and better than our own! That’s a powerful reason to turn to God.

 

And finally, reason number four to turn to God when facing hard times. Verses 12 and 13 tell us that God will make a promise. The exact words of the promise will be different, of course, from person to person, and case to case. But the promise will always go something like this:

 

“You will go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow a pine tree, and instead of briers, the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will never be destroyed.”

 

When you turn to God in the face of life as it really is, you break free from earth, in a sense. Instead of living in the dark and depressing shadow of your problem, God will lift your life into the light of His promise. Yes, you’ve lost a loved one, but the end result will be joy. I promise you, says the Lord! Yes, you’re facing trouble, but one day will come peace. I guarantee it, says God! That thornbush that pricks you at every turn will one day become a pine tree that gives you shade. Those mountains that overshadow you now will one day break forth in song for you!

 

And when you face your problems by holding onto God’s promise, and always moving in the direction of that promise, you’ll find your way to freedom!

 

What can you do when life falls apart at the seams?

 

You can anchor yourself in God! Because when you turn to God, he will stir up your soul and bring to life in you resources you never knew you had; because when you turn to God, he will help you change the things you need to change, and show you the part you need to play in the healing; because when you turn to God, he will inspire you with higher thoughts and better ways to deal with your problem; because when you turn to God, he will make you a sacred promise that your Babylonian exile – whatever it is - will ultimately give way to God’s love for you and the world!

 

So turn to God as you face life this week. Anchor yourself in Him.

 

He will break you free from the darkness of earth, and set you on your way to the glory and joy of his Kingdom!