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Brothers and Sisters:
The texts this week are stunning in their emphasis on divine power and purpose and how both should guide who we are and how we live. God has it, they say, and we ought to recognize it, praise it, and do what we can to bring others to live in that recognition, too.
Isaiah reminds us that God sits on the rim of the world that God made and there is nothing any of us can do about it. The prophet also asks a question that has been used over and over again to put me back in my place since I was a small boy – “Don’t you know there is a God in heaven?” When we fussed about this or that we heard that. When we tormented the animals or each other we heard that. We even heard it when we wasted milk at lunch. The catholic sisters had obviously raised my mother and aunts and my grandmother, too, because they all used that line on me and my cousins and classmates to get us to straighten up and fast. It has pretty much the same purpose here in Isaiah. It identifies God as the source of all things and all the good that we can and should do and it assumes that the connection is obvious. God is the creator. We are the creation and our purpose flows from God’s own.
The psalmist takes that lesson from there and gives more direction. The proper response to the power of God is . . . fear (as in awe) and wisdom follows from that fear. When you are smart enough to be afraid at how small and inconsequential you are, you have taken a first step. When you are aware enough to know it is better to be observant of power than to reject it, you have taken another step. And when you are disciplined enough to wrap your life around this greater light that is the source of the worlds, then you will approach something like wisdom in your living. That is the message of all of the psalms and proverbs and it is writ large here.
I will talk more about Paul’s message to the Corinthians on Sunday, but I think it is one that is important for us to begin to think on now. It boils down to this: Paul is for Christ. He will be a Jew or a gentile if necessary, does not matter to him, but he will be both of these and more . . . for Christ. He will be strong or weak if necessary . . . for Christ. It does not concern him one whit if you are conservative or liberal or Presbyterian or Pentecostal, 99% or 1% or this or that. What matters to Paul is the opportunity to tell you about Jesus Christ who came as the first born of the new creation, who came to make us new, who came to make the whole world new through a ministry of reconciliation. You can have whatever bent you want, but Paul wants to tell you about how God came in flesh and blood to connect us to a better way and set our sights on better things.
And then there is one of the strangest passages in all of scripture to me, one that goes against so very much of what I have been taught to do with my life that it is really almost disorienting, as strange as that may seem. In Mark chapter 1, when the disciples tell him that there’s a long line of people outside waiting to be healed and comforted, what does Jesus do? He picks up and moves on to another place. As many times as I’ve read this passage, that never ceases to amaze me. He moves on. AND, he moves on AFTER taking the time to get up so early in the morning that it’s still dark, so that he might find a deserted place to pray.
There was work to do. Hurting people. Sick people. Possessed people. People who were lost, and weary, and sinking into the depths of despair. Couldn’t he have foregone the early morning prayer session and opened the office a little early that day? Couldn’t he have stuck around a little while longer, and alleviated some more of the hurt in that place? Did he have to go so quickly?
Imagine walking into the office, and immediately getting hit with, “Everyone’s looking for you! Where have you been?” What’s your first response? What’s the first thing you do? If you’re like me, the first thing you do is compile a list and start plowing through – and you probably skip lunch if the list is a long one.
I wonder if Jesus had been a pastor if he could have gotten away with this? I can just hear the hushed angry voices of my own father talking at coffee-hour about how the “good reverend” is slacking off a little too much? I can hear my uncle say back that there is too much work to be done for him to be gallivanting off to luxurious retreats (he had obviously never been to a retreat center himself). And then there was my aunt’s favorite - can’t we open the office a few more hours a week? Isn’t that what we pay him for?
Apparently not. And apparently I still need to learn this lesson as much as those who raised me needed to learn it because I see two things going on here:
First, as vitally important to the salvation of the world as Jesus’ earthly ministry was, it was not so important that Jesus didn’t take time to renew his spiritual connection with his Heavenly Father. And, if Jesus can find the time to care for his spiritual nurture, how much more can we find the time.
Second, Jesus demonstrates that you don’t have to do it all. You can’t save everyone. Sometimes you have to move on. Sometimes you just have to pick up and go where the Spirit sends you, even if it means people are still going to be in need and disconnected. Because, honestly, there are always going to be people in need.
It is disorienting, because it is a totally different way of thinking about existence, purpose and work. It should change the sense we all have about what is important. It points out so clearly that the world doesn’t revolve around ME. Or YOU. And it says we are more than the tasks we accomplish.
And, that waking up before dawn and finding a quiet place to connect with God is sometimes the most important thing we can do.
Now, having said that, I am going practice what I am preaching and go for a walk.
Peace to you all. Thanks for being the church.
John