Sunday, November 30, 2014

Waiting By Hope (Advent 1: Isaiah 64)


Waiting By Hope from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1To the leader: on Lilies, a Covenant. Of Asaph, A Psalm
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock!
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
2Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might, and come to save us!

3Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

4O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
5You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.
6You make us scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.
7Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

17But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.
18Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.
19Restore us, O LORD, God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

Isaiah 64:1-9
1O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-
2as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.
5You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.
6We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of iniquity.
8Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
9Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

Children have an innate, natural wonder. So much of their lives are out of their control that they have to approach the world with amazement. They recognize that things are happening all around them, but the life of a child is filled with waiting for action, instead of doing things themselves.

As they grow older, they begin to take more agency in their lives. Instead of gazing wide-eyed at the Christmas Decorations that have appeared before them, they help hang a few ornaments on the lower branches of the family tree. Woe be unto the overly-helpful parent who tries to reposition an ornament that placed in a very specific spot by a child.

As they leave childhood and stretch themselves into adolescence, the magical-ness of the holidays begins to fade as they start to take on their own obligations, and gain the mobility and independence to go out on their own, first on bicycles, then eventually with drivers licenses.

By the time we reach adulthood, if we want something done, we have the resources to make it so, either through our own effort or in hiring someone to take care of it for us. Over the course of our lives, we gradually trade amazement for independence. Most of us in this room have seen behind the curtain and know how things get done in day-to-day life. But anxiety accompanies our agency. The more we can do for ourselves, the more we have to worry about. 

Then, at the end of the year, we reach Advent. Four Sundays leading up to Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of Christ, and the promise of God-with-us. No matter how anxious we get, no matter how many decorations we put up, no matter how early the shopping begins, Christmas does not come any faster, with four Sundays of Advent firmly in front of it. 

Our worries follow us even into the church, ostensibly a sanctuary from our fears and a place where we can lay our burdens down, at least for a time. There's an old preacher joke about a minister who saw one of her church members taking notes during her sermon. As she preached, she was inspired by her member's attentiveness and got more and more animated until by the end of the service she was laying out everything she had in a faithful and powerful proclamation of the Word!

After the service, the church member came up to shake her hand, thanked her for a lovely service, and commented that he had finished his grocery list and planned out everything he had to do for the whole week during her sermon.

If we were to take a moment and list all the worries that followed us to worship this morning…

We'd probably keep going until it was time for the evening news, and then we'd find plenty to add to the list. We live in anxious times, and our worries chase after us until we bring them to family gatherings and the joy of being together sours into conflict. With all this stuff nipping at our heels we can join in Isaiah's plea, turning our eyes heavenward and saying, "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence."

Give us a sign O God, that we may know that there's more to existence than this unending parade. Break through the minutiae and show us that you are God. Then we'll know, and so will the rest of the world, what's really at stake here. You, O LORD, are our hope in fearful times.

"As when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him."

In this congregation, we share stories of how God has done mighty things in the past, and yet it's so easy to live empty lives. Everything we hear on television reaches deep into the fear centers of our brain and tells us buy this or do that or else all your worst fears will come true. We're stuck between narratives of faith and fear, between hope and despair. "Memory of God's gracious saving acts of the past remains intertwined with the hardships of day-to-day existence." We know the stories in our unique and authoritative witness were true for those who wrote them, but where is the God who intervenes in our own story? Where is our hope?

Isaiah speaks to God again: "You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of iniquity."

Often prophets speak to the people on God's behalf. In this passage, however, the prophet is pleading with God on behalf of the people, his heart full of anguish for those who have bought into the story that the dominant consciousness is telling them. “Human sin is occasioned, indeed initiated, by divine absence!…Such a claim, however, is not meant to excuse the community before God, but rather to motivate God to act in redemption.” Isaiah points to God as the one responsible for the people's sin, that God has hidden from the people and without divine favor and guidance, they have once again enslaved themselves to sin. "Hiding is a form of divine judgment that ultimately serves divine mercy, a 'No' that clears the way for a more profound ‘Yes.'" God is our hope, and though God’s intervention in this world may be hidden from our eyes, we wait by means of the hope we have in God.

A colleague of mine, a gifted preacher with a prophetic and challenging voice, shared a story with me this morning. He told me about Sol Plaatje, an early leader in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. In a period where the apartheid forces were increasing control and colonization on the native South Africans, Plaatje remarked "The only thing that stands between us and despair is the thought that Heaven has not yet failed us.” Apartheid ended 78 years after Plaatje defiant lament, justice sprouted in the midst of oppression and has been growing there, slowly, ever since.

Surely South Africa needed a strong and present redeemer as much as the exiled Judeans to whom Isaiah preached. Surely we are waiting for that same redeemer before whom the mountains quake. We wait for our redeemer, knowing that the anxiety of our self absorbed “independence” will fade in the light of “Fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy.” God is our hope, and we know that God will not abandon us, though we are sinners.

"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.”


Advent, a season of waiting. We put aside our self-indulgence, and wait by hope for the God who is our hope. We take on the patience of children, for we know God is about to do something amazing, and this world will never be the same after. So keep watch in the night, and remember what God is doing in our midst.

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