Living Whole

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
    come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:1-11 (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This morning, we have our last primary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. Next week we will move into the New Testament. So, I thought it might be helpful for us to take a look back. To try to see the bigger story. After all, hindsight is 20/20. Right?

It all began with God’s Word. With God’s living Word. In the midst of chaos and darkness, God spoke. And out of God’s living word, the darkness and chaos was ordered into a beautiful world. Water was created and formed into oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams. And land. Land was shaped into the form of mountains, hills, valleys, mesas, and plains. God simply spoke the Word and it was so. 

God loved God’s creation. Everything. And, in particular, God really loved this mysterious thing called life.

Life isn’t something we can really explain, is it? Scott and Sarah, as we prepare to baptize Reese, I'm wondering if, when she was born, her life didn't just take your breath away. That there were no words to fully describe this mysterious and beautiful new creation.

God created life in the plants and animals of earth. God created a special form of life to dwell on Earth--beings who would consciously enjoy the Creator and would help the Creator take care of earth. God called this special being “human.” Which means “earth creature” or “creature of the soil.”

These partners with God enjoyed God and they helped the Creator take care of the beautiful garden called Earth. They lived in friendship--with God, with each other, and with all creation. 

God smiled. This was working! What joy God had as God watched everything in balance--as each part fit the whole. Everyone had enough. And the partner humans loved God and helped God. It was good. It was really, really good!

And, then, it all fell apart. Humans decided that they could find joy in ways other than living as partners with God. Humans decided to find joy by becoming BIG DEALS.

How did humans know if they were BIG DEALS? They knew by bossing other humans around, by piling up stuff, by dominating nature, and by reaching glorious heights of health and beauty and knowledge. They also knew by competing with each other, by always trying to be more of a BIG DEAL than others. 

They gathered into groups--clans, tribes, and nations. Each group wanted to be better than the others. They invented oppression and war. Because, you know, to oppress and to defeat others makes you a really BIG DEAL.

God groaned. Earth groaned. All living things groaned. The whole universe wept. Sorrow filled the cosmos.

God thought about destroying everything. It would take one snap of the fingers. One word. But, this made God really sad because God loved what God had created.

So, God thought of another way. At first, God thought about acting like the real BIG DEAL. By terrorizing the humans into submission. But, the more that God thought about it, the more God realized that this would only be using their method. 

So God, in love, decided on another way. It’s a really long story--a story of friendship and passion, of promise and disappointment, of hope and of self-giving love. It is a story of God mending the universe.

It began with God making a promise to one man--Abraham. It was a promise that God would make Abraham into a large people--into God’s people. And that God would bless them so they could be a blessing to others.

For a while it was good. Everyone lived in harmony together. But, then, Egypt--another people, another nation--began to oppress Abraham’s descendants. They cried out to God. God heard them. God recruited Moses--who was a pretty reluctant guy--to help free God’s people from Egypt. 

It happened.

God’s plan was that Moses would take Israel--God’s people--to a new land. A place where they could live together as God intended. But, along the way, it began to fall apart. God’s people wanted to become BIG DEALS again.

So, God led them into the wilderness. The wilderness was God’s classroom. They learned alot there. It was also in the wilderness that God entered into a covenant with Moses. God promised to be Israel’s God and they, in gratitude, would live as God’s people. God spoke the Word in the form of the Ten Commandments. This was a covenant gift to show them how to live as God’s people on the land. How to be faithful to God and to each other.

It was also in the wilderness that God gave the gift of worship. Worship was a special time to remember, to retell, and to give thanks for God’s saving acts in history, especially the great liberation from Egypt.

Israel graduated from the wilderness school. They settled down in the land God had promised them. It was good. But, just as had happened so many times before, everything began to fall apart. They wanted to, once again, be BIG DEALS.

So God gave them a series of kings because they wanted to be like (and compete with) neighboring nations. One of these kings was David.

God loved David. And, even though he had his problems, David was faithful. God promised that David and his descendants would rule forever and ever. 

For awhile it was good. Then, it began to all fall apart. One of David’s descendants, began to oppress the people, just like the pharaoh in Egypt. This led to division. The people split in two, part in the north and part in the south. More and more, they turned from God and worshiped their own stuff and the gods of their neighbors. Except for a very few, nobody loved God with their heart and their soul and their strength.

There was catastrophe coming. God sent prophets to warn them. But, the people wouldn’t listen. First, the northern part was destroyed. Then, the Babylonians, destroyed the southern part and led the people back to Babylon in chains. They were exiles, torn from everything familiar. 

Back in the wilderness. Once again.

Since our celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this past October, the first of the 95 theses that Martin Luther posted on the church door in Wittenberg has been stuck in my mind. I’ve shared it before. It reads, “When Jesus said, “repent, he meant that believers should live their entire lives in a state of repentance.”

Repentence is a turning back to God. The realization that we can’t go it alone. That we are not enough of a BIG DEAL apart from God. Repentance is often the result of being in the wilderness. In exile. In a place that is torn from everything familiar. When it seems as if everything has fallen apart.

Yet, through the Spirit, it is in the wilderness that we are able to once again recognize our need for God. To turn to God, to cry out for God. Just like the Israelites did in Egypt. Just as they did in Babylon. Just as we do in our own lives.

When we repent. When we turn back to God, God promises to be there. Waiting. Faithful. With a plan to make everything whole again. This is both the message and invitation from God in our text today from Isaiah: 

Come. 
I have a place for you.
Come to the waters of baptism. 
Come to the feast of the Eucharist. 
Eat and drink only the best. 
Fill yourself with only the finest. 

Pay attention. 
Come closer now. 
Listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.  
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you, 
the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love. 
I have a plan. 
I’m about to do a new thing. 
Because when my Word goes out
--when my life-giving, life-nourishing Word goes out
--he will not come back empty-handed. 
He will do the work I sent him to do. 
He will complete the assignment I gave him. 
This Word that became flesh. 

This Word made flesh. Giving so much life that it simply takes our breath away. 

May we live breathlessly, knowing that God is faithful and that God’s Word will do the work it has been sent to do. Amen.

Preached Sunday, December 10, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Third Sunday of Advent
Readings: Isaiah 55:1-11, John 4:13-14