Voices

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  Isaiah 40

The other evening I was listening to an author talk about her recent book and she said one of the first tasks of writing a book is to find and listen carefully to the character's voice.  I was struck that such a task is not only for writers, but for all of us in life.  We need to find our voice; our authentic, unique, wonderful voice.  And once you find that voice, you begin to explore your range, just as a singer knows his/her range.  And once you find your range, you try to sing and share your voice with others in the best ways you can each day.

Yet, I also wonder how many people feel like they have to switch voices throughout the day?  Do you feel like you have one voice at work and another at home and still another at church?  Such switching can leave us feeling at once hoarse and confused, especially if one of the voices you are called on to sing is outside your range/comfort.

I know as pastors, we need to find our voice.  Often our first few sermons are part seminary paper, part biblical treatise, and part imitation of some preacher we read/really liked in seminary.  But over time, you cannot preach/sing/speak in a voice that is not yours.  More importantly, finding a voice is a process not only for preachers but for all people inside the church.  Often people come into church after a week of using a voice that did not feel very authentic or true; the stress and strain wearing on them, and do we on Sunday offer a chance for every person to remember/reclaim/rehearse his/her authentic voice God gave each of us?

If the greatest joy of God is a human/creation fully alive, then part of being alive is singing/speaking with gusto to the One whose very breath is what supports our voice in the first place.  And while it is great to think about our own voice, we also have to be careful and honest about which voices we are listening to.  Isaiah says 'A voice cries out in the wilderness.'  That voice brings promise and words of hope and that the future pathway of life will be a blessing.  Yet, very few voices I hear today offer such hope to us.  Most tell us that if we vote for the other party, the pathway will be rocky.  Most commercials tell us if we buy the other car we will be stranded on the side of the road.  Most of our colleagues, stressed by life, tell us we are foolish to think/trust/believe that there is any hope.

What voices are you listening to?  How is what you hear impacting what you say?  I invite you to sit with me alongside those questions this week to see what trace of God's grace might stir.

Blessings ~

Dream a Dream

Click here to read Isaiah 61

Click here to read Isaiah 62

These two passages speak of a world that would have seen like a dream to the People of God.  For Isaiah to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, it not just about all things coming up rainbows and chocolate rivers. The year of the Lord's favor was the year of Jubilee, when slaves were to be set free; debts were forgiven; and no one farmed for the whole year.  It was year long Sabbath to remember to trust in God in all times. 

Isaiah 61 actually is the passage Jesus preached one of his first sermon on in Luke.  If you click on that link, you will see that the sermon does not end well.  Let me give thanks that to date no congregation has ever tried to hurl me off a cliff in response to a sermon of mine...maybe I am not doing something right?  Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favor, which sounds so good.  Until the people realize that quoting from Isaiah means the Lord's favor includes everyone, even the foreigners and people we don't like.  All of the sudden, we might wonder about this.  And does Jesus really expect us not to plant gardens when spring finally comes?  Does Jesus really expect us to forgive other people's debts to us?  I mean that is fine in church when saying the Lord's prayer, but can we really live this way?

Isaiah offers a compelling vision.  But what is our role in all of this?  Do we just wait passively?  Or, perhaps, we are called to live this way right now.  Which is challenging, because people are going to look at us all strange.  People might say things behind our back.  Living the faith means we will at times bump hard against the values of our culture.  

I pray you will listen to the wisdom of these two passages today and in the coming days.  Perhaps as these words dwell within us, they might be heard in some of our words and felt in some of our actions.  If that can happen it would be a trace of God's grace.

Blessings! 

Good morning

Click here to read Isaiah 60

"Rise and Shine," parents around the world say to their children.  We know that with the rising of the sun there is a new day, a new chance, new opportunities, and new challenges.  The process of waking up takes time; for some longer than others depending on the time of day.  I like to wake up early and get going.  I like the mornings, when the sun first peaks over the horizon.  This is my kind of vision from Isaiah.

I realize that not everyone likes mornings as much as I do.  But "rise and shine" is less about the time of day and more about your attitude.  Even if it is noon...how do you go about the rest of your waking hours?  In fact, some could say that since the days of creation go from evening to daytime, that those who are night owls are more like God who created at night.

Rise and shine also refers to how the People of God came back from Exile.  They came back with expectation and hope.  Expectation that God would guide them and hope that God would sustain them.  What if we would try that?  What if every day this week, we greeted with expectation of encountering God? What if every day this week, we held on to hope that God would guide us?

That is tough when we hit the speed bump of life, especially considering how fast we live our lives.  We move so fast today that life is a blur.  And so, when something difficult happens, the bump is jarring!  Rise and shine reminds us of how we can see our life.  Even the bumps come, the warmth of God's love can make a difference.  Even when the storm clouds gather, the sun can break through and dance in the raindrops forming rainbows.

Rise and shine, if the people who lived in exile for so long could say that, maybe we could try saying it for a week.

May the traces of God's grace move in your life whenever you rise and shine this week.

Blessings!

Holy Conversations

Click here to reach Isaiah 59

If you read Isaiah 59 closely...it is a conversation.  It starts with God laying out the charges and the people respond.  Notice their response.  They don't try to defend or deflect what God says is happening.  They accept and admit they did wrong.

The truth is we all make mistakes.  We all say things we shouldn't.  No one is completely innocent and no one is perfect.  The only way to reconcile is to talk openly and honestly with each other.  Isaiah 59 is a holy conversation, which (by the way) so sounds like something Robin would say to Batman.

The church knows all about conversation.  The church has an advance degree in talking.  But the question remains, what are we really saying??  Where does all the talking get us?  I recently enjoyed a blog post by David Lose about productive meetings.  David is right that we need to be more productive.  I would also add to David's post that meetings in church need to be less about talking and more about holy conversations.  When you get in your car after the meeting, it is not only a question of what was accomplished, but also were you heard?  And did you hear what others said?

What if we used Isaiah 59 as wisdom for what our conversations at meetings sounded like?  There are moments when we need to name our brokenness.  There are moments we need to listen for God.  There are moments we need to take action and change behavior.  What if those would be our three topics rather than "Old Business" and "New Business".  Maybe we would be about God's business and find ways to have holy conversations.

May there be traces of God's grace in your meetings this week.

Blessings!

Who are the ones in our midst

Click here to read Isaiah 56

The bags are all packed, the People of God are ready to go.  And somewhere in-between Babylon and arriving back into the Promised Land, Isaiah preached about justice.  In the face of living in exile, in a time when anger can simmer on low for days upon days, justice can sound very different than it does in Isaiah.

Think about the scene.  Here is Babylon, the bad guys who conquered the Promised Land, destroyed the temple, and transplanted the leaders of the People of God back to Babylon.  Now Babylon has gotten a taste of its own medicine, it has been supplanted by Assyria.  What goes around, comes around.  Or revenge is a dish best served with the chilly glare of self-righteousness.

Only Isaiah won't play along.  He proclaims that God believes even foreigners will be welcomed on God's holy mountain, the sacrifices of foreigners will be acceptable, and these people will be accepted as the original People of God.  That is a tough message when you are leaving a foreign land.

But it is also a tough message because Babylon not only took Israelite people out of the Promised Land, but also transplanted people from other conquered countries to live in the Promised Land.  Foreigners were not being left behind, they would be found living when they returned home.  Foreigners would be drinking the milk and honey promised to the People of God.  What's the deal with that?

It is hard to hear...not only for the people in Isaiah's time, but also in our time.  We like to think of justice as aligning with our opinions.  But, I would dare to venture, that the People of God did not expect that sermon from Isaiah.

And unfortunately, it really did not come to pass.  Samaritans were people who had a Jewish parent and a foreign parent.  They were looked down upon.  They were called 'half-breeds.' And there was tension between Samaritans and Jewish people for years.  That is not what Isaiah had in mind, nor was it what Jesus saw when he preached the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Our relations with people who come from a different land, with different customs, and different understandings have often been strained.  In the founding of our country, each wave of immigrant was sneered at.  And yet, Isaiah reminds us that God sees something different.  God sees a child no matter where that person was born or presently lives.

Who are the ones in our midst, we'd be offended to learn that Isaiah is talking about.  Of course we will never know what Isaiah would say to us today.  We can only open our imaginations and hearts to God in this time.  And by listening to these words, open our eyes to see if there are those in our midst who we are called to love.

May the traces of God's grace be in our life helping us stay open to all those who we bump up against in these days.

Blessings!

Well...that was unexpected

Click here to read Isaiah 57

Click here to read Isaiah 58

Here Isaiah goes again...being all confrontational.  Right after admonishing the people that they will need to accept foreigners, now Isaiah starts to criticize the Israelites for their way of worship.  Isaiah says I know back in chapter 40, I spoke of comfort and an easy path home, but you still have to watch out.

I think sometimes we'd prefer faith to be more predictable and pre-packaged.  Why all the criticism and critique?  Why can't we just try our best and leave it at that?  Isaiah won't let the People of God rest.  I don't know how the people acted in Isaiah, but I wonder if today that message would clear out the sanctuary faster than the final "Amen."

Let's be honest, we don't expect our faith to be challenged much in church any more.  There are too many options, the mainline Protestant church has lost too many people, and most pastors feel like they are on thin ice...and can hear the sound of cracking all around them.  Those who do try to challenge the status quo quickly bump hard against barriers.

Let's also be honest, most pastors are not Isaiah either.  I know my own perspective is too colored by my own biases and limitations.  My own best arguments are flawed and contain more holes than Swiss cheese.  Who am I to try to proclaim or challenge, I have my own stuff too.

I am not sure how Isaiah felt or why after fifty-some chapters he is still poking the bear.  I am not sure how Isaiah would be received today.  Maybe people would see him as a curiosity or maybe people would try to have him get professional help for depression or images of grandeur.  I don't know.  I do know that the world is different today.  And I do know that if we are looking for challenges, Jesus picked up on my of these themes in his parables.  After Easter, I will be turning to parables in church.  I think these stories are ones we've often reduced to bite-size morality lessons.  But they are really turn-your-life-upside-down challenges to the status quo.  That is easier to do with a story.

For now, I encourage you to let the words of Isaiah roam around.  How is your relationship with God?  What is your reaction after traveling through 57 chapters?  Do you like this book?  Does it challenge you in a good way or leave you cold?

Those are important questions as we wind down and ones I pray you might sense a trace of God's grace as you prayerfully ponder.

Blessings!

Enough

Click here to read Isaiah 54

Click here to read Isaiah 55

Isaiah 54 promises everlasting peace.  Isaiah 55 promises a feast set by God.  What I find so interesting and challenging is the question in 55, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?  And your labor for that which does not satisfy?"  That is one of those questions that echoes across the centuries right into my own life.  Why do I work so hard for those things that do not bring me peace or closer to God?

After all I can work tremendously hard for other's approval and compliments.  I can put in hour after hour doing work that takes me away from my family.  I can turn to those things that do not satisfy my spiritual thirst for a connection with God.

It is difficult to resist the lure of consuming.  There is always a shiny, new product on display at the store.  There is always something promising to bring peaceful dinners with my family if only I go to a particular restaurant.  This is the promise of peace that comes pre-packaged.  The problem is when we come to depend more on places where we can consume for peace and hope then tending our relationship with the One who is peace and hope.

Just to be clear, I don't think consumerism is always the problem.  In fact, it can become a Trojan horse of sorts, leading us to think we have eschew all areas of buying things.  Maybe move out West, grow our own food, and go off the grid.  I know that is not going to happen in my life.

However, I do think we are not aware of the ways Madison Ave. evokes emotions.  To be sure, the church can do this as well.  There is religious music marketed to evoke certain feelings.  There are things said in worship that are carefully designed to awaken a certain response.  In those moments, we are trying to sell the People of God something.  If the church is about anything, it is about being the People of God together.  Each person uniquely created in the image of God.  Each person also realizing that we make mistakes and mess up.  Each person realizing the value that comes from being in community with others.  We don't need money for that, we just need a space to gather.

So, how do we know when we have enough?  How does the church know when it has enough?  Those are tough questions.  But perhaps if a feast of free milk, honey, and wine seems lacking, it is good to step back.  Perhaps is we start worrying about who paid and who didn't, it is good to step back.  Come to the feast, Isaiah proclaims.  It is an invitation Jesus took seriously.  He loved a good feast.  And often chose to eat with those from the fringe of society, people who could not pay.  Where did he get that invitation?  Isaiah 55 might be one place.

May you come to the feast, taste the milk and honey, and may it be enough...and may there be enough for all God's children.  That would be more than a trace of God's grace.

Suffering

Click here to read Isaiah 53

Isaiah 53 is often read on Holy Friday.  It is read from the lens of Jesus suffering on the cross.  One of the powerful parts of going chapter by chapter through a book of the Bible is to hear what comes before and after a passage.  How can the beautiful feet have just brought good news of peace and freedom to the people in exile, and now all of the sudden we are talking about suffering?  There is a disconnect between these two chapters for me.

It is jarring when our joy and dancing is turned into mourning.  It is unsettling when laughter is suddenly turned to tears.  Perhaps that is why we don't like Holy Week.  The festival joy of the Palm Sunday parade turns to betrayal, desertion, and denial of Jesus' closest friends on Maundy Thursday.  Then, of course, the shadow of the cross on Friday.  We don't deal well with death in our world, especially when there is so much to do to get ready for Easter Sunday: eggs to color and hide, hams to prepare, and family coming.  Do we really need to face the reality of brokenness at that point?

Part of the problem that I notice in my own life is how much I compartmentalize everything.  It is either a joyful time or a sorrowful time.  It is either all good or all bad.  I may talk about the messy middle, but when the messy middle is a whirlwind of emotions and I can't get my barrings straight, I don't like it.

That is what holy week does to us.  It makes our souls and heads spin.  And let's face it, most of life at work and in the world already does that.  Do we really need the church to join in that cacophony?

Isaiah says "YES".  Partly because the response of God will be different than the response of the world.  Partly because the mixture of joy and pain are a part of life.  There can be laughter even at the bedside of someone who is dying.  There can be hope even when you lose your job.  There can be peace even when life is turned upside down.  But it does not always come in the expected ways.

Here the people of God are ready to go back to Jerusalem, and Isaiah talks about suffering.  Perhaps that is because the road back will not be where every mountain is make low and the rough places plain.  Or perhaps it is because the city of Jerusalem is still in rumble.  Perhaps it is to remember that even as people are packing up their belongings and getting ready to return, they remember the suffering they endured in exile and the reality that some of their friends had died in Babylon.  Those are powerful truths for Isaiah and for us.

I think there can be traces of God's grace noticing the messy middle of our lives.  We need to be aware of the ways joy and pain get intertwined and tangled up.  We need to remember that hope and despair can be two sides of the same coin.  If that is the case, then even with the gloom of Holy Friday we can still trust in the One who turns our mourning into dancing.

May the traces of God's grace be felt in moments of joy and suffering and everything in-between.

Blessings!

Beautiful Feet

Click here to read Isaiah 52

How beautiful are the feet that bring the news.  What a strange image.  The sound of feet.  Think about that.  The implication of the passage is that how we walk and the sound of our feet can actually tell us a lot.  Our children running down the hall frantically tells us something.  Stomping our feet when angry tells us something.  The silent sliding of feet when trying to sneak out tells us something.

Here is my questions for you...what do feet bringing good news of peace and joy sound like?  What do dancing or joyful feet sound like?

As I write this my daughter is skipping and dancing around the living room.  It brings sounds of rhythm and along with it there is the sound laughter and joy.

Here is another truth: we can hear feet long before we can see who is coming.  I wondering if people of God in exile became astute listeners to the sound of Babylonian feet marching to give more orders?  Could they hear the sound of horses hooves clicking on the rock?

But the feet of a messenger of peace sounds different...joyful...more like my daughter's dancing.

I invite you as you are at work this week to listen for the sound of feet.  Can you make out the sounds of co-workers coming?  Does that bring hope or dread?  That might help you connect with the People of God Isaiah preached to centuries ago.

As you listen to the sound of feet around you...may the traces of God's grace bring you peace too.

Blessings!

Waking Up

Click here to read Isaiah 51

Isaiah tells the people to be alert and awake.  Again, remember the people of God are in exile, in a foreign land, their temple lay smoldering in ash, walls in ruins, and things have never seemed that bad.  Wake up...to that?  Really?  

Most of us today struggle with facing the reality around us.  Often we turn to food...or shopping... alcohol...medication...or other addictions to help us be desensitized to the pain.  Brene Brown talks about this in her TED talk.  I encourage you to watch that.

Brene talks about needing to live our lives wholehearted.  That sounds great when life is going well, the lights are on, and laughter comes easy.  But when things get in a slump and things are difficult, we don't always want to wake up.  So, we turn to screen time...we lose ourselves in television or chat rooms...certainly not this blog, but maybe others.

How do we wake up to this world?  And do we want to?  I wonder if the People of God in Isaiah had the same questions.  Did they want to wake up to the reality around them?  I am not sure it is easy to wake up.  But I know most mornings, it is a slow process.  

I do think one of the ways we notice the traces of God's grace is in the realities of this world...even when the realities are not easy to wake up to.  I pray you might wake up to that today>

Blessings and peace!

Where did Jesus Get That??

Click here to read Isaiah 50

There is a hymn inspired by Isaiah 50, "Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see."  While I love that hymn, I don't know how well I live its truth or the truth of Isaiah 50.  I wake up in the morning...groggy...not necessarily considering God's presence.  I usually go to the gym in the morning and start to plot and plan my day...not necessarily considering God's presence.  And so when someone comes in with words of criticism, I am not ready to respond. When I feel the slightest insult, I become sullen and sad.  And sometimes those bad days can extend to bad weeks with my mind lingering over what was said.

Remember, the people are in exile, in a foreign land, and away from home.  Each morning they wake up and are reminded of that painful truth.  Why?  And how long?  These become the unanswerable questions for the People of God Isaiah is preaching to.

And amid people who conquered your land, torn down your walls, and destroyed your sacred place of worship, Isaiah essentially says, "Turn the other cheek,"  Ever wonder where Jesus got that wisdom from the Beatitudes?  Isaiah 50 verse 6 might have been roaming around the back of Jesus' mind and in his heart when he preached that sermon on the plain in Luke.  

But imagine trying to do that day after day after day in exile.  Turn the other check when someone pulls your beard...or refrain from trying to get even when someone insults you.  That is really difficult.  Most of us can hardly stand it when a co-worker gossips behind our back, so we build a wall of silence around them.  Or that family member whose politics are different, or that group of people who makes our skin crawl.  Really, be nice to them?  What was Isaiah and Jesus thinking?  Why can't we take revenge and get even and even act on the anger we feel when someone says something that breaks our egos...and hearts?

I am not sure I have a great reason for that.  To be sure, when I try to get even, it usually means the relationship goes to the lowest common denominator, to a place of utter chaos and brokenness.  When I hold onto grudges, I am usually the one who ends up feeling lousy because the other person just goes on with life unaware.  Part of what revenge and anger do is cause us to see the other as less than human and to deny our connection to that other person.  And when we do that, morning after morning; day after day; life becomes less than what God intended.

Morning by morning - with the rising of the sun to the going down of the same - can you this week be honest about those who have hurt you?  Can you forgive?  Can you seek to live in a different way with those around you?  Perhaps that will allow a trace of God's grace into your life.  I pray it will for mine.

Blessings and peace!   

In the Bulb a Flower

Click here to read Isaiah 48

Click here to read Isaiah 49

Isaiah proclaims today that God will not remember the former things.  I do not know if Isaiah is saying God is forgetful or just sees things differently now.  The season of Lent takes place in the weeks leading up to Spring and it is appropriate to listen to the wisdom of God's creation around us to see how it might help us prepare for the joy of Easter.

One of the ways we celebrate Easter is with plants - colorful plants.  But those plants did not just spring forth over night.  Often the bulb was planted in the ground last fall, weathered the harsh winter beneath a blank of snow, and only as the soil temperature rises, does it's tiny green shoot burst forth from the ground (sometimes the snow) with a promise of new life. And when you see the colorful array of tulips starting to come up, I have yet to ever hear someone say, "Oh I remember when that was just a blah bulb.  Do you remember how hard and misshapen that bulb was?"  

No, we exclaim how much we admire the burst of color.  We write odes to the beauty of a flower and we forget the bulb.  To be sure, if someone asked, we'd remember.  Maybe that is the way God works too.  It is not that God has a short term memory loss, it is just that in looking at God's people, there in exile in Babylon, God sees something new and different.  Do not remember the former things.

Of course, writing to church people, those words take on different meanings.  The church is built upon former things.  We LOVE former things...it is just we prefer to call that "tradition."  Cue Tevye from "Fiddler on the Roof."  Yet, the former things do not always last.  Jesus said something like that in Matthew 9:17, "Do not put new wine in old wine skins or the skin will burst."  I wonder how many of our churches today feel like they are making new wine?  I question it.  Are my sermons or blog posts or leadership at meetings...I am really doing a new thing?  Or I am caught up in the former things, the bulb God planted years ago that I think is still a bulb but don't realize is actually blossoming and needing to be harvested/enjoyed.

The people Isaiah is preaching to are in exile.  They are away from their homeland, what was comfortable and familiar.  They are in a new place.  Most pastor's today believe the church is in a new place, do we realize it?  Do the People of God realize it?  Do we see a bulb or a flower?  Do we listen for the new song of God or keep thinking that God will sing the former hymn we've always known?  Those are good questions and they are questions I believe that if we ask today, we might have traces of God's grace in our dialogue and attempts to answer the questions together.

May it be so this Lenten season.

Blessings and peace!

Dust in the Wind

Click here to read Isaiah 47

Come and sit with me in the dust Isaiah says.  Ahhhh, now that is the Isaiah we have come to know and love over the last forty some chapters.  Enough with these images of comfort and hope.  So much of what I find compelling in Isaiah is his ability to name reality and offer hope.  That is a hard line to walk.  So often, I can slip into cynicism at the brokenness of our world.  Or I find myself almost naively trying to harness the "power of positive thoughts," believing that happiness can be forged or forced.  To see the brokenness for what it is and still say that there is a trace of God's grace, I admire that in Isaiah.

At this point in Isaiah most scholars believe he is writing as one in exile.  The people have been uprooted and transplanted into Babylon and Isaiah along with them.  The walls of their beloved city reduced to rumble, the temple Solomon built is now in smoldering ash, and Isaiah says sit in that ash and find God.

That is not exactly a passage I usually preach upon.  Yet, I find it refreshingly honest and heartfelt.  So often we try to explain away, justify, or even rationalize the brokenness and ash in our lives.  This can be done through religious frame work of "God's will" or "God's plan".  Or it can be done through humanist points of view, "Humans are broken and cause brokenness."  Yet, where both fall short is our desire to understand or explain away pain or brokenness.  Maybe pain and brokenness just are.  Just are part of life.  Just are part of walking around in this vessel and breathing in air.  Just are.  

Jesus experienced pain and brokenness within his life and upon the cross.  Many theologians contend that it is in Jesus on the cross that God suffers.  God suffers because of an unconditional and unceasing love.  The parting of the Red Sea, the beautiful words of the Psalms, the words of accountability of the prophets, or countless other passages of the Hebrew Scriptures did not truly capture the hearts of the people the way God prayed those words would.  And so God comes upon us, takes on human flesh - the incarnation.  This is incredibly vulnerable.  And why does God do this?  To be 'at-one' with us.  All these "reasons" people give about why Jesus had to suffer and die are called "atonement" (at-one-ment) theories.  That is just it.  There are all theories...just the ramblings of humans trying to make sense.

Maybe the brokenness and pain, the ash of life, the moments of exile when we feel like we are far from home or in a foreign land - maybe they should NOT make sense.  Maybe we should NOT explain them away.  The beginning of prayer is a sigh.  A sigh that says words cannot every capture what is going on here.  So, I turn not to words, but to ash.

In the beginning (Genesis 2) God took dust, made a being, and breathed life into that dust creature.  Maybe sitting in the dust is not about being down in the dumps, but re-connecting with our humanity.  Our beginnings.  And while I don't think we need to go in search of those dust/ash moments...they seem to find us anyway...perhaps this is another way to look at them.  Not as a trial or a test or something God gives us or something someone else caused us...just a dust moment that connects us back to a truth about being humans created in God's image.  I don't think that solves anything, but it helps me sense a trace of God's grace in that moment.  I pray for you too.

Blessings and peace!

What's the Idol with You?

Click here to read Isaiah 44

Click here to read Isaiah 45

Click here to read Isaiah 46

The next three chapters have the theme of idols, making idols, the work of our human hands, and what happens when other gods take center stage in our lives.  Ever since the Ten Commandments, God was clear that no good can come from trying to craft idols for ourselves.  And the People of God found that incredibly meaningful...for about twelve chapters in Exodus.  Then, along comes the whole Golden Calf incident.  Moses was up on the mountain chatting with God...AGAIN.  And this time he was taking forever.  And there was no way the governing body of the church approved that much time off.  And so anxiety increased.  And Pastor Aaron, wanting to be helpful, said, "Let's make an idol."  Now to be fair, Aaron really thought he was making an idol to honor God.  It was not as though he was trying to start a new religion.  Rather, he just wanted to calm the people down.

That's the lure of idols in the world.  Here, buy this new ipad it will make you happy.  Here, buy this new television and impress your friends.  Here, buy this new outfit and wow everyone.  Andrew Root makes a compelling argument that so much of our identity today comes from what we buy and consume.  Years ago...my grandparent's generation...it was the family.  You lived closed to your parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.  Family defined...and confined....your identity.  Around the 1950s, we became much more mobile and even nomadic...work and our profession began to provide our identity.  Watch Mad Men sometime to see how central work and who does the work is to the person's understanding of self.  But increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s, work ceased to provide that meaning.  So, people turned to what we can consume.  You don't like who you are or your identity?  It is just a swipe of a credit card away.  Family...work...stuff...all can be idols.

To be completely fair...family, work, and stuff can also connect us to God.  But there are limitations and we need to be careful.  I sense God when I laugh with my family.  I sense God when I talk with someone in my church.  I sense God on a spring day driving my car with the sunroof open.  It is not that these things are inherently bad or evil.  The problem with idols is not necessarily that it is a material thing.  It is just that at some point the idol will fail to point toward the deeper meaning and hence stop pointing to God.  All of the sudden, my kids do something that upsets me...or the church doesn't do what I think it should...or my car breaks down.  See what happens with idols?

In Exodus 32, the Calf incident...it was not so much that they made a calf or what the calf represented.  Rather, the calf could never fully reflect the mystery and unfolding nature of God.  Those three letters: G-O-D have so much depth and breath, and when we try to reduce that to something we can see, touch, or taste, we reduce the image of God.  And here is the real truth about idols: we also like to control them.  There is a reason why you have to vote on American Idol for your favorite and you want to control what they do.  I think one of the qualities of God that we don't talk about is that God is beyond our control...and yet God is intimately intertwined in our lives.  That is the tension!  That is the contradiction.  Idols reduce that tension and the creativity that comes from it.  Idols reduce the contradiction and can make us complacent.

We all craft and collect idols.  The point is not to eradicate them from our lives or to condemn others.  The point is to see an idol for what it is, not God...perhaps a way that can at times through the mystery and serendipity of God connect us to God, but that is not a guarantee.  This Lent, be aware of the idols in your life.  Name them for what they are.  And may you sense a trace of God's grace that can never be contained in anything other than the moving Spirit of God in our lives.

Blessings and peace!

Baptism

Click here to read Isaiah 43

When you pass through the waters you will be redeemed.  The waters could be those of the Red Sea when Moses parted them and the people walked through and the mud squished between their toes.  The waters could be those of baptism of Jesus.  Water is vital for life.  We need water to survive.  And so, when Christians needed a symbol for what it meant to be part of the community of faith, we turned to water.  

As Christians we place water, which we know is vital for life, on the forehead of the one being welcomed into the Church, let it evaporate, and proclaim that there is something else that is vital of life: being claimed as God's beloved and being part of a community of faith.  Water is what connects us.  Moses knew this.  Jesus knew this.  And Isaiah knew this.

Within the faith we proclaim God was willing to come to earth, incarnate - in the flesh - of Jesus.  And through the water, we also welcome a person into the Church - known as the Body of Christ.  Incarnation, living life in the flesh, is vital to our faith.

We hear echoes of Jesus' baptism, where God proclaims Christ is God's beloved.  Where did the Gospels get that image, look at verse 4.  "You are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you."  And those words surround every time we gather around the font and baptism someone in the name of the One who Creates, Redeems, and Sustains us.

I encourage you over the coming days to pay attention to water.  Water you drink, cook, and clean with.  Each time you feel water wash over your skin and refresh your throat, remember your baptism! And may you sense the traces of God's grace in that.

Sing a New Hymn

Click here to read Isaiah 42

Isaiah begins now a hymn to a servant, often known as the suffering servant in these chapters.  The servant is one in whom God delights, the servant is one who brings justice, and the one who continues to strive to do what God calls the servant to do.  Often as Christians we read these passages as references to Jesus.  The passage could also refer to Isaiah who is willing to go with the People of God into exile.  The passage is also a reminder that often following God's nudges does not lead us to the easy pathway beside the chocolate river, rather it can be the proverbial "path less taken". 

This servant than breaks forth into a hymn, singing to God a new song.  Think about if you had to compose ode to God, what would you sing?  Many people struggle with what to say in prayer, lend alone if the words had to rhyme and be set to music.  They hymn is not some melodious, uplifting hymn that is sugary sweet.  Rather it is a hymn the servant cannot help but sing, it erupts out of her very soul, almost like the shout of a woman in labor.  I am not sure that hymn is our hymnal, but maybe I will try to look again.

But I love at the middle of hymn Isaiah speaks of God changing darkness into light; and the rough places into plain, level place.  There are times in my life I wished that was more than hymn, but a reality.  Let's face it, what is in our hymnal is an ode to "The Bleak Midwinter".  And it is now February in Wisconsin which mean I know the full brunt of how true that can be.  But a hymn that promises God will shine light into the places of darkness is at once amazing and a bit scary.  Think about being in a room where it is completely dark and all of the sudden a light comes on...it is blinding and takes time for our minds and eyes to adjust.  

It can be disorienting, but once our eyes do adjust, we realize how much we were missing by trying to see in the dark.  I wonder how often in the midst of rough places and difficult times, it is like our eyes and imaginations and lives are trying to adjust.  When things happen at the church, it can be like a light being turned on.  But often in our rush to keep the calm, we try to find the switch to extinguish the light. 

Is there a place where your eyes or heart or life is trying to adjust?  And would you want to sing a hymn in response?  Maybe there would be a trace of God's grace in the midst of that.

Blessings and peace

Beginning and End

Click here to read Isaiah 41

After speaking words of comfort, Isaiah tells us that God continues to calls us into relationship.  Part of having a relationship means that there is an understanding of the other; whether that other is a spouse/partner or a friend or a co-worker or even, in this case, God.  Who is God?  That question lends itself to countless different answers.  Some describe God using gender language: Father or Mother.  Others try to skirt that issue by saying words like Mystery or Great Spirit.  Others prefer to use adjectives like God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present.  Others try piling words on the three letters G-O-D that those letters collapse and can only be found by sorting through the heap.  

All that is to say, perhaps God is beyond definition.  In just a few short chapters, Isaiah 55:8-9 God will say, "My thoughts are not your thoughts."  This echoes what God says to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth."  Perhaps that should make any theologian or preacher shutter wondering just who are we to stand up before people Sunday after Sunday trying to reduce God to mere words.  

One image of God that comes through in Isaiah is that God is the Alpha and Omega, which means God is the beginning and the end.  If God is at the beginning and ending, it also means God is in the middle somewhere too.  Not just our individual beginnings, middles, and end; but more expansive than that.  God was there from the beginning and when all fades away, there will still be God. And God is here right now as you stare at your computer screen.  One of the tensions in understanding God is that God is both in creation but not completely bound by creation.  

And so, what do we know?  Again, what I love about Isaiah, is how wonderfully practical what follows in Isaiah 41 is.  Isaiah says that what we know is the way we relate to other humans.  The artisan who encourages the goldsmith; those moments when we reach out to others, that is one way that we tangibly encounter the sacred.  Again, our human moments do not exhaust or completely capture who God is.  

In these chapters before the exile Isaiah lays the foundation for what is needed in those moments when we feel cut off from the sacred.  Namely: someone who speaks words of comfort and care and someone to say, "Take courage"!  We may not always be receptive or appreciate these folks, but they are what make the mystery of God present in our lives.  Who is that person in your life right now who is helping to make the presence of God less mysterious and more tangible?  Who is that person who lets you know the truth of the traces of God's grace?  During this season of Lent connect with that person and may you know the truth of God's presence.

Blessings and peace!

Comfort

Click here to read Isaiah 40

Comfort, O Comfort my people.  After so many chapters of holding the People of God accountable for worshiping other gods and thinking we know better. After chapters of dissonant chords of brokenness and missed opportunity, Isaiah decides to write in a major key instead.  Comfort and care is a hope many have the church.

Let's face it, we live in a difficult world that tries our patience, empties our hope, and runs our soul through the wringer, I understand why people look to the church for comfort.  And it is a great place to look for care.  At the most basic level, the church should embody caring.  The difficult part is knowing when to care and when to challenge.  At some point, if all the church does is care, we can become complacent or think that we deserve the care.  This is a grey area in ministry.  

On any given Sunday there are those sitting there who need to hear good news of great joy of God's love and there are people who are just counting to ten trying to get through the service and there are people who are trying their best to put their actions that past week out of their head lest God hear the brokenness they caused.  All sitting there.  All sitting side by side.  All suppose to be addressed in some way through hymns, prayers, proclamation and through physically being together. 

One of the best images for the church is the Body of Christ, the living, breathing body of Christ.  Right now, I have various parts of my body that ache from running on Friday or from swinging my golf club on Saturday.  Yet, other body parts feel just fine.  So, do I rest or do I keep going?  Just as that question is individually hard to answer, so too is the question of what to emphasize Sunday after Sunday.  

The amazing part is that Isaiah talks about comfort even before the people go into exile.  We don't often think about God speaking comfort to us before we go into brokenness, pain, or grief.  We want that comfort in the midst of the valley moments.  Yet, what if God's presence and comfort comes before?  Before we need it.  The hard part too is trying to answer, what does comfort look like, feel like, or taste like?  

Maybe comfort is taking all the pain/suffering away instantaneously.  Now, to be clear, there is some pain and suffering that needs to be removed immediately.  The pain of abuse, the pain of parents neglecting children, and the pain of emotional violence.  Yet, there is other pain that is part of what it means to be alive.  Jesus felt the pain of betrayal and dissertation ...and that was by his friends the disciples!  

I invite you to think about a place in your life where you need to know comfort and strength.  Then, click on the link above and read, re-read and re-read again these words of Isaiah trusting in the One who reached out with comfort and compassion to the People of God in Isaiah's time and to us still today.

May the traces of God's grace sustain you and comfort you in the midst of the twists and turns and rocky places in your life right now.

Blessings and peace!

The Ups and Downs of Life

Click here to read Isaiah 38

Click here to read Isaiah 39

Hezekiah falls ill.  Isaiah shows up and like all good friends predicts Hezekiah's demise.  Talk about needing a lesson in bedside manners!  "Hi Hezekiah, you look awful!  I guess this is the end."  Gee whiz, with friends like that, who needs Babylon breathing down your neck threatening to over throw your kingdom.  Hezekiah turned away from the gloom and doom of Isaiah (I dare say I would do the same), offered a prayer to God, and wept bitterly.  God heard the prayer, saw Hezekiah's honest grief, and changed God's mind.  

Did you catch that?  God changed God's mind.  There is a strand within Christian theology that says everything is pre-planned or predestined/pre-ordained.  I don't know what those who hold onto that line of thought do with this passage.  It is almost as if Hezekiah's repentance (see last post) caused God to repent/turn around.  God changed God's mind within Genesis a number of times.  God initially tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit or they will die.  Only to just kick them out of the garden after they ate the fruit...a good lesson for all parents about trying to enforce the most extreme punishment.  God changed God's mind about the flood when God smelled the sacrifice Noah made, realizing that even a flood would not fully solve the problem with human brokenness.  

Of course, it really should not surprise us too much that God can change God's mind.  After all, that is what being in a relationship is all about.  It is not much of a relationship if you have no impact on the other person and the other person has an impact upon you.    

Hezekiah is saved and in the very next chapter he is putting on an open house for the Babylonians.  "Come on in fellas!  Let me show you around.  Here is where I keep the gold.  Here is where I keep all my secret plans.  Go ahead.  I am feeling great since my near-death experience."  And somewhere God boinked God's head.

I am sure I have my Hezekiah-moments too.  Just when things turn on a dime, go great, and the very next day my decisions act as if yesterday was a million years ago.  How frequently we forget, sometimes in the blink of an eye.

Lent asks us to be honest about those places where our relationship with God is on rocky ground.  Where are those places where we cry out to God, sense God's presence, only in the next moment to break God's heart?  That is not an easy question. But at the heart of Lent is the truth of denial by Peter, betrayal by Judas, and the desertion by everyone else.  And yet, God would not allow that brokenness to be the last word.  Easter brings a joy that surges and stirs our soul.  When that is the promise that awaits us at the end of the 40 days, we can be honest about the rocky ground in our life because the trace of God's grace that rises with the sun on Easter morning truly is good news.

Blessings and peace!

What Repentance Means

Click here to read Isaiah 37

The passage begins with Hezekiah taking the actions of one who is deeply grieved (tearing his clothing) and in a state of repentance (putting on sack cloth).  This happens in the book of Job and also in the book of Jonah.  If you click on the Jonah link you will see it is not only humans who put on sackcloth, it is also all the animals and cows.  That is a funny picture...even though I have no idea what a cow would need to repent of.

The image of repentance is one that carries a lot of baggage in the church.  When I searched for pictures for the top of this post, many showed people on their knees, heartbroken, guilt-ridden, with clasped hands, and looking like they were at their wits end.  At the most basic level, repentance means to make a change, even a U-Turn as the above picture shows.  Sometimes as human beings we refuse to make the most basic change until the urgency to make that change has increased to such an unbearable level. Hence all the pictures of people on their knees on Google images.  However, it does not need to be that way.  Change can happen without being so soul stretching and straining.  

Change, like its cousin repentance, is a difficult word.  Change can be initiated by us, as in the case of New Year's Resolutions.  Change can also be afflicted upon us as in family or friend relationships where the other person's decision has consequences for our lives we did not anticipate or ask for.  And at other times, change is what we want to see/have happen for everyone else.  David Sedaris says, "I haven't the foggiest idea of how to change people, but I keep a long list of people just in case I ever figure it out."  Change is fine for others, but when it involves us, that is when it gets personal.

Part of the creative tension within the faith is living between the truth that God receives us and loves us as we are; and that by receiving God's unconditional love there is transformation within our life.  Often we think unconditional love means love that asks nothing of us.  Yet, unconditional love is such because it does not demand we change, but might inspire or awaken a change because of the way we experience of this kind of love.  

Hezekiah goes through change and repentance because of coming into contact with the grace of God.  Hezekiah realizes that it is not the walls he built or the army he assembled that will protect him, but God's presence, which does not mean everything will be rainbows and chocolate river...after all the people of God will still be carted off to exile.

Lent is a time of change, transformation.  That is one of the reasons why butterflies and flowers are so popular at Easter.  What better to represent change/transformation than a caterpillar becoming a butterfly or a seed becoming a flower.  Yet, such change/transformation does not happen overnight.  It takes time.  Hezekiah's change takes time...the people of God wander in the wilderness for 40 years in the exodus... the people of God will be in exile for years too.  While Lent is only 40 days, it offers us the chance every day to encounter the love of God that can make all the difference in our lives.

And may the traces of God's grace empower that change this Lent for you and me.

Blessings and peace