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!

And You Thought Names Today Were Strange

Click here to read Isaiah 8

So, we now meet Isaiah's second son whose name is not Immanuel, but Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.  And you thought people came up with strange names and spellings today.  His son's name means "quick to plunder and swift to spoil."  The name becomes a prophecy about what will happen to Judah and Jerusalem.  And in case we did not get that from the name, the rest of Isaiah 8 tells you that things are going to get bad, really bad.  Water is going to spill over the banks, hear in that images of Noah's Ark or even Genesis 1, when in the beginning it was God and the watery surging and slurping chaos hanging out together. Until God's Spirit surfed and sang out and creation sprung forth.  So, it make sense in times of brokenness to point out that even in Genesis 1 the watery chaos was never completely controlled.  Of course, we know that all too well as images from Super Storm Sandy continue to be broadcast on the news.

Even as the people try to rise up against the chaos, it is for naught.  We heard back in Isaiah 2 about the hope that people would no longer learn to wage war, but that hope remains distant for Isaiah and perhaps for us as well.  Instead, the people (and us today as well) know fear of the other and we stumble and we are held captive by our human ways.  Sometimes Isaiah's brutal honesty can be refreshing and sometimes it can simply cause my shoulders to slouch and for me to wonder, "What is the use?"

Then comes verse 19 about consulting the mediums and spiritualists who whisper and mutter.  Now, one could that that quite literally and we might think of people who log on to psychic network.com to see what their future holds.  Or I remember as a kid how big ouija boards were and often came out at sleepovers.  But I also think how easily I am swayed by the whispers and mutters of culture today.  I see the Lexus commercial and think the way we show love is to buy something big.  I see the Burger King ad and think, "Why yes, I do deserve a break today."  Every where I turn there are whispers that I can feel better if I just find something to buy.

But part of what is so powerful about this passage is at the end, when the people are distraught and devastated it is then that they wonder, "Where is God?"  I know I can feel that way.  When things are great and laughter comes easy, I don't say, "I wonder where is God?"  Usually, those questions come in the midst of darkness and pain and brokenness.  Now, please do not hear me say that the question is a bad one.  Throughout the psalms are are laments, heartfelt cries of pain in the midst of brokenness. The psalms are what  Jesus even turned to on the cross .  So, there is certainly a place for crying out to God.  It is appropriate and honest.  And I do not think God just wants us to face suffering silently.  But I also wonder, about why I question God more in times of trouble?  To put that mathematically: as the amount of brokenness in my life increases, so does my pondering about God's presence.  And as that brokenness diminishes, so does my pondering about God's presence.  Again, I don't want this to come across as a criticism of anyone.  This is an honest assessment of my own faith.

That is why I find Isaiah so compelling.  He shines a light in some places that too often we don't expect polite religion to go.  He challenges me to consider my own actions and responses to God's presence (Immanuel).  And while I am still not sure of the name he gave his second son, what he has to say about my faith makes a whole of sense.

May the traces of God's grace sustain you and surround you this day.

Blessings and peace! 

Just when you thought it was safe

Click here to read Isaiah 3

Just when the hope of Isaiah 2 starts to swell within us, Isaiah 3 lands with all the grace of an elephant in our laps.  Isaiah writes about God judging us, taking our food and water, oppression, and brokenness.  You can hear the thud with each passing verse and by the end I echo the immortal words of Charlie Brown, "Good grief!  Why in the world am I reading this again?"

Reading Isaiah 3 gets me thinking about my images of God.  What do you imagine when those three letters sit down or spill forth from our lips on Sunday morning?  What does God look like?  Do you picture the ubiquitous God of the Sistine Chapel with the wind swept white hair and the beard and the flowing robe?  Maybe God in your mind is more like Jesus' description in Matthew 23:37, where the sacred is like a hen gathering her children under her wing.  Maybe God for you transcends human gender.  Maybe the bigger question is not about a picture of God, but how is it that God acts? 

Is God involved in everything in the world from finding parking spots to granting good grades on tests?  Or is God disconnected almost to the point of being disinterested in our lives?  Of course those are the two polar opposite points of view.  Most of us fall more or less somewhere in-between.  I like to think of God's presence being interwoven in my life, but I question God's presence at some points (and I mean besides those moments when I don't get a front row spot at the grocery store).  I wonder why God doesn't intervene in tragedies like the most recent one in Sandy Hook, CT?  Or why God can't seem to sort out Congress, which may be a problem too big even for God!

One of the images that helps me think about this comes from John Caputo, who describes God as a "weak force".  To be sure, I like images of God that seem to stretch and bend logic, ideas about God that make me stop and be silent for awhile to see if I really understand.  To describe God as a 'weak force' does that to me, it slows me down and jars me a bit - sort of like this passage from Isaiah 3.  To be sure, I don't think the God Isaiah imaged was a weak force at all for him.  For Isaiah, God was directly responsible for events in the world.  But, for me, I want to hold in tension human power and God's power, but the two often collide.  I think human power was seen in Sandy Hook.  I think human power rules the day in Washington.  Yet, even in the midst of brokenness, there is still a glimmer or glimpse...or a 'trace' of God's grace.  

God's grace is a force...a force I feel when I taste the bread and wine at communion.  A force that lingers when I baptize a baby.  But it is not a force that will strong arm me to act a certain way.  It is the force of invitation and the force of words and the force of love...all of which can be and often are ignored and easily dismissed in our world today.  Hence, God is a weak force who spoke through a stuttering Moses to free people, a through a wise judge named Deborah, through prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah (who thought he was too young to be a prophet) and ultimately through the birth of a baby who would not congregate an army to over throw Rome but be crucified on the very symbol of Roman rule.  And then come back, be resurrected and appear not to crowds but a bunch of scared disciples who were then told to go tell the Good News.  So, while I appreciate so much about Isaiah, this is one place I respectfully disagree.  God is the one who brings the proud down?  Maybe.  But not with a violent arm, but with a grace that is a weak force that can change the whole world and my whole life.

May the traces of God's grace stir in your life like a weak force today and for days to come!

Blessings and peace!