"There, There...No More", November 14, 2010

Isaiah 65:17-25
Luke 21:1-19
This morning's readings do not assume a Prosperity Gospel, some rosey belief that if I simply believe enough everything will turn out all right, or that following the Covenant is a roadmap to riches. Instead, that we live in a culture of loss, hoping for redemption from Almighty God. In September of 2001, the 21st Century Changed. Never before, had our mainland been attacked. On a bright blue Autumn morning, suddenly we realized how fragile life is, or the reality of hate. From that moment on, our economy has faced loss after loss, as our personal IRA's 401Ks and Pension plans were raided. Haiti suffered an Earthquake, then Cholera, now Hurricanes. Dormant volcanoes have erupted. Where earlier generations knew of the successes and failures of wars, we have had cameras imbedded with the troops reporting with images first hand. During the first Gulf-War, I recall families describing their three year olds standing in front of the television screaming “No More News, No More.”

20th Century Americans knew about developing technologies, expanding potential, reaching to touch the moon, knew about everything from the Jitter-bug to the Twist to Rock & Roll to Disco; but LOSS was not part of our vocabulary. As a technological people, we need to continually remind ourselves that this technology is so new, we have not learned the safeguards. After 90 years with automobiles we have mandated airbags and seat-belts, speed-limits, and laws against the stupidity of drunk-driving. But we do not yet know how to seat-belt our lap-top, or where the airbag is on an iPod. We have created a culture dependent upon consumerism, always needing the latest, fastest, newest product. No where is this more visible than in the News Cycle. Every hour of every day, we are supposed to be connected with the World, to have something new and news worthy, in competition with all the other investigative news reporters. Not simply to attain a pulitzer for the ground-breaking story, but assuming a 2 minute sound-byte, having a new earth-shattering revelation every 58 minutes.

Steve and Julie, as the one who married you, I have been in awe, watching as you have chosen, instead of going into international land-development to choose product engineering; instead of choosing to report the news, to be a stay-at-home parent, together raising four children. How tempting it would be to go there and there and there, wherever the latest most exciting development is breaking, but instead to intentionally choose to spend time with your children in years that cannot ever be recaptured.

The Bible speaks directly to our time, with insights and wisdom from long ago. We are a loss avoid-ant world. When devastation happens, we try to imagine that it does not affect us. Mom was 89 years old and with Dad passing, her life did not seem as vital. They always fought, seeming to have different values and priorities, is it any wonder they divorced. We justify, we avoid, we placate, we drink and anesthetize ourselves from feeling, we find ways to not GRIEVE. The first 39 Chapters of the Book of Isaiah are about LOSS. This is the Centuries long-struggle of the Greatest, Most-powerful, most-affluent Nation on the face of the Earth, greater in wealth and power than the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, losing all of that to become prisoners of war, aliens in a foreign land. Even more frightening, some of the latest archeological evidence is that perhaps the people of Israel never physically left their promised Land, but that like ourselves the culture changed so much around them they became out of touch, becoming aliens in a foreign land when geographically the Nation of Israel became a State of Babylon and the Capital of Jerusalem lay in ruins.

We are so frightened of LOSS, that the Lectionary selections from Isaiah typically are: The Call of Isaiah in Chapter 6 saying “Woe is me, I am a Man of Unclean lips dwelling among a people with unclean lips, when suddenly the sins are burned from our lips, and we respond to God, Here Am I Send Me!” Then, Isaiah 40's “Comfort, comfort my people says Your God.” And finally this word in the 65th Chapter describing “a new Heaven and new Earth, God creating a new Jerusalem.” While it would seem EASIER in the midst of world-wide devastation to witness a vision where our sins are taken away, and suddenly we are comforted, when we rush too quickly to offer comfort, we bury our feelings, we bury ourselves.

In the Bible Study this week, someone described “How come God is So Unfair? Why must our hearts be hardened, why must there be suffering for the world to change?”
To read Isaiah faithfully, is to read an account of Loss longer than most other books of the Bible. 39 Chapters of their banks and storehouses being raided, 39 Chapters about their homes being devalued, their closets opened as others rush to take their jewelry and shoes, much like yesterday's auction at Krebs of bidding on plates and silver and linens, tables and chairs as odd lots.

After 10 years of War in Afghanistan and Iraq, what more can we say. After the Dot-Coms and the Housing Market Bubbles burst, two decades of warnings that the Social Security safety net no longer fits our time, and while we as a church have been able to raise funds to create a clinic in East Africa there are hundreds of thousands in our nation without health care. Suddenly, after 39 Chapters of Loss, the Word of the Prophet Isaiah changes. According to the time references there is 150 years between the end of Chapter 39 and beginning of Chapter 40. Some have proposed that the idea of GRIEF changed, from historically describing loss in detail, to instead creating a New Normal by LAMENT. The Book of Lamentations is a series of 5 poems, the first two and last two being of 22 verses, the middle Chapter being 66 verses or 3 sets of 22, and in Hebrew instead of the 26 letters in our alphabet there were 22. Lamentations is a means of identifying who we are as different from what we once were. Similar in the 1930s there were Love Songs that developed alphabetically
A is for the AFFECTION of your Heart.
B is for the BOUNTY of your Love.
C is for COMPASSION strengthening me for every day.
D for the DESIRE to make a difference.
And finally, after 150 years of LAMENTATIONS, a new word is heard in Israel: “COMFORT, COMFORT, My People, says your God. There, there, I am with you. I hear you and I care.”

I have been doing a Scientific Study the last many years. When an infant cries, what it wants is for someone to pay attention, to be soothing. It really does not matter who that someone is, even a stranger in grey robe, provided we hear the words “THERE, THERE” and you are not alone, “I AM with you!”
After we have had ample opportunity to unpack our grief, to come to grips with a NEW NORMAL, then we can be comforted and truly cared for, rather than blanketing our loss.

But there is only so long, we can be comforted, in Chapter 65 The Lord God offers a New Reality, a Peaceable Kingdom. Envisioning a new Society, not built on human greed or the latest human technology, or with human hands, but a NEW HEAVEN and NEW EARTH and NEW JERUSALEM. A reality where we do not need to be comforted and consoled, where there is no need to weep, where there is no longer LOSS. But instead when a person reaches the age of a Hundred they will be seen as still a child!

There is a vision here that has inspired humanity for thousands of years. The Wolf and Lamb laying down together, the Lion and calf eating straw rather than fearing one another. Still, while all the rest of creation will be redeemed, the snake shall never again be tempted by the Apple, dust shall be the serpent's food. No longer will there be need for a Baby to cry, for before people Call, God will answer.

Just imagine, if instead of all those forwarded emails asking you to send this to 100 people, before we could close our eyes, we knew God knew our needs. I believe in that future. A short time ago, I was speaking with a colleague, describing there are so many labels we put on one another, so many different camps within Christianity, let alone different religions, so how do you see me? Without hesitation she responded: “You, You are an Evangelical?” Imagining Jerry Falwell and Tammy Baker, I was a bit surprised, and she said “NO, but you believe God is real! Your believe miracles happen! You actually believe all the things that are prophesied, like the coming of a new heaven and new earth, where there will be no suffering, is not only possible but a reality!” And I said to her, I have seen miracles!