Doing a New Thing/ A Sermon

Doing a New Thing
Isaiah43: 16-21/ Philippians 3: 4-14/ John 12:1-8
5th Sunday in Lent/ Year C/ March 21, 2010

We are nearing end of the season of Lent. In a scant 13 weeks, we have moved from the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, through the waters of Baptism, the trials in the wilderness, the healing of the sick, the dying and the lame, to the final meal with his friends and disciples at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Each week we have been presented with the movement of God and God’s anointed toward the people of Israel, both in the wilderness and as they prepare to enter the land of promise, and return from exile in the prophets.
The recurring image over last several weeks has been the image of water. Water, the essential element needed by all of life, once again permeates the Isaiah text for today and is alluded to in John with the washing of Jesus feet with the costly ointment by Mary.
Bodies of water serve as both barriers and conveyances of life. In an era of bridges and airplanes, when we can drive or fly over bodies of water, it is easy to forget the power the images had for earlier ages. The importance of water barriers is enshrined in names of towns that end in ford or ferry, like “Oxford” or Anderson Ferry,” and water as a means of conveyance is echoed in towns ending or beginning with “port” like Kingsport or Portsmouth. In the ancient world such images were central to the core stories of the Hebrew people. (Feasting on the Word, Vol. 2, Year C, p. 122)
In the larger section of Isaiah to which this passage belong, the over riding concern, both of the prophets and of God’s people, is their exile. They have lost everything: their land, their homes, their livelihood, and their families; and to some extent they felt as though they had lost God as well. This crisis raised the most serious theological questions: Where was God in the midst of this great disaster? Why had God allowed this to happen? What kind of future did the chosen people of God have now? In other words, God’s fidelity, God’s goodness, God’s omnipotence, indeed, God’s very identity was at stake, as they questioned whether God had gone back on God’s promises to be with them always.
Into this desperate situation the words of God recorded in Second Isaiah were spoken to God’s people, words of comfort and hope. The great Hebrew scholar Abraham Heschel calls this proclamation of Second Isaiah ageless, saying “No words have ever gone further in offering comfort when the sick world cries. (Heschel, The Prophet, p. 145)
In this passage the prophet/poet speaking for God, employs the images of sea (as barrier) and rivers (as conveyors of life). Our world is a place where we need to hear once again these words of comfort and hope. We all have experienced the grim shadows of past tragedies, those ways in which ghosts of past loss, shame, and grief swirl around us and cloud our vision, drowning out the voice of hope and comfort that Isaiah proclaims. Sudden deaths, broken relationships, bad decisions, cruelties of others, and cruelties of our own, all of these linger about us and hinder our ability both to see the future and to move into it. They also raise the same serious questions that the people of Israel raised. These questions cause us to doubt the promises we have received in Jesus Christ: divine forgiveness, new life, and the love of God.
In this paralyzing situation, Isaiah’s words are like a beam of light that scatters the darkness and drives away the demons. The God of Israel is the God who makes a pathway through the barriers to freedom, whether they are constructed by Pharaoh or natural barriers that block our escape from the terror and fear of death.
What are those barriers, creations of human ingenuity or features of the natural landscape that stand in the way of our congregation following God’s lead toward freedom, following Christ’s movement toward resurrection? How do we listen to the call of God away form whatever would enslave us, whether that is prosperity or poverty, success or failure, growth or decline? What would it mean for us that we follow the God who specializes in making a pathway through whatever barriers would stand in the way of the freedom of the people of God?
(Feasting on the Word, Vol. 2, Year C, p. 124)
Throughout Lent we have heard the stories of our God, who makes a way where there is no way, who creates streams of living water in the desolate deserts of our landscapes, bringing new life, into parched dry places. We have listened to the assurances that our God is faithful to God’s people and to God’s promises, that God does remember the covenant God has made with God’s people. We have been told time and time again that our God will not abandon us, not matter how bad things get. These texts that we read from week to week, month to month, year to year recall for us the mighty acts of God on behalf of God’s people. They are written and told to stir within our hearts and our imaginations a belief in the power of God at work in our world. What God has done for you before, God will do again, hold on, trust in the Lord, and keep faith? What God has in store for you is as miraculous and satisfying as water in the wilderness.
As we approach the end of Lent and prepare to enter into Holy week, we are confronted with a text that says literally, “WAKE UP!
LOOK! I AM DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT. CAN YOU NOT SEE IT?” The poet/prophet is asking us the listener to experience the reversal that God is initiating for the good of all creation. Can we perceive it? Are we ready for the reversal that God is about to perform? Are we ready to follow Mary’s lead and offer the most expensive thing we own, ourselves, to this new thing that God is doing, or are we like the children of Israel who complain that they were better off as slaves? Do we grumble and complain as Judas’ did when Mary wasted that expensive ointment to wipe Jesus feet? Most of us at one time or another have heard or even said, “We’ve never done it that way before!” These words, sometimes called the seven last words of a dying Church, are evidence that we still do not perceive the new thing that God is doing now. Are we so comfortable in our present self-understanding that we are unable to perceive what God is doing in our midst? That is what is at stake for us in our relationship with God today. Can we still trust that God will be faithful to us, even when God seems absent? Can we hope that God is still at work in our lives, creating a future for us where no future seems possible?
Isaiah tells us that this new thing will spring forth like rivers that water the desert. It will not be for destruction and death, barriers to freedom and life, but rather a source of life, and way in the wilderness that leads us to new life. God is a God of the future- and not just any future, but a future full of hope and promise. God is the one who brings hope out of desperation, day out of night, and joy out of mourning. God makes a way where there is no way. God leads us into a bright and Glorious that we cannot see or even create for ourselves. We are offered this way and this source of life. Will you take it? Do you trust God enough to let go and let God lead us through this wilderness world into new life?