Signs of hope, signs in life
Commentary
Object:
Perhaps it's time for the annual rant about the commercialization of Christmas, and the incredibly excessive busyness of the holiday. And if we are honest in our ranting, we will include our own complicity in the commercialization and the busyness.
There are certainly signs of the season out there. But our culture is not subtle. If we were to judge the holiday on the basis of the signs we see around us, we would decide that it has to do with the sacraments of buying and selling and consuming. We need to affirm that the Christmas tree lots and Santa Clauses in the departments stores, the decorations and the advertisements, and the vast sums of money that change hands are not the true signs of what is coming. They may do the economy some good, they may be fun, but as signs they only point to the credit card bills that will be coming in January.
Even in the church, we look for the signs of Christmas Day instead of the Messiah. By now the congregation in most churches expects to move out of the "Advent" section of the hymnal and into the "Birth of Jesus Christ" section. After all, they have been hearing "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" for the last six weeks in the stores.
The church needs signs, and certainly the world needs signs, of something deep and solid and lasting -- signs of something more than commerce and the feel-good, warm, and fuzzy celebration of Christmas that the culture sells so well. We need to see the signs of Christ and hope, love, and peace. In the midst of what has become a secular holiday disguising itself as religion, what are the signs that our faith, our commitment, our part in being God's people, are not in vain?
Well, if it is signs of Christ we want, we need to look some place other than Macy's department store or the local mall or Amazon dot com's online catalogue.
The signs that we are seeking are not out there in the shopping malls or even inside in our homes. The signs of Christ are to be found in people's lives. Maybe the most surprising thing about the season is that we in the church are to be the signs of Christ's coming.
Isaiah 35:1-10
The writing of this passage is clearly post-exilic, which rules out the eighth-century prophet Isaiah as its author. Others say it obviously belongs to second or third Isaiah (chs. 40-55 and 56-66). Still others say it was yet another author entirely, who had second Isaiah before him. Questions of the authorship and unity of a book of the Bible can be helpful in interpreting a passage in a general way, but it certainly is possible to get too caught up in the discussion. It should suffice to say that this passage is addressed to exiles in a far off land, who want to come home.
Chapter 35 of Isaiah is poetry, so a brief reminder on some aspects of Hebrew poetry might be in order. Hebrew poetry is less about rhyme, rhythm, and meter than about parallelism, often called "thought rhyme." Different forms of parallelism have been identified, including synonymous, antithetic and formal. In general, parallelism is the restatement of a line of thought in slightly different terms, often more specifically, and often by stating the opposite of what is intended. The purpose of it all is to convey deep emotion, perhaps deep and fervent desire. William Barry points out in The Catholic Encyclopedia that passion and vision are the motive of all such poetry. So that is what's driving the poetic prophet in Isaiah 35: his passion and his vision of what is to come.
The lection can be divided into two parts: verses 1-6a, a description of the manifestations of God's glory, and verses 6b-10, how the exiles will be returned.
The signs of God's glory will be seen first in nature, as the arid desert blooms and flourishes (vv. 1-2), and then in the changed lives and bodies of the people, specifically the old and disabled. Weak knees will be strong, blind eyes will see, the lame will leap, and all will know that it is God coming with recompense. Essentially, this is a preparation for what follows, the return of the exiles.
With 6b, we see the first step of the return: the transformation of the wilderness by the glorious introduction of water from the hand of God. Streams will flow in the desert, burning sand will become pools, and the jackals will live in a swamp. Then will come the Holy Way, a highway that is only for God's people, a red carpet that will not let people stray. There will be protection from the animals of the wilderness. And finally God's ransomed will come to Mount Zion with joy forever.
Geographically, the wilderness is the Arabian Desert, which the Babylonian exiles would have to cross to get back to Palestine. Metaphorically, the wilderness is a place of isolation, especially isolation from God. Psalm 137 has the exiles asking, "How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" But Isaiah 35 shows that God's reach is much greater than the exiles ever thought. It extends even across the desert to Babylon. And beyond.
What really is the Holy Way, the way back to Zion and to God? For the exiles it was a transformed wilderness that would permit travel. But we also acknowledge the advent of another Holy Way, utterly unexpected, not a blooming desert, but a person, whose task is to overcome the very same limits that we place on God's reach.
James 5:7-10
As we move through Advent drawing closer to Christmas, our tendency is to think more and more about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Yet the lectionary, and this particular reading, persists in bringing us back to the expectation of Christ's return, the second coming.
The letter of James was designated "an epistle of straw" by Martin Luther. Luther objected to the letter's discussion of faith and works, reading in it a theology of salvation by works instead of by God's grace. Unfortunately, that has become the thing the book is known for. The letter is addressed to Jewish Christians, specifically "the 12 tribes in the Dispersion" (1:1).
Once again we deal with the issue of the unmet expectation in the early church that Jesus would return within the people's lifetime. The frustration and impatience must have been even more acute for the addressees of the letter, the Jewish Christians outside of Palestine. That's what leads to this closing piece of encouragement, whose message is straightforward: Be patient until the Lord comes again.
To a point, impatience can be energizing. The little boy waiting for Christmas morning and the presents under the tree can't sit still and can't calm down. In his impatience there is excess energy that needs to be burned off. After a while, though, after long waiting, something happens, something changes and impatience starts to grumble, it becomes depressed and cast down, wondering if, when it really comes down to it, the thing will ever happen at all.
That's the situation James is speaking to. He offers several examples. The farmer must wait for the rains; there is simply no other alternative. You wait. You accept that the thing will come when it comes; it will come in God's own time. Acceptance of God's time, then, is the key to patience. The prophets are another model, this time of patience in suffering. The point is made even clearer by verse 11, which the Revised Common Lectionary leaves out. Job's endurance (NRSV) or steadfastness (RSV) is the example for human beings.
James' real advice to his readers, however, is back in verse 8. "Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near." The RSV reading "establish your hearts," based on the KJV, misses the mark. The word is the same as that in Luke 9:51, "... he set his face to go to Jerusalem." It connotes strong determination. For people "to strengthen their hearts" means being active and deliberate in their trust of God, not merely living passively. God's purpose is alive and well and on its way, but sometimes we need to strengthen our hearts, working hard to put our faith in that purpose.
Matthew 11:2-11
John the Baptist is again in the lectionary (he is never far away) with this passage. There are two sections to the reading, verses 2-6 and verses 7-11. They deal with John's view of Jesus and Jesus' view of John, respectively.
The point of the first section is to affirm that Jesus is the Messiah, but a hard and fast answer is always elusive. John the Baptist had obviously been waiting, along with all Israel, and along with us, looking for signs. So when the rumors came, he wanted to know for sure. John's question isn't as clear as we might like it to be. He doesn't ask if Jesus is the Messiah, but simply "the one who is to come." Besides that, didn't John see Jesus at his baptism and recognize him for who he was? Yet whatever John knew or didn't know, his is a fundamental question about Jesus: Are you the one? And how should we know?
Jesus' list of signs in verse 5 is very similar to the list in Isaiah 35:5-6. The healings are the indication that the end times are at hand, and they are therefore the indication of the Messiah. But Jesus never makes the claim for himself and never gives a satisfactory answer to the direct questions posed to him. Instead he always allows people to draw their own conclusions about him on the basis of the signs. Again, that is the crucial question of the Christian religion. And it is still one that is fought over. "Who is Jesus?" is always a new question, and it always needs to be asked and answered again.
Verse 6 is a strange addendum. Is it a slight jab at John, that John had taken offense at Jesus? Simply not taking offense at Jesus is hardly what you would call a ringing endorsement of his ministry. More likely, this verse simply means that Jesus will take whatever he can get from John, even if John isn't a direct follower of his, it would be sufficient for John not to actively oppose him or get in his way.
Verses 7-11 turn around and deal with the issue of how Jesus regards John. The questions of verses 7-9 point out that John is by no means a trivial person. He is most assuredly not a reed shaken by the wind or a man in soft clothes. On the contrary, John is one of the more formidable people we come across in scripture. The quotation in verse 10, also quoted in Mark 1, is from Malachi 3:1, and it gets at precisely the role that John played in Jesus' ministry and God's plan. Again, by quoting Malachi, Jesus tacitly acknowledges himself as the Messiah. This is about as close as Jesus ever comes to making a claim for himself.
This theme drawn from this passage is about messianic signs: the signs that John was looking for, the signs that Jesus listed, and the unique sign of Jesus Christ that was John the Baptist. And this is the theme that brings the three readings together.
Application
Human beings cling to the visible, the certain, the hard and fast as opposed to the unclear, the nebulous, the ephemeral. We want assurance that what we believe, what we hope for, what we expect, is more than just the private workings of our own minds. Particularly during expectant times, when hope is aroused within us, and when we are frustrated with the wait, and when we are looking for a change, we want something to hang our faith on.
James was writing to an expectant people, urging them to remain strong, calling them to strengthen their hearts -- to renew their trust in God -- as they waited faithfully. They could have used some signs, signs of the coming change, signs of hope, a sign that their faith was genuine. If you've waited for the bus for an hour, you stand up often and peer down the street. Waiting people, frustrated people, need signs.
No place is that any truer than in our celebration of the major holidays of the faith, mostly Christmas, but increasingly Easter. We surround ourselves with the trappings of the season -- presents, trees, decorations, and cookies at Christmas. Bunnies and eggs and bright new pastel clothes at Easter. It seems like we need to remind ourselves that something big and important is at work in the world. It's true, something big and important is at work, but sometimes we have a hard time seeing it apart from the little tokens of it that we manufacture.
Isaiah spoke to the exiles promising them, assuring them, that God was at work on their case. He spoke poetically, with passion and vision and longing, telling them that hope was still alive, that they would come home. They would see the signs in a changed world, beginning with a transformed wilderness, a wilderness prepared for their return to Zion. A harsh desert would blossom and become a garden with watercourses where dry gullies used to be. But there would be even more changes. There would be changes in people's lives. The blind would see, and the lame would walk.
John the Baptist, in prison for his preaching, sent his followers to Jesus. John, too, was looking for signs that Jesus was the one whom he had been expecting. He wanted the hope that hard evidence would bring. And Jesus' response? In much the same list as Isaiah's, he recited how people's lives were changed: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, and the poor hear good news.
We look to the physical things, the symbols of the season, presents and packages and the Christmas dinner table. Santa Claus, whom we can see on the street corner, instead of God. But that's not where God works, as a rule. The signs of Christ are to be seen not in the external things, either of Christmas or of the world. The field where God labors is in the lives of human beings, so the signs of God are in human lives too. If we are looking for signs of Christ, we need to look to people's lives, changed lives.
* The old man in the hospital, nearing the end, who finds peace and hope in the face of death. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
* The child who has new clothes to wear as a result of a church's mission outreach ministry. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
* The joy on the face of the young African immigrant when he finds his home in a new community of faith. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
* The gay man who finally has found maybe just a little bit of acceptance when a church welcomes him. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
People fed, people who have hope, people who feel accepted and cared about, those are all signs that Jesus Christ is in the world, working, living, loving. And it is an Advent sign that Christ will come to those in need.
Beyond that, in some way each of us is a sign to the world of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist wanted a sign that Jesus was the Christ, apparently forgetting for the moment that he himself was a sign of Jesus Christ. We want, we need, signs of God in the world, but we must never forget that we are one of the signs that God has given the world.
Alternative Application
Isaiah: How Far Can God Reach? The prophet's vision was about a transformed desert with a highway for God to come to Babylon and bring home the exiles. It was a very long and a very dangerous way, a dangerous and thirsty way. How far can God reach? Across the desert and into another country? Like the exiles, we limit God's reach, we draw boundaries on how far God can go. Can God reach into the lives of human sinners? How about someone who doesn't even love himself? Can God reach into the world and into time as a baby? In Advent we talk about the coming of Christ. But how far can Christ come? Probably pretty far.
Preaching the Psalm
Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 146:5-10
After church, two parishioners were in the parking lot talking. Most people know that it is in church parking lots where the future of things is formed. Everyone knows that it's over the worn pavement that secrets are traded and deals are made. The meeting was over, and between their Toyotas and Chevys the two were talking, and one of them said, "It's so hard to find dependable help these days! What are we to do?" Now, it's unknown whether they were referring to the pastor or to their maid. But the point is clear. Good help is hard to find.
Anyone who has been in the work of managing personnel would tend to agree with this. Either the labor pool is unskilled or the work is unpalatable. It could be that there simply aren't enough workers, or it could be that the pay is not high enough. The list goes on, and it is achingly familiar. It's just not easy to find dependable help!
Then into this parking lot reverie comes the impish words of this psalm. "Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob!" What an absurd notion. Should we look to God for help? Should we depend on God in the same way we depend on hired laborers, or even our pastors? One can hear the snorts and guffaws from across the readership!
The answer to this question is a bit duplicitous in that it is yes, and no. Yes, we should be so dependent upon God that even the smallest details of our lives are given over to God's good ends. Yes, we should step into each day dependent upon God's help no matter what circumstance accompanies our lives. And no. No, God is not a hired hand ready to do our bidding. This brings to mind too many American Protestant worship services. No, God is not there to suit our purposes, or even to meet our needs. Rather, we are here to fulfill God's purposes and to live in God's grace. We were created, in fact, to give God praise and glory. So it's best we lose the hired hand image and grow into a deep, abiding trust that let us depend on God for help every day and in every way.
There are certainly signs of the season out there. But our culture is not subtle. If we were to judge the holiday on the basis of the signs we see around us, we would decide that it has to do with the sacraments of buying and selling and consuming. We need to affirm that the Christmas tree lots and Santa Clauses in the departments stores, the decorations and the advertisements, and the vast sums of money that change hands are not the true signs of what is coming. They may do the economy some good, they may be fun, but as signs they only point to the credit card bills that will be coming in January.
Even in the church, we look for the signs of Christmas Day instead of the Messiah. By now the congregation in most churches expects to move out of the "Advent" section of the hymnal and into the "Birth of Jesus Christ" section. After all, they have been hearing "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" for the last six weeks in the stores.
The church needs signs, and certainly the world needs signs, of something deep and solid and lasting -- signs of something more than commerce and the feel-good, warm, and fuzzy celebration of Christmas that the culture sells so well. We need to see the signs of Christ and hope, love, and peace. In the midst of what has become a secular holiday disguising itself as religion, what are the signs that our faith, our commitment, our part in being God's people, are not in vain?
Well, if it is signs of Christ we want, we need to look some place other than Macy's department store or the local mall or Amazon dot com's online catalogue.
The signs that we are seeking are not out there in the shopping malls or even inside in our homes. The signs of Christ are to be found in people's lives. Maybe the most surprising thing about the season is that we in the church are to be the signs of Christ's coming.
Isaiah 35:1-10
The writing of this passage is clearly post-exilic, which rules out the eighth-century prophet Isaiah as its author. Others say it obviously belongs to second or third Isaiah (chs. 40-55 and 56-66). Still others say it was yet another author entirely, who had second Isaiah before him. Questions of the authorship and unity of a book of the Bible can be helpful in interpreting a passage in a general way, but it certainly is possible to get too caught up in the discussion. It should suffice to say that this passage is addressed to exiles in a far off land, who want to come home.
Chapter 35 of Isaiah is poetry, so a brief reminder on some aspects of Hebrew poetry might be in order. Hebrew poetry is less about rhyme, rhythm, and meter than about parallelism, often called "thought rhyme." Different forms of parallelism have been identified, including synonymous, antithetic and formal. In general, parallelism is the restatement of a line of thought in slightly different terms, often more specifically, and often by stating the opposite of what is intended. The purpose of it all is to convey deep emotion, perhaps deep and fervent desire. William Barry points out in The Catholic Encyclopedia that passion and vision are the motive of all such poetry. So that is what's driving the poetic prophet in Isaiah 35: his passion and his vision of what is to come.
The lection can be divided into two parts: verses 1-6a, a description of the manifestations of God's glory, and verses 6b-10, how the exiles will be returned.
The signs of God's glory will be seen first in nature, as the arid desert blooms and flourishes (vv. 1-2), and then in the changed lives and bodies of the people, specifically the old and disabled. Weak knees will be strong, blind eyes will see, the lame will leap, and all will know that it is God coming with recompense. Essentially, this is a preparation for what follows, the return of the exiles.
With 6b, we see the first step of the return: the transformation of the wilderness by the glorious introduction of water from the hand of God. Streams will flow in the desert, burning sand will become pools, and the jackals will live in a swamp. Then will come the Holy Way, a highway that is only for God's people, a red carpet that will not let people stray. There will be protection from the animals of the wilderness. And finally God's ransomed will come to Mount Zion with joy forever.
Geographically, the wilderness is the Arabian Desert, which the Babylonian exiles would have to cross to get back to Palestine. Metaphorically, the wilderness is a place of isolation, especially isolation from God. Psalm 137 has the exiles asking, "How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" But Isaiah 35 shows that God's reach is much greater than the exiles ever thought. It extends even across the desert to Babylon. And beyond.
What really is the Holy Way, the way back to Zion and to God? For the exiles it was a transformed wilderness that would permit travel. But we also acknowledge the advent of another Holy Way, utterly unexpected, not a blooming desert, but a person, whose task is to overcome the very same limits that we place on God's reach.
James 5:7-10
As we move through Advent drawing closer to Christmas, our tendency is to think more and more about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Yet the lectionary, and this particular reading, persists in bringing us back to the expectation of Christ's return, the second coming.
The letter of James was designated "an epistle of straw" by Martin Luther. Luther objected to the letter's discussion of faith and works, reading in it a theology of salvation by works instead of by God's grace. Unfortunately, that has become the thing the book is known for. The letter is addressed to Jewish Christians, specifically "the 12 tribes in the Dispersion" (1:1).
Once again we deal with the issue of the unmet expectation in the early church that Jesus would return within the people's lifetime. The frustration and impatience must have been even more acute for the addressees of the letter, the Jewish Christians outside of Palestine. That's what leads to this closing piece of encouragement, whose message is straightforward: Be patient until the Lord comes again.
To a point, impatience can be energizing. The little boy waiting for Christmas morning and the presents under the tree can't sit still and can't calm down. In his impatience there is excess energy that needs to be burned off. After a while, though, after long waiting, something happens, something changes and impatience starts to grumble, it becomes depressed and cast down, wondering if, when it really comes down to it, the thing will ever happen at all.
That's the situation James is speaking to. He offers several examples. The farmer must wait for the rains; there is simply no other alternative. You wait. You accept that the thing will come when it comes; it will come in God's own time. Acceptance of God's time, then, is the key to patience. The prophets are another model, this time of patience in suffering. The point is made even clearer by verse 11, which the Revised Common Lectionary leaves out. Job's endurance (NRSV) or steadfastness (RSV) is the example for human beings.
James' real advice to his readers, however, is back in verse 8. "Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near." The RSV reading "establish your hearts," based on the KJV, misses the mark. The word is the same as that in Luke 9:51, "... he set his face to go to Jerusalem." It connotes strong determination. For people "to strengthen their hearts" means being active and deliberate in their trust of God, not merely living passively. God's purpose is alive and well and on its way, but sometimes we need to strengthen our hearts, working hard to put our faith in that purpose.
Matthew 11:2-11
John the Baptist is again in the lectionary (he is never far away) with this passage. There are two sections to the reading, verses 2-6 and verses 7-11. They deal with John's view of Jesus and Jesus' view of John, respectively.
The point of the first section is to affirm that Jesus is the Messiah, but a hard and fast answer is always elusive. John the Baptist had obviously been waiting, along with all Israel, and along with us, looking for signs. So when the rumors came, he wanted to know for sure. John's question isn't as clear as we might like it to be. He doesn't ask if Jesus is the Messiah, but simply "the one who is to come." Besides that, didn't John see Jesus at his baptism and recognize him for who he was? Yet whatever John knew or didn't know, his is a fundamental question about Jesus: Are you the one? And how should we know?
Jesus' list of signs in verse 5 is very similar to the list in Isaiah 35:5-6. The healings are the indication that the end times are at hand, and they are therefore the indication of the Messiah. But Jesus never makes the claim for himself and never gives a satisfactory answer to the direct questions posed to him. Instead he always allows people to draw their own conclusions about him on the basis of the signs. Again, that is the crucial question of the Christian religion. And it is still one that is fought over. "Who is Jesus?" is always a new question, and it always needs to be asked and answered again.
Verse 6 is a strange addendum. Is it a slight jab at John, that John had taken offense at Jesus? Simply not taking offense at Jesus is hardly what you would call a ringing endorsement of his ministry. More likely, this verse simply means that Jesus will take whatever he can get from John, even if John isn't a direct follower of his, it would be sufficient for John not to actively oppose him or get in his way.
Verses 7-11 turn around and deal with the issue of how Jesus regards John. The questions of verses 7-9 point out that John is by no means a trivial person. He is most assuredly not a reed shaken by the wind or a man in soft clothes. On the contrary, John is one of the more formidable people we come across in scripture. The quotation in verse 10, also quoted in Mark 1, is from Malachi 3:1, and it gets at precisely the role that John played in Jesus' ministry and God's plan. Again, by quoting Malachi, Jesus tacitly acknowledges himself as the Messiah. This is about as close as Jesus ever comes to making a claim for himself.
This theme drawn from this passage is about messianic signs: the signs that John was looking for, the signs that Jesus listed, and the unique sign of Jesus Christ that was John the Baptist. And this is the theme that brings the three readings together.
Application
Human beings cling to the visible, the certain, the hard and fast as opposed to the unclear, the nebulous, the ephemeral. We want assurance that what we believe, what we hope for, what we expect, is more than just the private workings of our own minds. Particularly during expectant times, when hope is aroused within us, and when we are frustrated with the wait, and when we are looking for a change, we want something to hang our faith on.
James was writing to an expectant people, urging them to remain strong, calling them to strengthen their hearts -- to renew their trust in God -- as they waited faithfully. They could have used some signs, signs of the coming change, signs of hope, a sign that their faith was genuine. If you've waited for the bus for an hour, you stand up often and peer down the street. Waiting people, frustrated people, need signs.
No place is that any truer than in our celebration of the major holidays of the faith, mostly Christmas, but increasingly Easter. We surround ourselves with the trappings of the season -- presents, trees, decorations, and cookies at Christmas. Bunnies and eggs and bright new pastel clothes at Easter. It seems like we need to remind ourselves that something big and important is at work in the world. It's true, something big and important is at work, but sometimes we have a hard time seeing it apart from the little tokens of it that we manufacture.
Isaiah spoke to the exiles promising them, assuring them, that God was at work on their case. He spoke poetically, with passion and vision and longing, telling them that hope was still alive, that they would come home. They would see the signs in a changed world, beginning with a transformed wilderness, a wilderness prepared for their return to Zion. A harsh desert would blossom and become a garden with watercourses where dry gullies used to be. But there would be even more changes. There would be changes in people's lives. The blind would see, and the lame would walk.
John the Baptist, in prison for his preaching, sent his followers to Jesus. John, too, was looking for signs that Jesus was the one whom he had been expecting. He wanted the hope that hard evidence would bring. And Jesus' response? In much the same list as Isaiah's, he recited how people's lives were changed: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, and the poor hear good news.
We look to the physical things, the symbols of the season, presents and packages and the Christmas dinner table. Santa Claus, whom we can see on the street corner, instead of God. But that's not where God works, as a rule. The signs of Christ are to be seen not in the external things, either of Christmas or of the world. The field where God labors is in the lives of human beings, so the signs of God are in human lives too. If we are looking for signs of Christ, we need to look to people's lives, changed lives.
* The old man in the hospital, nearing the end, who finds peace and hope in the face of death. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
* The child who has new clothes to wear as a result of a church's mission outreach ministry. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
* The joy on the face of the young African immigrant when he finds his home in a new community of faith. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
* The gay man who finally has found maybe just a little bit of acceptance when a church welcomes him. That's a sign of Jesus Christ.
People fed, people who have hope, people who feel accepted and cared about, those are all signs that Jesus Christ is in the world, working, living, loving. And it is an Advent sign that Christ will come to those in need.
Beyond that, in some way each of us is a sign to the world of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist wanted a sign that Jesus was the Christ, apparently forgetting for the moment that he himself was a sign of Jesus Christ. We want, we need, signs of God in the world, but we must never forget that we are one of the signs that God has given the world.
Alternative Application
Isaiah: How Far Can God Reach? The prophet's vision was about a transformed desert with a highway for God to come to Babylon and bring home the exiles. It was a very long and a very dangerous way, a dangerous and thirsty way. How far can God reach? Across the desert and into another country? Like the exiles, we limit God's reach, we draw boundaries on how far God can go. Can God reach into the lives of human sinners? How about someone who doesn't even love himself? Can God reach into the world and into time as a baby? In Advent we talk about the coming of Christ. But how far can Christ come? Probably pretty far.
Preaching the Psalm
Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 146:5-10
After church, two parishioners were in the parking lot talking. Most people know that it is in church parking lots where the future of things is formed. Everyone knows that it's over the worn pavement that secrets are traded and deals are made. The meeting was over, and between their Toyotas and Chevys the two were talking, and one of them said, "It's so hard to find dependable help these days! What are we to do?" Now, it's unknown whether they were referring to the pastor or to their maid. But the point is clear. Good help is hard to find.
Anyone who has been in the work of managing personnel would tend to agree with this. Either the labor pool is unskilled or the work is unpalatable. It could be that there simply aren't enough workers, or it could be that the pay is not high enough. The list goes on, and it is achingly familiar. It's just not easy to find dependable help!
Then into this parking lot reverie comes the impish words of this psalm. "Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob!" What an absurd notion. Should we look to God for help? Should we depend on God in the same way we depend on hired laborers, or even our pastors? One can hear the snorts and guffaws from across the readership!
The answer to this question is a bit duplicitous in that it is yes, and no. Yes, we should be so dependent upon God that even the smallest details of our lives are given over to God's good ends. Yes, we should step into each day dependent upon God's help no matter what circumstance accompanies our lives. And no. No, God is not a hired hand ready to do our bidding. This brings to mind too many American Protestant worship services. No, God is not there to suit our purposes, or even to meet our needs. Rather, we are here to fulfill God's purposes and to live in God's grace. We were created, in fact, to give God praise and glory. So it's best we lose the hired hand image and grow into a deep, abiding trust that let us depend on God for help every day and in every way.
