As I was praying over the readings this week trying to discern a sermon, I was reminded about banners that hung here for several years. I was being drawn to a thematic sermon, so it made sense after I realized what was going on. I know, you are all confused. Let’s start with Isaiah.
For those of you here last week, we are jumping back into the second big section of Isaiah. Yes, I know. It drives me nuts, too. Last week, I explained how Isaiah can be divided into three big sections. In chapters 1-19, God accuses Israel of failing to keep the covenant. Obviously, God is correct in His judgement. Chapters 40 through 55 serves to remind God’s people that God will not be divorcing them. Quite the contrary, He will redeem them despite their failures because of His love of Abraham. But God is clear that they do not merit His faithfulness. The rest of the book deals with the tension of living in that time before God has redeemed His people. The promise is made but not yet realized. We are very familiar at Advent with the second section. We are Adventers and have one eye on the Incarnation and one eye on our Lord’s return, so we are very familiar with the messianic promises in Isaiah. Good. I see lots of nods.
We go back into the second section this week, so we are reminded that God is promising to redeem His people. In our section today, God is encouraging the righteous among His people. Just to remind ourselves, righteous is a courtroom term. It is NOT synonymous with holiness. It means simply that one has gotten close to what God expects or commands. In this case, if one sins, what should we do? That’s right. Repent. You and I are righteous when we head to the altar rail to receive the Body & Blood of our Lord. We confess our sins and are absolved. We are then able to come forward to receive properly.
Notice in verse two the examples that God names. He tells the righteous to look to Abraham and to Sarah. Now, this will be a bit of a trick question, in part because I remind us often that God called people into relationship with Him in Genesis 12 to be a nation of priests and lights in the world. God’s people are called to represent Him to those outside the family. We would call it evangelism today, but that word has some baggage in the modern world and modern Church. How many times, do you think, has God referenced Abraham and Sarah since Genesis, apart from the formulaic “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”? Good guesses. It makes sense we think it might be lots of references. Abraham & Sarah, after all, are the patriarch and matriarch of the family chosen by God, who credits their belief in His promises as righteousness. Amazingly, though, this is the first non-formulaic reference to Abraham and Sarah since Genesis. I should have brought my Bible out to show you how many pages exists between Genesis and chapter 51 of Isaiah. When you get home, check a printed Bible. You will likely be stunned.
God reminds His people through the prophet that He chose Abraham & Sarah. The Lord blessed him and made them many. In that quick note, we should be reminded of all twenty-five years of the unveiling of God’s promises to the holy couple. And there is a lot, right? I mean, how many of you ladies north of 70 are hoping to have a baby in your 90s? Come on, show of hands! How many of you guys in your 70s are looking forward to changing diapers when you turn 100? Wow. Nobody?! We are laughing, like Sarah, but you get the point. Before Sarah and Abraham get to that point in the story, there have been a lot of other issues, including Sarah & Abraham trying to help God keep His promises to them.
God is reminding His people intentionally of the fact that He called a family. It is the descendants of Abraham & Sarah, and those who choose the join the family, are the ones called by God to be His representatives, His ambassadors, His children reflecting His character in the world around them. They are not Egyptian or Assyrian or Babylonian or Greek or Roman or any other nation state we think of in the ANE. They are a family called by God their Father. That is their identity. That is how they are supposed to see themselves.
Look ahead to Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus is with His disciples and Apostles in Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was commission by one of the Herods, I think the Great, as a monument dedicated to Caesar, and as a “must see” destination on the eastern side of the Mediterranean. Temples to the gods of Rome were all over the place. In the midst of that setting, Jesus asks the disciples who people say He is. The disciples answer that the people think Jesus is a prophet. Some think Elijah, which tells us some of the messianic expectations growing around Jesus’ ministry, but others think He is one of the other prophets. Then Jesus asks the pointed question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter, who just a couple weeks ago walked on water and the sank, responds with the answer that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jesus commends Peter for his correct answer, but He instructs the Apostles and disciples that God has given them this insight. Part of the problem is that all those gathered with Him have their expectation of how Messiah was going to work. Jesus will defy all their expectations. In fact, the next few verses will have Jesus predicting His betrayal, condemnation, death, and resurrection. Peter shows his expectations by saying the Lord must forbid it from happening to Jesus. Jesus, who just praised Peter for the correct answer and reminds everyone that Peter does not understand what he has confessed, calls Peter Satan and instructs us all that we are often focused on the human things rather than things of God. We may talk about that next week.
This week, we are talking about Jesus’ identity. Who is He? Who do we say that He is? Is He just a hippie kind of guy who liked parties and had some wise words? Is He a lunatic, as some thought? Is He just some wise man who spouted some cool aphorisms? Or is He, as Peter confesses, the Messiah and Son of the Living God? How we answer that question forms our identity. If He is the Messiah, it has consequence on our lives. His pattern of holy living, that we prayed a couple weeks ago to emulate, is one of dying to self, one of recognizing the fear of death is removed, and one of citizenship in another kingdom, God’s kingdom. If Jesus is who He said He is, and if He was truly raised from the dead and ascended to the Father, as the witnesses testified and as we experience in our Holy Spirit moments, then He is the Seed of Abraham. Jesus is the head of the family, even though He came into the world long after Abraham & Sarah and long after David, who called Him Lord! If Jesus is who He claims to be, He is the head of our community, God’s community. It’s not me; it’s not you.
No doubt some of you have already figured out the banners I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon. For the first few years I was here, we spent intentional time trying to figure out who we were and to what kind of life to which we were called. I forget whose idea it was, but early in my ministry here, people hung up white and purple banners that read “We are family.” It was a part of the discernment about who God was calling us to be. We know the competition is great in our minds. Everyone assumes every church should be like St. George’s or Christ Church or St. Paul’s Murfreesboro. The big churches are the Promised Land of the modern Church. Bigger is always better, right? They have all the dollars, all the volunteers, and everything else they need to do ministry. But Adventers figured out that part of what made Advent Advent was the idea that we are a family. We know each other. Sometimes too well. We know our hopes and dreams; we know our mournings and fears. We know those who are competitive when it comes to Mexican Train in dominoes and those who prefer beer over wine. We know those who can cook and eat good spicy food and those who are experts in other cuisines. The more time we spend with each other, the more we get to know one another. In time, I would argue, as we spend more time together in worship and praise of our Lord, at our very best we come to love and value each other in much the same way that God loves us. I think it explains part of why non-Adventers notice that our funerals are so tender, so mournful, and so full of hope.
The idea behind the banners in the Parish Hall caught the thematic teaching of today’s readings. God reminds His people through the prophet Isaiah that we are a family. We are a family whose head is Jesus Christ. The great thing about claiming Jesus as Lord is that one is not to the concerns of the world. I have not met an Adventer who does not love their country. There have been many who loved their country enough to serve, risking life and limb and willing, were duty to call, to lay down their lives for the idea our country represents. As great as our country is, and I know some of us hail from other countries they adore, none of us are now identified by God by our nationality. We are identified as sons or daughters, part of the intimate family that God calls for His purposes. The family unit of God transcends time and space, and it knows that this world is not its home. To use the language of Paul this morning, we are called as a family to transformed by the renewing of our minds to discern the will of God in our lives. We expect to discern the call of God on our lives precisely because His Son our Lord reminded us that His Ascension meant the coming of the Advocate, the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus was raised that third day from the dead, we know the separation of sin is removed, the fear of death is removed. And we are free to do those things God has called us to do, knowing that if He does call us to give up our lives for those around us, He has power and will to restore those lives!
With the Gospel, there is always even better news than we think. You and I are called into a world that claims it has figured out how to live. Capitalists live by comparing who has the most money; those supporting despots measure the world by the power they accumulate. Every system has a way of keeping score and encouraging others to accept it as the way it is. God, of course, broke in to the systems of the dark world. He came and lived as the Light in the darkness, that we might become children born of the will of God rather than humans. More amazingly, He demonstrated His love and power among all peoples, as our Collect reminds us this 13th Sunday after Pentecost, by laying down His life for the love of others, thereby saving us AND demonstrating the pattern of holy living that God expects of all His children.
Make no mistake, the world fights hard to snuff out the light. The world chooses darkness again and again. But you and I and all Christians whom we meet in that wider world are called into a family, that our Lord might show forth His power to all peoples and nations, through our faithful living. It is a crazy way to reach the the world around us; it is even crazier that our Lord calls people like you and me to this work. Our Lord is as likely to use our failures as our successes as evidence of His love of us. But such was His Will when He called Abraham and Sarah to walk with Him, just as it was His Will when He called you and He called me. And the end promise, of course, after we have done His will here, is that wonderful family gathering He promises, the Great Wedding Feast, that amazing event where He is joined to His Bride forever!
In His Call,
Brian+
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