1-8-23 Sermon & Scripture

I’m going to tell you a secret. Or at least, say, everyone under 40, a secret. Because for me, I’m just coming to discover this in my 40s, and to me, it’s very liberating. For some, it could be frightening, but I’m choosing to look at it from a different angle. The secret truth, or maybe the open secret is this – nobody knows what they are doing. You heard it here, folks. We’re all just making stuff up as best we can. Yes, that can be scary, yet I have spent the first half of my life being intimidated by people who act like they know what they are talking about, and I’m starting to realize, they don’t necessarily. Disclaimer: When it comes to people with specialized expertise, I do respect their knowledge and don’t get arrogant around that. But, outside of people’s special expertise, even really smart people can be idiots just like the rest of us. Most of success is looking like you know what you’re doing. It’s true. Am I cynical? Maybe, a bit.

What’s liberating about this, however, is that I don’t need to be intimidated by other people. I can have a crack at taking a stab in the dark, too, and more people need to be involved in conversations where we are trying to figure out what works out for the common good then the few people who claim to be the experts, who may or may not be.

And this is how Isaiah 41 ends:

“Who declared it from the beginning, so that we might know, and beforehand, so that we might say, ‘He is right’? There was no one who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words. I first have declared it to Zion, and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good tidings. But when I look there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. No, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their images are empty wind.”

That is to say, none of the experts from the greatest nations and empires of the world at that time were able to predict the events that God brought about for the Jewish people. Empires tend to think that their ways are going to last forever, obviously, and that quote-unquote ‘backwards thinking people’ are going the way of the dinosaur. But here we are, in 550-540 BC, and the great Babylon has gone the way of the dinosaur, and these little backwater people from the destroyed kingdom of Judah, who worship only one God, avoid certain foods, and who claim that God is on the side of the poor and oppressed – these people are still going strong and are getting ready to go back to their homeland and rebuild it again. None of the experts predicted anything like that.

Again, nobody really knows what they are doing.

But Isaiah 42 turns that message around, because God says, “Here is my servant.” Here is somebody who really does know what he is doing, who will fix the world, who will turn God’s covenant people back around to faithfulness and who will guide the other nations of the world to what is right. 

Folks, you heard it here. There is someone who actually cooperates with God and is fixing everything. Maybe we can have enough humility to just listen and learn from this one. 

This servant is endowed with God’s spirit and special powers to accomplish his mission, which is to free the world from the oppression of sin in all its forms – individual vices and bad habits as well as structural oppressive social dynamics. That’s a big task. So obviously this guy’s going to kick some butt and take over everything and force change on us, which is tough, but necessary if anything is going to happen. Actually, no.

“He will not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his teaching” (Is. 42.2-4).

No, he doesn’t engage in change in the usual kind of political revolution way, even if it actually is technically a political revolution. There is no violence, no coercion, only the slow task of winsome persuasion, and this Servant will be successful. 

Who is this Servant? Obviously it’s not me. This Servant, it says, will not faint, and you may recall that one year ago this Sunday, I fainted up at the altar, so can’t say that it’s me. You might have the usual Christian answer of ‘Jesus,’ but let’s hold off on that and look at the book of Isaiah for a bit. This is the first of 4 so-called ‘Servant Songs,’ about someone called ‘The Servant’ who is used by God to set things right in the world, and who brings about right in the world through his own suffering. Sounds like Jesus, but Isaiah explicitly says elsewhere that this Servant actually is the nation of Israel itself. This does not preclude, however, the idea that it could be referring to an exemplary member of the nation of Israel who represents the people of Israel. Like I pointed out before, what Jesus came to do is to be Israel and carry out the mission of Israel in his own person. So it’s Israel, and it is Jesus playing the role of faithful Israel among the nations. Jesus is the chosen servant of God to set things right in the world. Jesus is the one human being who knows what he’s doing. So let’s listen and learn from him.

Jesus isn’t just God’s chosen servant. Jesus is God’s Beloved Son. When Jesus, in embodying the story of Israel, passed through the Jordan River just as Israel had passed through the Red Sea, God shouted out, “This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” And what had Jesus done at that point to make God so proud of him? Nothing. He’s just God’s Son, and God loves him. 

God has used a lot of people and entities to accomplish God’s purpose throughout history. There have been many chosen servants of God, even when they didn’t know they were God’s servants. Mikhail Gorbachev doesn’t have that kind of theology. Did God use him for some things? Sure, I think that’s possible. What, exactly, is up for debate, yet God does have some kind of hand in the affairs of the world. But this Servant is someone in whom God takes absolute delight, this Son is Beloved of God forever, someone who knows the heart of God, who has a close, mutual bond and relationship with God. 

Is this Servant Israel? Yes, it is, though we and most Jews would agree that Israel has not perfectly lived up to that. Is it Jesus? Yes, it is, Christians would say. And Jesus is the means by which the rest of the world can get in on the mission of fixing and healing what is not right in the world. Is this Servant the Church, grafted into the mission of Israel? Yes, it is, though most Christians would agree that the Church has not perfectly lived in keeping with that mission. But there’s always a chance to start anew. 

Jesus is God’s Chosen Servant, God’s Beloved Son. Jesus knows what he is doing. Jesus is on a mission to heal the world. We look like we know what we’re doing, but we fall short. How do we get in on what Jesus is doing?

Baptism. It is by baptism that we die to our own selves, our own expertise and gifts, and we incorporate ourselves into Christ. We have died and we no longer live. The life we now live in our bodies, we live by faith in God’s beloved Son, who loved us and gave himself for us. We live a new life and now find ourselves in Christ, as opposed to being ‘in Adam,’ meaning, belonging to the mass of humanity who seeks to look competent but falls short. We learn a new way of being human from Jesus, and what happens to Jesus happens to us.

In Jesus, we also are endowed with the Holy Spirit, and now all of our knowledge and gifts are used in service of God in the world, and not for the sake of our own ego and status over others in the world. In Jesus, we are recognized as Beloved Children of God, beloved unconditionally. In Jesus, we are joined to the Servant’s mission to rescue all creation from the oppression of sin and spread God’s transforming love and justice everywhere.

This is why we as a Church care about the poor and injustice and racism and all that stuff. Because Jesus came to do away with the oppression of sin, and by virtue of our baptism, we are joined to that mission. We are on the hook for addressing injustice wherever it manifests in our day. But we didn’t choose this mission! Nope, that’s not the way it works. The mission chose us. We were grafted into this mission by grace when we didn’t necessarily have a say. But that’s the way it is in our families as well. Your family of origin has certain characteristics, certain way of doing things. You didn’t get to choose that, but it shapes you anyway. Your only choice is what to do about it.

If you are a baptized Christian, you are a part of the family of God, part of the people of this mission of the Servant. That’s what happened to you, and the only choice you have now is what you want to do about it. What about the non-baptized people? Every one of them is also beloved. And called to do justice. But however God wants to work things out with them is up to God. But our baptism puts us in the Christian story, and gives us tools from that story to carry out the work of justice and righteousness in our own day. And a community to belong to as well.

And the practical aspect comes in an old saying: Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes. Like what I said at the beginning, we aren’t necessarily all that awesome, but when the love of God gets a hold of our hearts, we actually are capable of doing small things that do amount to something awesome. This 2023, how are you going to play your small role in the mission of the Servant? How are you going to remember your baptism by engaging in the role your baptism bestows on you? Where do your personal gifts, knowledge, experiences, concerns line up with the needs of the world?

It could be lots of things in the community, which are great, but remember that the church is a group of people who are called to be the hands and feet of Christ in our world. We haven’t always done the best with that, but it could be because we need your help. Your application could start by being something as simple as joining a committee. Bringing communion to those who are homebound. Becoming a member next week. Serving in the Food Pantry. A host of other things. Let us know on your communication cards what you might be interested in, or even if you have no idea but would like to take it to the next level.

One thing I do know is that God knows what God is doing, and God can make things happen through your life that no one would be able to predict. Even if you don’t know everything or are limited in skills, God can give you a love that the world need and turns small, insignificant acts into world-changing, life-changing impacts. 

I’ll close with a poem from theologian Howard Thurman, entitled, “The Work of Christmas,” very fitting for Baptism of the Lord Sunday.

“When the song of the angels is stilled, 

when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks, 

the work of Christmas begins: 

to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people, 

to make music in the heart.”