A Sermon on being comforted while facing division

 This sermon was first delivered on July 3rd, 2022. The text being interpreted is Isaiah 66:10-14

I once had an American History book from the late 1850s. I’m not sure where it is now… I moved a lot in the last ten years and somewhere along the way I’ve misplaced it… but for a student of history, it was a fascinating book… When a nation is less than 100 years old, any comprehensive history is going to be a lot more granular than when it is 250 years old, all due respect to our British friends with thousands of years to chronicle. I learned about highly influential people in the early history of this nation who I had never learned about, even in “advanced” US history classes. But probably the most fascinating part of this text was the closing chapter, where the authors wrote about the present state of the nation, on the cusp of the Civil War. 

I’ll never forget the first time I read it.  These are people who knew well from studying the trajectories of past nations what things look like when civil conflict is at-hand, but also how very small, seemingly inconsequential events can radically shift the trajectory of a nation’s history. So, they wrote, they knew big things were happening, but there was no telling how things would turn out. None of us know, truly. But they knew, and wrote, that divisions were deep and tensions were high… and at some point, the hammer would fall.

Our text from Isaiah this week seems like a less natural connection to this aforementioned history book than you might imagine, so I hope you’ll indulge me a little context setting. At the time this text was being set down, the People of Israel had already experienced the falling of the hammer. The Babylonians had invaded, and along with all the usual war mayhem, had carted away all the political and cultural leaders and lifted up their own puppet leaders to control the populace left behind. Those political and cultural leaders were trafficked back to Babylon in a sort of forced integration, which resulted in much theological and personal wrestling to maintain their own sense of themselves and their identities as God’s Chosen People. We can credit the Babylonian Exile with kind of forcing the People to develop monotheism for themselves, including this notion that their God had jurisdiction over the whole world. This is a really significant development in the history of not just these people, but indeed, in the history of world religions. Over 2,600 years later, over half of the World’s population is an adherent of one of the religions that worships the God the People of Israel were only just beginning at this time to understand as being the Creator of not just their people and their land but of all people and everything that has ever been. 

But in this moment, as the prophet was bringing the Word of God to the People, there was no way of knowing what would happen. All they knew was the profound grief and longing they had for the home they had known. For the things that had been lost. For the deep divide between their people, and between the people and their land. How could they recognize themselves? How could they worship their God? How could all the things that had been broken, that continued to break, ever be restored?

Through the prophet, God brought words, not just of comfort, but of hope, to these people who would have been justified in believing that there was no moving forward. God, speaking for Godself, describes themself as a mother, who will comfort and nourish the People and make their lost city abundant. That God describes Godself in terms of femininity is not lost on me in this moment where it seems forces which do not affirm the full humanity and equal protection under the law of women may be winning the day. But what God declares to the People is that those who would oppress them, control them, deny them their full dignity, will not get the last word. God always gets the last word. And what God is offering isn’t just restoration of what was lost and broken, but new abundance.

The People couldn’t have known what was going to happen. Just as those historians couldn’t have known what was going to happen. Just as we do not know what is going to happen. And in the midst of that, God offers us comfort. Christ, with us and in us and between us, offers us comfort. 

There’s a phenomenon known as a “thought terminating cliche.” Essentially, it’s an oft used turn of phrase which functions to shut down processing some anxious thought– to avoid dealing with the weight of something– so you can get on with life. One frequently used thought terminating cliche is “It’s all in God’s hands.” We need to be careful with sentiments of comfort lest they become thought terminating cliches. There are very real and legitimate sources of anxiety and hardship in this world, and avoiding thinking about them often leads us to avoid addressing that which we can address. Maintaining the tension between enough comfort to keep going but notsomuch as to lose our drive to strive for justice can be hard.

So I was relieved this week to read this reflection on our current circumstances: “all the injustices… they’re all connected. So if your little corner of work involves pulling at one of the threads, you’re helping to unravel the whole…cloth.” We don’t have to know where we’re going. We don’t have to have all the answers. We just have to do our part, whatever that may be, and trust that, just as God delivered the People of Israel and gave them comfort and abundance as promised, God will do the same for us in our time. 

It’s hard out there y’all. And it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. Saying otherwise would be an unkindness. But look at everything our communities are doing: we're growing food and feeding people. We're building connections within and between our communities. We're exploring new ways of being community and collaborating. The People of Israel didn’t know while they were in exile that they were laying the foundations of the faiths of 4.2 billion people 2,600 years in the future. All they knew was that they were in the midst of grief and pain and needed to hear from their God. And how wild is it that this week, with everything that is going on, these are the words that happen to be assigned for us to read?

As a mother comforts her child,

so I will comfort you;

you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;

your bodies shall flourish like the grass;

and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants,

and his indignation is against his enemies.

Amen. May it be so.