Garden to Garden

"THE FUTURE IS PEACE"
Isaiah 55:1-13
Faith United
November 30, 2008



I've been thinking a lot this week about hope
We start the season Advent today,
and Advent is about Hope
So I was thinking about all the things that give us hope
the things we rely on, the people we rely on
I stopped at McDonald's yesterday to get a coffee
and I read the headline on the Omaha World Herald
which said:
"Shoppers Provide Reason For Hope"
I found that intriguing
so I looked closer
beneath the headline was a picture of a mob of people
rushing through the doors of Nebraska Furniture Mart
the picture was blurry
as people were literally running into the store
and I remembered just having heard
about the young man in Manhattan that was trampled to death
by shoppers at WalMart on Friday morning
and all the others who were injured
I looked at the headline again to make sure it really said
what I thought it said:
"Shoppers Provide Reason for Hope"
and I laughed out loud

I wondered-- what kind of hope do they provide?

I realize, of course, that the more shoppers shop
the better the economy
the better the economy, the happier the people
but here was an image of crazy people sprinting into a store
before the sun came up
while others in Manhattan did the same thing
and in the process killed an employee
All for a flat screen TV..
This is hope?
The image did not fill me with hope at all
It kind of depressed me, actually….

What do we hope in?
what do we turn to for security?
Sure, we can say quite piously that we hope in God
and in the good news of Jesus Christ
but what do our actions say about us?
As they say, you know, actions speak louder than words

When we are afraid, what gives us hope?
What do we reach for?
When we are in despair, what do we reach out to
to fill that despair?
In America, it would seem that we hope in things, in toys
we hope in having the strongest military power
we hope in guns
we get afraid, we buy a gun
we hope in the stock market
we put all our hopes in one person
and if that person lets us down,
we don't respond well

"Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?..."
Isaiah asks us…
"Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
delight yourselves in rich food…
listen so that you might live…"

In the article in the Omaha World Herald,
it says that people who have maxed out their credit cards
and have exhausted their lines of credit
are now turning to cash …
This is hope?
That people who are crushed by debt
are still spending that which they don't really have?
On things that don't ultimately satisfy?
On things that are not bread?

What do you hope in?
What gives you real hope?
Or do you even have hope?
I saw the book title many weeks ago,
"The Audacity of Hope"
and that phrase has stayed with me
The AUDACITY of hope
I looked up the word audacity
and it means "shameless boldness, daring…"
In other words, who are we to hope?
What right do we have to have hope
in a world that seems to have gone crazy?
Too often, we steal each other's hope
if someone has hope, we tend to think them naïve
clueless, they don't have all the facts
But we have no right to take away anybody's elses' hope
because sometimes that's all anyone ever has
without hope, we are dead

Jim Wallis said, "Hope is believing despite the evidence
and then watching the evidence change…"
Joan Chittister says
that hope is a choice
we can't choose what happens to us,
but we can choose how we respond to what happens
She writes that memories can be the seedbed of hope
we can look back on how God has worked in our lives
in the past,
how God got us through a terrible tragedy
and then we use that to believe God will do it again
God, she says, has blessed the world with good things,
but all of them take working at…
relationships need work and attention,
beautiful flowers or vegetables don't grow on their own…
we need to till the soil, pull the weeds, water the ground ….
Children need nurturing and guidance and love
food needs to be prepared,
nothing happens without our involvement
Hope takes life on its own terms
Life happens, death happens
now what are we going to do about it?
We can curl up and suck our thumbs and say poor, poor me
or we can get up off our butts and face the darkness with faith
we can light a match, carry a light into the dark
and keep going ….
That takes a certain kind of audacity…
shameless boldness
to stand up to the dark, and light a candle
Even when we're terrified of the dark--
because we are a people of faith,
we walk into that darkness that terrifies us
knowing that the light of Christ goes with us
This message was given to the Israelites
when they were in exile in Babylon
they'd been captured, Jerusalem, their holy city destroyed
Everything that made them who they were had been taken from them
all they had was what was inside of them
and the Prophet Isaiah is saying to them,
don't give up,
don't forget who brought you this far
Just because evil and darkness happen
that doesn't mean that God is longer faithful
and we are still a people in exile
WE DON'T BELONG HERE
We're living in a world that works by different rules
and we have to always keep in mind who we are
who God is, and what God wants
that means that we don't play by the rules of the kingdom
in which we are bound for now
Because we follow a savior that told us
not to return evil for evil
not to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
because all that only ends in death and devastation

The psalmists wrote during the Babylonian exile
about singing the Lord's song in a foreign land
The people had hung up their instruments
on the willow trees
and stopped singing
because they were captured by the enemy
They lost their song
they lost the music
and so they began to lose their very souls
But the prophet is saying, don't give up your song
the song inside of you
that gives you hope and light
that gives you the audacity to go on
Sing your song in the dark….
sing when you don't even feel like singing
sing to remember who you are
and to whom you belong
Sing to remember who will finally deliver us all
and bring us home

I don't know how it started,
but at some point, I started singing at the bedside of people
who were dying
I didn't want to, someone just asked me to once
and so I kept on doing it
It's hard to sing when you're crying
it's hard to sing when your heart is broken
it's hard to sing when a life is literally slipping away from you
right before your eyes
but since I started doing it, it's felt like God reminds me then
that the best time to sing is when we don't feel like it
Because singing the songs of faith
remind us what will get us through
Singing reminds us who we are and where we really come from
Frederick Buechner writes about whistling in the dark
bringing music where there is none
bringing a small light into the dark to move us forward

These are scary times
with the economy the way it is
wars going on and on and on
with no end in sight
people dying in the doorway of WalMart
over a flat screen TV?
It is very risky to hope
it is so much easier to join in with the crowd
and say, yeah, it's all hopeless,
we're all doomed
it's the end of the world as we know it…
It's scary when people act crazy
it's even scarier when people act crazy
and own weapons
We've learned FEAR well
ever since 9/11 FEAR has been a very popular commodity
and we all jump on board
Fear motivates us to do and say crazy things
Fear makes us justify nasty and evil things
Fear makes otherwise good people into monsters
Fear makes us forget who we are
Fear shows us up and reveals to us what we really believe
Do we really believe all this God-stuff?
That God will deliver?
That God has the last word?
That God has hope for our world,
for all God's people?
Then why are we so quick to believe a lie?
Why are we so quick to jump on the bandwagon
and lose ourselves in the chaos?
Why is it so easy for us to say we believe in the God of hope
and yet act like a people of darkness??
We can't see the work of the Holy Spirit
in our lives or in our world
if we allow ourselves to be consumed by fear
and madness….

The prophet Isaiah says that God has a plan
and it's not OUR plan
The Bible begins in hope
and ends in hope
there's a whole lotta mess and pain in between
but we begin and end in HOPE
But hope is not easy
We've been hurt, all of us have
We've lost a lot
We've suffered various tragedies
various traumas
and it's easy to switch into self-preservation
Maybe we don't expect much anymore
because we've had our hearts shattered
It's easier to lay low and expect very little or nothing at all
to NOT hope in anything good
so we won't be disappointed yet again
But Isaiah says that God has a plan
Come, he says, he invites us to the Banquet, the feast
telling us that God's grace is free
Come and drink, you who are thirsty,
come and eat, you who are hungry, starving
And aren't we all??

WHY???
WHY do we spend our money and energy on things that
don't' fill us?
WHY do we go after things that not only do not satisfy
but things that can even destroy us??
Come, Isaiah says,
Come and eat what is good,
delight yourselves in rich food
Listen…. that you might LIVE
We think we know what's going on
we get all worked up
we easily fall into a mob spirit sometimes
or we react to life out of our emptiness
out of our desperate hunger and thirst
and often say and do things that are not of God
and are certainly not Christ-like
God' s thoughts are not our thoughts,
and God's ways are not our ways
God is not who we make him out to be
We have only clues to who God is
and to act like we know the entire mystery of God
is dangerous and arrogant

The Twelves steps begin with admitting we are powerless
over whatever it is that makes us sick
The second step is to come to believe that a power greater than ourselves
can restore us to sanity
Isaiah seems to believe that God CAN and indeed WILL
restore us all to sanity
We are insane-- there is no doubt about that, is there?
And we know, time and time again,
that when we try to do it ourselves
when we try to bring sanity to ourselves
on our own power
we royally mess it up
and bring more chaos, more darkness into the world
Turn it over to God,
all of it
Your despair, your grief, your fears, your doubt,
your insanity
God is the only one who can and will restore us to sanity
The story of the Bible, the story of creation and redemption
begins in a lush garden
and it ends in a lush garden
Restoration, renewal, resurrection
All of creation will be redeemed
All of it will be renewed and refreshed
All the world will praise the Lord
all of creation will be healed
That is our hope, that is our destiny
In the meantime, we hope in what we cannot see
we know that God has gotten us through before
and God will get us through again
In the meantime, we will sing into the darkness
even when our hearts are breaking
even when our voices are shaking
We will pray to have our eyes opened
so that we can SEE differently,
so that we can SEE sacredly, hopefully
SEE the light in the midst of the dark
See the flowers in the midst of the tiny seed
SEE the huge tree in a tiny acorn
SEE the potential and power in a newborn baby
SEE the peace that will finally reign
after all the weapons are put down
after the smoke has cleared
after all the mothers have wept for their children
after it seemed like no end was in sight
Look carefully
Look prayerfully
and look yet again
Look for signs of life and hope and eternity all around you
No matter what happens
Even when your eyes are full of tears
keep your eyes open
Keep your heart open
Resist the control of darkness and hate and destruction
in words or actions
Let your lives speak of hope
let your lives tell the gospel
let your lives be a crazy, hopeful, dancing sermon
to the hope we have in Jesus Christ
that nothing can every destroy
no human or institution or human force
can take away
It is our God-given destiny
We are people of the Garden
of the New Jerusalem
of the Kingdom of God
that is a kingdom of peace
and endurance and everlasting hope and faith
So, come,
all who are thirsty,
all who are so empty and hungry
there is bread for us all
and Living Water
from a well that never runs dry….
EVERYONE… .is invited.