The People Who Could Fly

"WHY WALK WHEN YOU CAN FLY?"
Text: Isaiah 40:21-31
Faith United
February 8, 2009


I love to fly
well, I love to fly, but I hate the hassle now
of moving through airports and all the extra waiting
taking off of shoes, etc.
But I love being in the air,
thousands of feet off the ground
it gives you perspective, I think
Sometimes it would do us good
to get on a plane
and look down on the earth from the clouds
and realize that the world is much bigger
than all the little things that tie us up inside

My parents came to Nebraska for the first time
in 1992, when we were living in Ceresco
I had already fallen in love with Nebraska
but it was fun to see it through their eyes
When they first arrived, they kept talking about flying into the state
and seeing that from the sky,
the land was divided up into perfect grids
The roads, they said, are completely straight
This fascinated them, of course,
because there are no straight roads back east
They were fascinated by how you could see for miles ahead
when you were driving
you can see where you're going
long before you get there
My father said incredulously,
"and the sky! it's right NEXT to you here!"
I hadn't thought of it that way
but it's true, back east, you actually have to look UP
to see the sky…

Seeing Nebraska through their eyes
made me appreciate it even more
It's all about perspective….
One thing I did love about Pennsylvania
was all the trees
I loved walking through the forests
and the tops of the trees covered the sky
like a natural ceiling
it was a holy place for me, there among the trees
absolutely beautiful
and unspeakably beautiful in the fall
But then a friend of ours from Nebraska
had visited Pennsylvania for the first time
and came back not so impressed
He said, "what a waste of good land,
filled up with all those trees!"

It's all about perspective…

I'm a firm believer in getting out of your comfort zone
in learning about other places,
getting out and seeing other places
and seeing that the rest of the world
isn't necessarily like us
It's easy to become pigeon-holed in our perspective
and to even think that the whole world revolves around us
I like to read books from the perspective of someone
in another country
for instance, someone living in Afghanistan
during the different wars
they become people like me,
and not just some faceless person
but someone with a heart that beats like mine
with a heart that breaks like mine
when the world is coming apart
Just watching the movie, "Pearl Harbor" the other night
gave me a deeper appreciation of the horror
of that attack
Before, it was just a date in history, long before I was born

The books of Isaiah give us a perspective
even larger than the view from an airplane
Isaiah is talking about God, the creator
he's talking about things that are too much
to describe with human language
How can we possibly describe the Divine with such limited language?
How can we even imagine God with our limited imaginations?
Isaiah writes in a time when the nation of Israel
is in captivity in Babylon
they are in exile
they are hopeless
They don't think God cares about them
If God cared about them, they wouldn't be in this mess
they wouldn't be overrun by another nation
and at their mercy
They are the Chosen ones of God after all!
How can this happen to the Chosen Ones??

Do we ever feel that way?
When bad things happen to us,
do we get mad?
How can this happen to us?
Why is God doing this to us?
I do it too
As if I am the only one in the world
and God should treat me better
As if life on this crazy earth SHOULD be easy, somehow
especially if I live the Good Life that God wants
But the more I read history
life has never been easy,
for any of God's people
In fact, it's been harder for some than others
and I realize that I've had it pretty good
even though I've had my share of heartache
But we expect life to be easier, don't we?
I do
We shouldn't suffer anything here in America,
we shouldn't have to sacrifice, or work too hard
or suffer on our own territory,
keep it over there, please….
We are good people, why do we have to endure illnesses
the loss of loved ones,
a really bad economy,
why do we have to suffer?
I ask those same questions, too
I get mad too at the way things are
But the more I know history,
the more I know that people have always suffered
and there's no indication that we will ever stop
as long as we are on this earth

Get up in the plane,
above the clouds,
see the grid-like roads and land of Nebraska
keep pulling back, go higher
see the whole country,
the mountains, the trees, the plains
the cities
and see all those people, they look like grasshoppers from the sky
the cars, buses and trains are so tiny
pull back even more,
see the many, many countries of the world,
the continents
the people with different cultures,
different languages, different landscapes
Pull back into space
and see earth as one of many, many planets
our universe as one of many universes
created by God

Isaiah reminds us that God is far great than we can imagine
and that God is the creator of all that is
all that we see and all that we cannot see
Nothing lives without the creative power of God
Not the tiniest life that we can't see without a microscope
or the largest thing out there in space
that is beyond our comprehension
and the same one who created all that
and who is lord of all that
manages to care about us, each of us, all of us
us tiny grasshoppers
across this little planet called Earth
God cares about the ones on the other side of the world
living with bombs and rubble around them
suffering daily heartache
and us, as we go to work and school
not necessarily fearing for our lives

Have you not known? he asks
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
It is God who is above all things
who is larger than our imagination
Who could easily dismiss as tiny grasshoppers
and yet gives us value nonetheless
Who can we compare God to?
Look up, look around, pull back
get perspective, see that God is always more
than we can possibly imagine and know
This Lord is the everlasting God
the Creator of the ends of the earth
He never gets tired, he never runs out of power….

I've always wondered about the unspoken rule among Christians
that we can't get too happy
people out there have the impression
that Church people don't have any fun
that joy is almost a sin
I don't know exactly how that got started
but it's pretty ingrained
it's like we have to leave our joy at the door
when we come in here
I've always found it that people are almost afraid to laugh
like it's a sin to laugh out loud in church
or a sin to have fun in church
It's like you can't be too happy
or something must be wrong
but when I read Isaiah and many other places in the Bible
It is not God who wants to hold us back
God wants us to know the fullness of life
to know Joy

Mary Chapin-Carpenter, a country singer
writes in a song,
"In this world there's a whole lotta trouble,
in this world there's a whole lotta pain
in this world there's a whole lotta trouble
but a whole lotta ground to gain
why take when you could be givin'
why watch as the world goes by
it's a hard enough life to be livin'
why walk when you can fly?...."

I first heard that song when I was in Tilden
and I was on my way to be with a woman in our church there
who was dying
a woman who was always joyful
even though she had many health issues
as she got older
no matter how much her body was hurting,
she always greeted me with a smile
and it was hard to anticipate watching her go
I would miss her very much
but that song reminded me of what she taught me
life is hard, it's always going to be hard
no matter how good I am,
the fact is, life on this earth is hard
and God never told us any differently
God never said in the Bible
that if you are good, if you follow Jesus,
you won't have to suffer
All throughout the Bible
we're told that yes, life here is hard
and we will suffer
it's part of being human in a sinsick world
Faith doesn't make the suffering go away
Faith gives us the power and the hope
to live in this world with strength and purpose
with love and mercy
and to leave this world a little better than it was
I forget that sometimes
because I get mad when my heart gets broken
Sometimes I think hey, I've been good, why should I suffer?
Why shouldn't I?
If you live in this world and have a heart that feels anything,
you will suffer
But God gives us the power and the hope
to live life fully even in the midst of the awful stuff
we can hang our heads and give up
we can give in to all the bad news
and say, WHY BOTHER?
But then we're already dead
walking around in bodies and just breathing
God gives us more than that
God gives us a vision of God's kingdom
and we can live like kingdom people
even when we're far from home, our true home
That's what Isaiah is telling the Israelites
They are in exile, a long, long way from home
but God is with them even there
and they can still hope, still believe, still love
and live life in the midst of the terrible stuff
and that's not living in denial
it is rising above, and trusting in a power that is greater than any of us

Rev. Otis Moss III of Chicago
tells a story that he says has been passed around
from mouth to ear somewhere in South Carolina
a story that was passed down from West Africa
to the North Atlantic
It's the story, he says, of the people who could fly
The story takes place in St. Johns' Island,
just off the coast of South Carolina
as Africans who have been made slaves
are working in the hot sun
They're working so hard to pick cotton
There is one young woman and beside her her small son
maybe six or seven
She's working in the fields and she has such incredible dexterity
that she is able to pick cotton with her right hand
and caress the forehead of her young son
with the left
Eventually, however, exhausted by working so hard
in the fields,
she falls down form the weight and the pressure
of pressure of being a piece of property
Her little boy attempts to wake her very quickly
knowing that if the slave drivers were to see her
the punishment would be swift and cruel
He tries to shake his mother
and as he's trying to shake her,
an old man comes over to him
An old man that the Africans called Preacher and Prophet
but the slave drivers called Old Devil
He looks up at the old man and says, "Is it time? Is it time?"
The old man smiles and looks at the boy and says, "yes!"
And he bends down and whispers
into the ear of the woman who was now upon the ground
and says these words: "Cooleebah! Cooleebah!"
At that moment the woman gets up with such incredible dignity
She stands as a queen and looks down at her son
grasps his hand and begins to look toward heaven
All of a sudden they begin to fly
The slave drivers rush over to this area
where she has stopped work and they see
this act of human flight and are completely confused
They do not know what to do!
And during their confusion, the old man rushes around
to all the other Africans and begins to tell them,
"Cooleebah! Cooleebah!"
When they hear the word, they all begin to fly
Can you imagine? The dispossessed flying?
Can you imagine the disempowered flying?
Three fifths of a person flying? The diseased flying?
The dislocated flying? They are all taking flight!
And at that moment the slave drivers grab the old man and say,
"Bring them back!"
They beat him, and with blood coming down his cheek,
he just smiles at them
They say to him, "Please bring them back!"
And he says, "I can't."
They say, "why not?"
He said, "Because the word is already in them and since the word
is already in them, it cannot be taken from them."
The old man had a word from West Africa, cooleebah,
a word that means God
It had been placed into the heart of these displaced Africans
and now they had dignity and they were flying

And Dr. Moss III says,
"Is it not the job of the church and the preacher?
No, we are not called to make people shout
No, we are not called to make people dance
No, we are not called to have our bank accounts fly
No, we are called to make sure that the people of God fly!
Fly from breakdown to break THROUGH
Fly from hurt to HEALING
Fly from heartache to being mended to a whole person
We are called as a people to ensure that those who have been
marginalized have a word in their spirit that allows them to fly
and the question is, he says,
Are we part of a church, are we a part of a ministry
that causes people to fly?"
Isaiah says it: They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
they shall run and not get weary,
they shall walk and not faint….
When we have the word of God, the love of God in us,
we can fly….
it's a hard enough life to be living…
why walk when we can fly?


*"The People Who Could Fly," sermon by Rev. Otis Moss III, Pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago,
as aired on "30 Good Minutes," December 31, 2006.