Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent

Preached at Canadochly and Grace on March 24, 2019
Preaching text: Isaiah 55

Sometime in the 1970s, the West Virginia Council of Churches began a program to establish Sunday morning chapel services in each of the WV State Parks. By 2001, only one remained active, Blackwater Falls, which just so happened to be the park in the town of Davis, WV, where I was called as pastor of the Lutheran Church there. So part of my duties as pastor at St. John’s Lutheran was to conduct the chapel service at the nearby park every Sunday.

I had received a simple liturgy to use and largely decided to keep it as it was. No sense reinventing the wheel. It was prayers and scripture, sermon and blessing. Nothing terribly fancy, but what made it stand out in my mind then and now is its responsive reading. Rather than choose one of the Psalms or a traditional litany prayer of the church, the responsive reading was Isaiah 55.

Thus every week at Blackwater Falls, we heard of how God’s ways and our ways are not the same and that God’s word will fulfill its purpose just as the rain waters the earth. Wonderful poetry, but also a powerful message for troubling times.

Well, Isaiah 55 appears today as our first lesson and the impact of its words are no less powerful eighteen years after I first used them in that chapel service.

Back in 2001, the circumstances of the time were 9/11, the war on terror, and an overarching sense of fear. Today, it’s economic uncertainty, the rise of hate groups, and again an overarching sense of fear. We look out over the width and breadth of our lives and what do we see? What do we feel? One philosopher has said that what afflicts us in these modern days is a sense of “existential angst.” We feel have no purpose, no meaning. The institutions that helped give us that: businesses that employed us, churches that encouraged us, a government that supported us, are all seemingly fading away. And many people feel lost.

So much so that we are truly seeing the results of that. Violence in our schools, our churches, and our businesses, carried out by “lone gunmen.” A massive spike in suicides. A massive spike in overdose deaths. It feels like we’re self-destructing.

And trying, perhaps desperately, to be heard above all the din and clamour of our days is the voice of God. A voice that says “Be calm, my children. My ways are not your ways. What is success to me is not how the world would measure it. What is security to me is not how the world would measure it. What is meaning and purpose to me is not how the world would define those things. My ways are not your ways.”

We spend all our energy chasing after things that do not matter, or as Isaiah would say, stuff that is “not bread” and things which “do not satisfy.” Isn’t that what we discover in life? We chase after wealth and power and safety and yet these things always remain elusive. We see those who have them in abundance and yet, do we really want to live like them? No matter how much wealth they have, it’s not enough. No matter how much power, it’s not enough. They always feel their safety is an illusion. They live in fear and hunger for more, not contentment and peace.

My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. God says to us.

We look out over the pews of our congregations and see emptiness. We see grey hair and wrinkled faces and so few of the young. We look at numbers of people and numbers of contributions and fear and worry creep into our hearts. But that’s not what God sees. God sees a faithful people, people who pray, people who work to better the lives of others, people who remain stalwart in spite of the difficulties of the world.

That is also what I see when I look out over the lot of you. I see people who reach out to those in need, myself included when my illnesses get the better of me. I see people who care about their neighbors. I see people who take the words of Scripture and the commandments of Christ seriously and live them out in their lives. I see children of God living out their callings in the world and doing what God would have us do. I see a people redeemed and living in hope.

We focus too much on how the world defines success and prosperity and we forget to see how God defines those things. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

The world has always gone through cycles of chaos and order, violence and peace. Any cursory view of our history reveals that. We should not be surprised at the upheaval of our times. Our parents went through similar, as did theirs, as will our children and grandchildren in years yet to be. It is the way of things in this sinful and broken world. Focusing too much on the negative and the unpleasant runs the risk that Nietzsche warned us about: Stare too long into the abyss and it stares back.

Instead, look to the good. Look to God and you’ll find him at work. You’ll find him in your lives, in your own work, your compassion, your prayers, your hopes. You’ll find him in the face of strangers grateful for welcome and aid. You’ll find him in the face of friends whom you support and care for. Nothing that has happened in our times or any other time has stopped God from fulfilling his promises to us. His covenant is everlasting, a steadfast sure love not just for David, but for all of us.

Nothing that has happened in our times or any other time has stopped God from loving you. Christ is still risen. The tomb is still empty. Your salvation is still yours and it always will be. God will not forsake us, no matter whether the times be favorable or unfavorable.

Why then do we fear? His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. They are higher, more lasting, and will not fail. The promise is sure, my friends. His promise to you. His promise to the church. His promise to the world. They remain and always will. Do not fear. Do not let the world get you down. Live to the good and strive to see the world as God does. Amen.