GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE SURPRISES

November 27th, 2005
Gary Harder

Text:     Isaiah 64:1-9
Introduction
There is something deeply outrageous about advent. Advent says that God is breaking into our world in a totally new way, that God’s purposes are unstoppable. To a secularized world that claim is deeply outrageous. And advent says that there is nothing we humans can do about it, or do to hasten it’s coming. All we are called to do is wait. Wait. Waiting is another of those totally counter culture aspects to being a follower of Jesus. Waiting is deeply outrageous in a culture of business. And then there is the total irony of the fact that advent, with its gospel call to simply wait, and hope, is probably our busiest schedule time of the year. December is frenzy time for most of us.

And then, to top this all off, the lectionary gives us an outrageous advent text, Isaiah 64, a loud lament, a loud accusation that it is because God has disappeared from their lives that the people of God have sinned and gotten themselves into trouble. “Not our fault that we messed up. Don’t blame us. You hardened our hearts, God. You hid your face from us, so what can you expect?”

But more on the text later. First, a very counter culture story. Then some reflections on frenzy in our lives. And then dealing with a difficult text. All very outrageous. And surprising.

A Strange Story of Redemption
A wonderful story of hope was shared with us last week. We had heard only vague outlines of this story earlier. Friends of our lost their business to bankruptcy in 1983. They had a very good business, but expanded too quickly at the wrong time. They accepted the bankruptcy, and despite the uncertainty, soon followed a new calling from God to work for MCC working with juvenile delinquents and young offenders whom the government sent to them instead of putting them in prison.

But there were two troubling pieces to the bankruptcy story that unfolded much more slowly.

One piece was that the bank which foreclosed didn’t fully close the books on the case as it said it would. The original managers of the bank eventually said that our friends could keep their house. But they didn’t fully close the books in a legal finality. Ten years later, new managers in place, our friends got a startling demand to pay off the full assessed value of their house within one month or they would also be billed a full 1983 calculated interest on that amount, almost tripling the amount of the claim. They of course couldn’t comply, and couldn’t borrow the $50,000 they still needed to top up their own reserves in order to pay the full bill. Their credit rating did not allow the borrowing.

Friends in the church heard about their predicament and quickly gathered the $50,000 and gave it to them. That itself is counter culture.

But there is another piece to the story. One of the perhaps smaller, but significant reasons for the bankruptcy was that the assistant manager in their business stole $30,000 out of the accounts. Our friends new that he struggled with various issues, but they also saw the potential in him, and were willing to give him a chance. But his addictions overcame him, and he spent the $30,000 on drugs and gambling.

Sometime after the bankruptcy, this assistant manager came to them and confessed, fully expecting the weight of the law to descend on him. Or at least expecting anger and a law suit. Our friends said they wouldn’t pursue it. They valued the confession. They would forgive him. He vowed to repay them.

And he did. He overcame his addictions. Together with his son he started a new business. A short while ago, out of their first profits, came a check for $20,000. And now, just in the last months, came another check for the final $10,000. Instead of sending someone to prison, a family is rehabilitated and becomes productive, and God does a new thing in their lives. Advent happens, a story full of surprises.

And the $30,000 repaid was just enough to finish paying off the friends from the church, friends who would probably have been ready to forgive their loans, loans which spared personal bankruptcy in the first place. Advent happens, and it seems outrageous.

A Culture of Business
Sara Wenger Shenk writes an article called “Opening the gift of time”, in the issue of Leader which we are using for our Advent worship resources. She quotes Mary Pipher, family therapist and author. “If families just let the culture happen to them, they end up fat, addicted, broke, with a house ful of junk and no time. For the first time in history, children are not being socialized by their parents. Essentially they are being raised by appliances.” (Fall 2005, p.2).

Our culture is a culture of business. Business and fragmentation. Is there any way to be counter culture in this regard? Especially during this time of Advent when students have papers and exams, when we are all scrambling to buy gifts, when there are office and church parties to plan or attend, concerts to practice up for, and even work goes into overtime?

Sara Shenk gives us an image to reflect on. She gives us the image of a “Permeable membrane”, a membrane of rituals and celebrations and traditions that we build into our lives that help protect us and our families from the temptation of over-business. It is a permeable membrane, which is flexible. It will bend and let some things through. But it so much helps us to put into place personal and family rituals and traditions which focus our time – even rituals like insisting on meals together every day, or praying – alone or together – or going for a walk, or exercising regularly, or listening to music that nurtures your soul, or developing other practices that nurture the spirit.

One of these practices has to be observing the Sabbath. Says Wenger, “Sabbath is a paramount practice mentioned throughout the Old and New Testaments.. The habit of observing Sabbath holds great promise for our families, with huge prospects for transformation. Why Sabbath? Sabbath is at the top of my list of practices to be recovered – not as a hard, unmovable wall – but as a protective, breathing membrane that keeps our lives in balance… Rest and renewal are expansive gifts stewarded from the dawn of time, built into the story of creation itself.” (P.4). Notice, these are expansive gifts, not expensive gifts. They expand. Over-business, on the other hand, contracts.

(Ryan Ahlgrim writes a tongue in cheek spoof which he calls, ” certain cure for busyness”. He gives four suggestions.
Publicly post half of your tasks and announce that you will no longer be doing them. Within a week you’ll discover: a) others will be doing those tasks; b) no one is doing them, but they didn’t need to be done after all; or c) you’re fired – which frees you to find a job that’s less busy.
Go through an entire day without a pager, phone, cell-phone, voice mail, e-mail, answering machine, and watch. By the end of he day you’ll discover: a) human contact is pleasant and valuable; b) people appreciate your laid-back approach; or c) you’re fired – which frees you to find a job that’s less busy.
Practice saying “no” in front of a mirror until it’s natural and convincing. You’ll discover: a) a sense of empowerment over your life; b) the humble realization that you are not the Messiah; or c) you’re fired – which frees you to find a job that’s less busy.
Fall from a stepladder and sustain moderate injuries. While recuperating in the hospital you’ll discover; a) most of your deadlines were self-imposed and unnecessary; b) the value of admitting your limitations and receiving help; or c) you’re fired – which frees you to find a job that’s less busy. (Leader. P.15)
In a much more serious vein, Walter Brueggemann writes about advent this way.
“In Advent…we receive the power of God that lies beyond us. We receive it willingly, because it is the evangelical antidote to
our fatigue and cynicism. We grasp hold eagerly, because it is the gospel resolution to our spent self-sufficiency, when we are on the edge of our coping. We seize the vision in craving, because it is the good news that will overmatch our cynicism that imagines there is no new thing that can enter our world.” (The threat of life, p.67).
Isaiah 64
We do need eventually get to our text. Isaiah 64 is poetry of loud lament. It is the people of Israel’s accusation that God has gone hiding. It is part of a unique conversation with God which God answers in chapter 65. So we will need to go there too.

The poetry begins in somewhat familiar territory, with words that twig a memory. “O that you (God) would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil – to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence. When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.”

One of my favorite Advent hymns takes its text from these verses. “O Savior, rend the heavens wide! Come down, come down with might stride.” (175, Hymnal: a worship book).

The people are looking for something spectacular from God. They think back with fondness to Mount Sinai and the ten commandments and the smoking, thundering mountain which convinced all that Yahweh God was holy and powerful. That kind of display now would convince their enemies – and make them tremble. Fires and quakes and missiles and bombs. Raw power. Make the world tremble.

The people dream of a Messiah who will come roaring into the world with this kind of power and who will drive out their enemies and make them a great nation, a world power.

But the Messiah, when he does come, will come as a helpless baby in a fragile manger announced only to a few shepherds, and when he grows up he will speak only about peace and love and justice and righteousness. Not even a drum role, for goodness sakes.

The irony, the absolute irony, is that this one who breathes gentleness and peace and “Who would not even cry out or lift his voice or ..bruise a reed” (Isaiah 42), will in fact make the powerful of the earth tremble – not because of his military power but because of his love power. And they will then kill him because they are so afraid.

Back to Isaiah 64. The people then go into their “pity me, it’s not our fault” spiel. They blame God for not roaring down out of the skies. They blame God even for their own sinfulness. This lament begins already in chapter 63. “Why, O lord, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you.” (vs. 17). This blame game continues with new subtleties in our text from chapter 64.

“But you were angry; that’s why we sinned. It is because you hid yourself that we transgressed.” Sure we have messed up. We are like a filthy cloth. We are like an empty wind. No one really calls on you anymore. No one really tries to take hold of you to take your ways seriously. Sure we admit that. We confess. But it really is your fault. It’s because you have hidden your face from us. So what do you expect?

It is so hard to take responsibility for ourselves, for our own actions, for our own decisions, for our own business, for our own indifference, for our own lives. Blame others. Blame the system. Blame the culture. Blame the boss. Blame God.

Except, deep down, the people of Israel and we too, do see through the blame game, and in the end do admit, in a prayer that has much more sincerity about it,

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Our iniquity is ours. We want to be your people.”

The lament turns more honest here. The repentance seems more genuine here. Underneath the lament and even the accusations there is in the end a relationship of deep trust in God their Creator and their “Father”. “We are the clay, you are our potter” Mold us into the people you want us to be.

“During Advent our own longing for God’s restoration in a broken world can lead us, too, to mourn our own broken-ness and repent of our unfaithfulness. Like Israel, we come to God in penitence, confident that we are God’s people and that God will restore us.” (Wiebe, p. 26).

God will answer, in chapter 65. Prayer, even a lament of accusation, is a conversation, after all. Says God in response,
“I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good…

Even when we go our own way, even while we try to evade responsibility for the times we mess up our lives, God keeps saying, “Here I am, here I am”.Even when we do not ask, or seek God, or want to be found, we discover that God is “holding out God’s hands to us all day long.”
Conclusion
Advent. Waiting. Hoping. Longing. But it is not just sitting around. It is not just casual waiting. It is actively deciding to restore some Sabbath to our schedules. It is pondering God’s work of bringing in a new world through the coming of the Son. It is repenting of lives too fully enmeshed in a culture of business and fragmentation and a culture of consumption. It is embracing the outrageous claim that God is bringing in something new, and that we really can’t do it ourselves. It is growing in compassion and generosity and hope and truth telling. It is opening our lives to healing and to forgiveness. Such waiting is a demanding piece of work.

But it is a waiting, it is a piece of work, based on our relationship with God, based on the confidence that God is holding out outstretched hands to us all day long.

It is Advent. And it is all so outrageous. And so very surprising.