“Have You Forgotten?”

5^th Sunday after Epiphany

Duane M. Harris

February 5, 2012

Text: Isaiah 40:21-31

Title: “Have You Forgotten?”

I.  The experience of feeling forgotten by God

            They were worn out!  Exhausted!  Homes gone.  Their Temple destroyed.  The government dismantled.  People were missing, maybe dead, maybe taken somewhere else as the conquerors scattered the people of Israel.  Hauled them away to another country as exiles after the Babylonians defeated them.  They thought their God was greater than the Babylonians’ god, that Yahweh would protect them, but they became refugees from the land God promised them and their ancestors. 

1 By the rivers of Babylon, [Psalm 137 says] —

   there we sat down and there we wept

   when we remembered Zion.

2 On the willows there

   we hung up our harps.

3 For there our captors

   asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

   ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

4 How could we sing the Lord’s song

   in a foreign land?

            Maybe you’ll agree with me that it’s hard for us to feel the depth of pain the people of Israel experienced.  After all we live as citizens of a superpower.  Yes, we have our enemies, but when was the last time you felt deeply afraid of losing your home, your possessions, your church to an invading army?  Have you ever been afraid you and your family might be hauled away and forced to live in another country?  Maybe the Cold War was as close as most of us have come.  Otherwise I know I haven’t experienced that kind of fear.  How about you? 

But that’s the backdrop for Isaiah’s prophetic word as he describes God who

29 …gives power to the faint,

   and strengthens the powerless.

30 Even youths will faint and be weary,

   and the young will fall exhausted;

            The people lost everything!  They feel powerless, and even the teenagers who normally have boundless energy are faint and weary and exhausted from such trauma.  No hope!  No promise!  Certainly not in the mood to sing “the Lord’s song in a foreign land.”

            Maybe we don’t know what it’s like to lose everything to an invading superpower like Babylon, but most of us know what it’s like to experience loss, what it’s like to feel personal pain, what it feels like to be so disoriented we’re not sure what tomorrow will bring, or maybe sometimes it’s just about being exhausted by the pressures of life.  Isn’t that a connecting point to the people of Israel to whom God is speaking through Isaiah?  We know what loss feels like.  It’s painful.  And we know what disorientation feels like, especially in these difficult economic times when some have had their worlds turned upside down, when hopes and dreams have been diminished by economic necessity.  It’s painful, painful stuff.  We grow weary, faint and sometimes fall exhausted in those periods of our lives.   Maybe you’re in the midst of one of those periods or experiences now.  Maybe not.  But I expect most of us know what God is asking when God says in Isaiah:

27 Why do you say, …

‘My way is hidden from the Lord,

   and my right is disregarded by my God’?

            I doubt that I’m the only one who has wondered where God is when life brings painful experiences am I?  The people of Israel thought God wasn’t paying attention, that God “disregarded” them.  Otherwise why would they experience such weariness?  If they were the chosen people why would God allow this to happen to them?  If God is good and all-powerful, then why does God allow evil to exist?  The age-old question of theodicy.  It’s a question older than Job.  Why do bad things happen to good people?   It’s a question that often occupies the heart of anyone who has experienced unjust or inexplicable pain or maybe even just outright exhaustion from the pressures life sometimes brings to bear.

II.  God’s Reputation Restored

            Isaiah knows people hurt.  So does God.  Therefore, he doesn’t tell them to just snap out of it.  Lift themselves up by their own proverbial bootstraps and get moving.  Instead, Isaiah works to remind the people who God is in order to restore God’s reputation with them because they think God has forgotten them and is ignoring their plight. 

            Have you ever found yourself there, thinking God has forgotten you or ignores you because of your plight?   You try to be faithful, try to be a good person and do the right things in life, but you find yourself in some kind of a hole.  And when you’re in it, it’s hard to see beyond it.  It’s hard to see God’s hand in it.  Where do we need God’s reputation restored in our lives?

            A.  Remember that God is creator and Lord of history

            To begin with, Isaiah asks the people a series of questions that echo through the centuries and are just as relevant to our ears as they were to the people in Isaiah’s time:

   Have you not known? Have you not heard?

   Has it not been told you from the beginning?

   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

One scholar says Isaiah is pointing out the fact that the people–and we–are amnesiacs.  “Theological amnesia,” he says, “is the kind of problem that causes us to fall apart every time a crisis comes.  It is what happens when you hear the dreaded ‘cancer’ word or the doctor tells you they found a spot on your lung.  Some of us whine.  Others of us worry in desperate silence.  Like the …exiles, we wonder whether God hasn’t gone off and left us all together.”  (p. 316-317, Feasting on the Word, Year B:  Volume 1) 

            They forget–and we forget–what God has done and who God is and so Isaiah asks these questions almost with a tone of incredulity:  “Don’t you remember?  Haven’t you known about God since you were taught in Sunday school as a child?  Can’t you remember or understand who God is as it’s been told from the very beginning?”

            God is the creator of all that is.  And, like Psalm 111 from last week’s sermon, Isaiah speaks of the power and greatness of God

who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

   and spreads them like a tent to live in;

23 who brings princes to naught,

   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

   scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows upon them, and they wither,

   and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

            Isaiah reminds these hurting people–and us–that “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.”  He reminds us of Psalm 103

As for mortals, their days are like grass;

   they flourish like a flower of the field; (Psalm 103.15)

And though the powerful can seem invincible, God “makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.”  After all, where are Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, or Hosni Mubarek?  All invincible for years. But now?  The Lord is King of kings.  As the angel Gabriel proclaimed to Mary at the annunciation:  “…and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ (Luke 1:33)

            Remember, God is the Creator and the Lord of history, Isaiah reminds the people of Israel.  Remember!

B.  God is Incomparable

            The second thing to remember is that God is incomparable. 

25 To whom then will you compare me,

   or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:

   Who created these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them,

   calling them all by name;

This is the God who said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  This is the God who said “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.  (Genesis 1)

because he is great in strength, [Isaiah goes on],

   mighty in power,

   not one is missing.

This is God of the universe whose power is beyond compare, and yet God is also particular in knowing all of creation—“not one is missing”.  I like what I read from one commentator on this passage:  “Just think: the God of the galaxy on the other side of the universe is the same God who cares for your cat.”  (Homiletical Thoughts for February 5, 2012, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, 2012-01-30 by David von Schlichten).  There is no one who compares with God.

III.  God provides the strength to go on

            The third proclamation Isaiah makes about God is that though you and I might grow faint and weary and experience exhaustion, God does not.  We are not God, of course.  We’re not in the sandals of the exiles either, but we do know what it is to be faint and weary and feel exhausted as we move along on our journey through life.  There’s no shortage of things that can wear us down:

When we sit in the hospital room for days and nights tending to the needs of someone we love, it’s completely exhausting.  You’d think that wouldn’t be so because most of what we do is sit, but over the years I’ve come to know it’s true for most people. 

            The funeral is over, the long list of funeral planning is complete, all the family, friends and neighbors visiting, sharing, listening, the service and burial over.  Now you’re alone.  Completely worn out.

            Listen to the news consistently and it can cause us to lose the bounce in our step. 

And other things closer to home can result in losing our vigor:  problems at work, relationship struggles, worries about our children, unexpected and unwelcome interruptions in our plans, health issues we didn’t ask for or expect. 

Even work in the church can make us weary.  I read one description of church “…as the place where you go to be told week after week that you are not doing enough for God and that you have got to do more — and be given precious little instruction for how to do that. That’s tiring!”  (Homileticsonline.com)

            The prophet Isaiah addresses people who are worn out.  In addition to reminding them of who God is, what does he advise them to do?  “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”  “Wait for the Lord.”  What does a person need when your weary and faint?  Rest.  Can it be that Isaiah is reminding them not only of who God is but also that in their exhaustion it’s okay to take a break.  In fact, it’s time for them to let go for a time and let God handle the matter.  Trust God with it.  And by doing so, their strength will be renewed.  Life and energy will be rejuvenated.

            Carl Price served as senior pastor of First UMC in Midland for 25 years.  Carl was and still is a lover of creation and in his late 50’s he started leading day-hiking trips in some of the national parks for those from the church who wanted to participate.  He and Pat would sometimes get 40-50 people heading out west somewhere. Often there was a collection of teenagers among them. 

            On one of those first trips, Carl said the teens not surprisingly took off on the trail, leaving all the old folks behind.  Pat called them, “the jackrabbits”.  They’d run on ahead and meet them at whatever the destination was for that particular hike.  They’d all have lunch and head back.  (Incidentally, here’s a shameless plug for the day hiking trip to Rocky Mountain National Park described in the bulletin for any adults—young and old—who would like to experience the Rocky Mountains.)

            By the time they all got back to base camp, the teens were exhausted.  They’d go back to their tents, tired and sore and crash while Carl and Pat and the adults—though slower—went on to prepare dinner, clean up and go to a ranger’s lecture.  After the second day of this pattern, the teens came to Carl as a group that evening and asked him, “Dr. Price, would you be willing to set the pace for us on the trail tomorrow?”  Carl told me this story a couple of times and each time, his face lit up with a great smile and he’d end it with a “Yes!!!”, fist clenched and elbow dropped in an expression celebrating the “old man” had prevailed.

those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

   they shall walk and not faint.

            Though in our weariness we may sometimes forget who God is or perhaps think that God has forgotten us, Isaiah reminds us that God is the Creator and the Lord of history, that there is no one comparable to God and that when we are weary and exhausted on our journey through life, we can trust God who will allow us to rest when we need to and provide what we need to carry on and walk again and not faint.  God will set the pace when we trust.