BELIEVING IN UNBELIEVABLE LOVE

A Sermon for The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
June 24, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Isaiah 65:1-9
"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, `Here am I, here am I.' All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; who say, `Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!' Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.

"See, it stands written before me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps—both your sins and the sins of your fathers," says the LORD. "Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds." This is what the LORD says: "As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and people say, `Don't destroy it, there is yet some good in it,' so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live. (NIV)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I am going to begin my sermon today by singing you a song by folk musician, Christine Lavin. Here is the title of it: "Regretting what I said to you when you called me at 11:00 on Friday morning to tell me that 1:00 Friday afternoon you were gonna leave your office, go downstairs, hail a cab, to go out to the airport, to catch a plane, to go skiing in the Alps for two weeks. Not that I wanted to go with you; I wasn't able to leave town, I'm not a very good skier, I couldn't expect you to pay my way, but after going out with you for three years, I don't like surprises." In this song, Christine attempts to take back everything she said to her boyfriend while standing in a phone booth at the corner of 49th and 3rd. Click here to read the lyrics at Lavin’s site.

When people experience break ups—particularly if the relationship started out in a loving, committed way, they tend to get pretty upset and sometimes downright viscous. This theme is common in stories, poetry, plays, movies, and songs like this one by Christine Lavin. These sentiments aren’t very nice, but they do reflect a very human way of dealing with unfaithfulness. We don’t like getting dumped.

In today’s Hebrew Scripture lesson from Isaiah, we hear about God getting dumped—God is the one facing the pain of abandonment. We don’t often think of God as having human-like emotions, but this text shows how much pain the Israelites caused God through their unfaithfulness.

Israel had patriarchs and matriarchs, kings and prophets and teachers of wisdom. It had its sacred stories, which were handed down through the generations—reminding them that they were the chosen people of God. They knew they were the ones God loved and treasured, the ones with whom God had made a special covenant, a promise of steadfast love. Through hard times and good times, the stories served to remind them that God was with them, guiding them, providing for them, loving them. The stories served to explain how their world worked and their place in it.

But somewhere along the way, the people stopped hearing the heart of the story. They knew the story was about the relationship between God and them. They remembered the events in their history. But somehow, they had lost the core of the story—they forgot the meaning of it all. And so, the promise of Messiah, the promise of redemption and release for a long-suffering people, became muddled by their new-found political aspirations and visions of imperial domination.

And as they became caught up in these things, they began taking on the cultish practices of their neighbors. Through Isaiah, God accuses them of “sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks,” (Is 65:3) which were pagan practices. They would also “sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret places” (Is 65:4). These things were done in order to communicate with the dead and receive visions—such things were an abomination to God. And they began to “eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels,” (Is 65:4) which were strictly prohibited by Jewish law. Furthermore, they would say “Keep to yourself and do not come near me, for I am too holy for you” (Is 65:5) which indicates that they had become sanctified by some idolatrous, pagan rite. To us, these things might not sound all that bad—after all, many good believers here today also eat swine’s flesh and if you’re not that great of a cook, perhaps there is broth of abominable things in your vessels as well! But these all were significant sins. They had dumped God. They had decided that they could rely upon the popular religious practices of the day instead of holding fast to the God who had delivered their ancestors. You see, the Israelites had not upheld their end of the covenant—they had deliberately been unfaithful to God when they knew that was the one thing that would hurt God the most.

So God’s anger flares up. “These [practices] are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day long. See, it is written before me; I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their laps their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together,” says the Lord (Is 65:5-7) This is graphic language: there is smoke in God’s nostrils, burning all day long. This kind of wrath is much worse than telling someone you hope they get mangled by the downstair revolving door.

The Lord continues, “Because they offered incense on the mountain and reviled me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their actions.” (Is 65:7) This God, who says, “I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people,” (Is 65:2) has been deeply hurt—deeply hurt by the ones who matter the most. And if we’ve personally been hurt by a loved one, then perhaps we can understand what God must be feeling: the kind of hurt and anger that will not relent.

But wait! Surprise! Instead of carrying out this plan of destruction, God’s bitter wrath immediately turns into mercy. The very next verse says, “As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there.” (Is 65:8-9) Soon after this prophesy, God restores the unfaithful chosen to the promised land that has been desecrated by the invaders from Babylonia. Through the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, God brings the Israelites back home to their land.

I think this is an amazing story. You and I would not have responded to the Israelites the way God did. If it were up to us, the smoke would probably still be in our nostrils and we would have cut off all our ties with these evil people and perhaps said things worse than what we heard in Lavin’s song. But God stoops down to love them again—even after they have positively proven their unworthiness. It just doesn’t make any sense why God would forgive this wretched lot. But God’s Love is unexplainable, incomprehensible, and relentless. The stories of the Bible bring us this message over and over again. God’s Love cannot possibly be quenched. Oh my friends, that we might drink in this incredible news and let it renew us again!

Twenty-five hundred years separate us from the rebellious children of Israel in this story, and yet we, too, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We too, have turned away from God and brought pain and suffering upon our Creator. God loves us anyway. The eternal God reaches into our postmodern world with outstretched arms, ready to be sought out by those who do not ask, ready to be found by those who do not seek, saying “Here I am, here I am” (Is 65:1). Our sins no longer matter to God, for we have been clothed in Christ. Our New Testament reading from Galatians reminds us that because we are clothed in God’s grace:

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one is Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
—Gal 3:28-29

Oh, if we could really hear this news! We are heirs according to God’s promise! We are all one in Christ Jesus! The categories with which we like to divide ourselves into do not matter to God. We are all one. All forgiven. All loved.

Our responsibility is to throw our hearts into believing in God’s unbelievable love. And that’s not as easy as it sounds. Because human love is so conditional, most of us have experienced many emotional hurts—both growing up and in our adult life. It is hard to believe in love. It is hard to believe that we’re lovable. But God’s ways are higher than our ways. And the Bible assures us that no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done or neglected to do—we are loved beyond comprehension.

How amazing! How exciting this simple message is! We are loved and it is our job to believe in this unbelievable love and let it transform us into the kind of loving people that God knows we can be.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.