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Suppose reliable word came that within hours this area of the
country would be attacked by enemy missiles. Orders from the
military broadcast over the emergency stations tell us to
evacuate our town and literally run for our lives.
Perhaps we would quickly plan some strategy of escape, maybe
with some close friends and relatives. Or we might hold a hurried
congregational meeting and decide to leave in some sort of
protective caravan. No matter what our specific response, all of
a sudden we would experience what it is like to become a homeless
people. Suddenly, without warning, we are part of that vast
number of refugees whose chief goal becomes survival.
We soon discover that nobody wants us. Everywhere we run into
negative attitudes: "We have enough economic problems and
unemployment the way it is. We don't need you people adding to
it. Move on -- we don't have room for you here." We keep on the
move, getting farther and farther from home. Night after night we
look into the frightened eyes of our children who ask, "Where are
we going now? Why can't we go home?"
It so happens that we are among the few fortunate refugees. A
Moslem country opens its doors to us and we are permitted to
enter and settle down the best we can. So we are

no longer refugees. Now we are exiles, learning how to start over
in a foreign land. It is hard! We are accepted but with great
suspicion. In addition we have the language problem. Their style
of life and religious practices are strange to us and vice versa.
We live "frightened" most of the time. We don't want to run any
risks which might antagonize our hosts. At home we had
everything. Here we have next to nothing. Not even a church to
worship in. We are homesick for home and the way things used to
be.
We cry:

"It is nothing to you, all you who pass by
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow
which was brought upon me.
Which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger ...
My eyes are spent with weeping;
my soul is in tumult;
My heart is poured out in grief ..."
(Lamentations, chapters 1 and 2)

But we can't go home. Though discouraged, depressed and
oppressed, we have to make the best of it. We have our families
to take care of. So we make do. We get what jobs we can. We
struggle to learn the language. We work at our trades and use our
skills.
Over the years we begin to put down roots in this foreign land
and memory of home begins to fade. A generation passes. The
adjusting, assimilating and adapting continues. There are many
inter-marriages. It is even getting hard to tell the Moslems from
the Christians. It seems now, that the only time we hear anything
about home is in our worship service. The preachers keep telling
us stories about how things used to be and that the day will come
when we will return home. But we really don't believe them. We
have heard these promises so many times before. Besides, our
hosts aren't so bad once you get to know them. We are safe. We
aren't hungry anymore.

So the memory of home is gradually replaced by an eroding faith
and changing values.
Last Sunday's text spoke about the people of God at the most
discouraging time of their history -- becoming displaced persons
in the heathen country of Babylon. They were a sad, homesick
group of people and Jeremiah was their preacher who in their
despair, reminded them of the hope-filled promises of God.
In our Old Testament lesson for today, we are deeper into the
Babylonian exile. But no longer is Babylon the only super power
around. The Persian empire is on the rise and Babylon is on the
verge of collapse. As Jeremiah saw Nebuchadnezzar as an agent of
God's judgment, so the new prophet on the scene, Isaiah, sees
Persia under the rule of Cyrus, as an agent of God's restoration.
The prophet in our text for today, proclaims to the people of
God living in exile, the hope of returning home. It is not clear
whether it is the prophet or one of his disciples who is
preaching, but this is the word that is preached, "The Lord God
has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know
how to sustain with a word him that is weary."
The book of Isaiah, perhaps as no other book in the Bible,
stresses the importance and power of God's word. We read these
familiar words, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the
word of our God will stand forever." Again these words in that
great reassuring promise:

"For as the rain and the snow come down
from heaven,
and return not thither but water the
earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread
to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes forth
from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I
purpose,
and prosper in the thing for which I
sent it." (Isaiah 55:10-11)

"Faith comes by hearing" the apostle Paul reminded Roman
Christians many centuries later. In our text the preacher strives
to revive hope in the weary and frustrated exiles through the
gift of words. In an intensely personal (in this short passage
the preacher mentions: cheeks, beard, face, tongue, ear and
back!) and in poetic fashion, words are put together to remind a
downhearted people of their heritage.
We take note that this particular preacher speaks as one who
has first been spoken to. We read:

"Morning by morning he wakens,
he wakens my ear
to hear as those who are taught.
The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I turned not backward." (50:5-6)

It has been suggested that "listening" is the greatest service
that Christians can give to other people.
Sometimes preachers forget that listening can be a greater
service than speaking, because many people are looking for an ear
rather than a mouth. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Christian
martyr, whose execution anniversary is April 9, 1945, said these
words about the importance of listening:

"The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship is
listening to them ... They (clergy) forget that listening can be
a greater service than speaking ... Anyone who thinks that his
time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have
no time for God ... We should listen with the ears of God that we
may speak the Word of God."1

Bonhoeffer believed that inspired listening and speaking went
together. The preacher in our text listened. We are told that he
listened with an "open ear." This means he could hear something
different without closing his mind to it. Our preacher was an
open-minded speaker and listener. But many of his listeners were
not so like-minded! They did not like what they heard. Somewhere
I read the story about the person who did not like the pastor's
preaching. The minute the pastor began preaching, he picked up
his newspaper and began to read. (Don't you get any ideas!)
One thing could be said for the preacher in our text. He
obviously didn't bore people or put them to sleep with the
sermon. We are told that the listeners, at least at times, became
quite violent and volatile; "I gave my back to the smiters, and
my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face
from shame and spitting." Such was the severe reaction this
servant of God experienced as he demonstrated that he was not
afraid to be unpopular. Sometimes memories of home are very
painful.
So our text gives emphasis to the importance and need of
courageous preaching. It has been said that the greatest sin in
the church today has become the sin of "hurting someone's
feelings." Of course, preachers should not measure their success
by the number of people they make unhappy or angry. But neither
should preachers be bribed with popularity, for we are not called
to please our customers. Grady Davis, a great teacher of
preachers a generation ago, wrote these words: "The gospel is
meant for everybody, but it cannot be what everybody would like
it to be. The preacher is called to create taste, not to satisfy
tastes."2
One of the reasons people sleep through our sermons is because
too many of them are so bland and safe. If at times we do take a
stand on a controversial issue, we tend to fog it up in abstract
language so that our listeners can interpret it the way they want
to. So the theologian's flower has been called the "hedge" and
wise old Joe Sittler talked about coming down on an issue "with
both feet planted in mid-air!"

Yes, strong sermons will evoke disagreement, but I believe there
remains in our congregations a deep hunger for more plain talk
from the pulpit. Our people are getting weary of words that
distort and conceal.
Some of the reasons for the strong sermon reaction in our text
is that the exiled people had adapted, adjusted and assimilated
in their new environment. They no longer felt like "exiles."
Where Jeremiah preached to a homesick people, Isaiah preached to
a people in danger of forgetting home. Exile living not only
caused despair, it also created amnesia. The people of God became
comfortable living in exile, and comfort dulled their memory of
home. They were getting tired and angry about the old stories and
promises of home. Some probably doubted whether or not the
preachers knew what they were talking about, for it seems that
preachers are always making those impractical, grandiose promises
for God.
So the threat of Babylon changed into the temptation of
Babylon. Babylon became home. It seemed to be one of those tough
truths that go with living: When we ignore our history, we make
an idol out of the present and we booby-trap the future. We live
only for today. We forget we are the caretakers of God's word and
promises. We sabotage the future and the generations who will
follow us. Exile living becomes more than just a matter of
geography. It can also bring with it the erosion of memory and
faith.3 Time and time again the chosen people of God were
reminded of this danger:

"Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God ... lest, when you
have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in
them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver
and gold is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you
forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage." (Deuteronomy 8:11-15)

Multiplication of things and amnesia seem to go together.
Comfort also encourages amnesia. Security encourages amnesia.
Many of the people of God adjusted well in their new

country. They were becoming satisfied in their new home. They did
not want to think about packing up, making the long journey back
to their home land and starting all over again.
One wonders if Christians in this country do not face a
similar problem. No, we don't live in a foreign land ala my
introductory story. But in our day there are more subtle and
dangerous kinds of captivity. In his day Martin Luther talked
about the "Babylonian captivity of the Roman Catholic Church." Is
it possible that the Christian Church in our country is captive
to the American way of life?" A good student of the Old Testament
as well as of American living thinks so. Dr. Brueggemann writes:

"We may observe how very easily American Christianity comes to
identify with Western capitalism, the free market system, and the
values that grow from there. Or, more acutely, how easily we are
enveloped into consumer militarism, which roughly characterizes
the main value tendency of American society. Consumerism is the
seduction that getting, having and using is the main mode of
humanness ... The values of consumerism as they are personally
appropriated tend to an intense narcissism and an expectation of
self-gratification."4

There is little question that there is an erosion of faith
going on in our time. Unchurched (dechurched might be a more
accurate description) America numbers 90 million and growing.
Does not our own backyard represent one of the largest and most
challenging mission fields for the church? There are probably
many reasons for this growing disenchantment with the church (I
suspect that many people are simply bored with us!) but our
growing lust for comfort and pleasure seems to be a major
contributing factor to our growing amnesia. Martin Marty tells us
that "the God killers today are not Marx, Freud and Darwin ...
but high rise apartments, long weekends and mobility." There is
little question that the "pull of the world,"
(getting/having/using) is a powerful and tempting force in our
day. It is easy for us to forget that "here we

have no lasting city, but seek the city which is to come."
(Hebrews 13:14)
The central task of the last half of the book of Isaiah is to
persuade the people of God that even after two generations,
Babylon is still not their home! Yes, to remind them that their
exile from their homeland did not mean exile from their God.
God's compassion had taken the form of judgment, but it was not
nullified. God was not defeated. God's promises for them were
still valid.
We, who may be in danger of being seduced by the power of the
world, need to hear that God's word is more powerful than any
country, any ideology, any ism -- even consumerism! We do not have
to stay captive to our culture. We do not have to stay captive to
things.
Our source of strength is not in getting and getting but in
the power of the Spirit working through God's word. That is one
of the important reasons for attending church. Here is where our
memories are refreshed that we do not forget our true home.
The preacher in our text was not discouraged. God had given
him the word of hope and it was delivered, even at the expense of
ridicule and suffering. Much in the same way, Jesus' suffering
was the result of his strong preaching of God's kingdom and his
obedient life -- even in the face of rejection. It seems that true
and courageous prophets never have had an easy time of it. Jesus
laments, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and
stoning those who are sent to you!" Those who tell new truths or
remind people of forgotten truths are "troublers of the faith"
who expose the complacency of the faithful. They are seldom
thanked for their pains.
It is not an easy message to hear -- that the gospel of Jesus
Christ and the world do not always fit well together. Yet, it is
one that we need to hear lest the comforts of our exiled living
dull the memory of our true home.
We are in the final days of our journey to Easter. Holy Week
is an especially fitting symbol to remind us that our identity is
with the Suffering Servant and not with the "make-you-

rich-Messiah." Obedience and denial can bring suffering. Living
our Christian convictions in a time of affluence can bring
suffering. That is the way of the cross, but it is also where our
true home is. Amen.

1-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, (New York, Harper and Row,
1954), pp. 97-99.

2-H. Grady Davis, Design for Preaching, Fortress, 1958, p. 7.

3-Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination, Fortress Press, 1986,
p. 42.

4-Ibid, pp. 92-127.