The Sacred Other
Sermon
Hope Beneath the Surface
Cycle A First Lesson Sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
Object:
Schindler's List is a movie one doesn't forget. One of the most horrible scenes is that of the commandant who, for his own amusement and in order to watch the prisoners scatter, uses a rifle to shoot some of the Jews in the courtyard of the prison camp.
This one vignette graphically portrays the opposite of the message the prophet Isaiah was communicating in the portion of his writings we are looking at now, chapter 42, verses 1-9. "A bruised reed he will not break.'' All of us surely shudder and shrink from the unthinkable carnage and lack of any semblance of human decency depicted in that scene from the film, so different from protecting even a bruised reed in the wind. What is so troubling is that our minds and emotions have adjusted themselves only too easily to scenes only too similar to the one in the movie.
How do we find the road back to a mentality and approach to the world and our neighbors which is gentle and treats all life as precious and loved by God? It's a tough job and the way is long and tedious and frustrating, but it is a way disciples of Jesus Christ are called to travel.
Most of us know something about Albert Schweitzer, the German organist turned missionary doctor, who gave his life to the needy people in Africa, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 and died in 1965. If you knew anything at all about Dr. Schweitzer it was probably the fact, whether it was literally true or not, that he would not kill the smallest living thing, even an insect. There are times even today when I will spare the life of a fly or a spider or an ant, specifically because of a thought about Dr. Schweitzer. Instead of squashing the little creature, I'll slip a piece of paper under it or capture it in my hand and put it outside. (That's probably more humane in the summertime than it is in the winter!) If Dr. Schweitzer felt that way about insects, we can imagine how he felt about people.
So what is our attitude supposed to be about other people? The prophet Isaiah often speaks of the Jews as God's servants. Way back in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, we read of God calling Abram, soon to be called Abraham, to step out in faith and go to a new land which God would show to him. And God said Abraham would be blessed by God, but for the purpose that Abraham might be a blessing to others. He was to be God's servant in caring for other nations and peoples of the world.
The prophet Isaiah, whose ministry began 740 years before Jesus lived, often quoted the Lord as calling the people of Israel "God's servant.'' In chapter 41, right before the chapter we're looking at this morning, we read in verses 8 and 9:
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, "You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off''; do not fear, for I am with you ...
It's clear, then, when we come to chapter 42, that the word "servant'' refers to the people of Israel, in this case, not the Messiah who would come to save them and allow them to return to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon. Even though the servant here is referred to in the singular, it is the whole people of Israel that is meant.
So what will this servant of God be like? What describes the servant of God whom God will uphold? Listen. Here it is, Isaiah 42:2-3:
He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
The servant of God, those called by God's name, will not be loud and pushy; they will protect all life, even fragile, insignificant-appearing life, as an act of obedience and love for the Creator of all life.
I will refrain from dumping all that is in my heart on this matter, for it is not necessarily edifying to hear what we all already know. But let me say this much. I long for gentleness in our society. I long for the day when children and youth will not feel free to trash road signs and break windows and dump garbage from their cars. I long for the day when people will not enjoy the sight of people being blown away by machine gun fire and bombs, when withering language and racism and killing will be as unthinkable in our regular movie theaters as full frontal nudity still is, at least for yet a little while.
The Lord said through Isaiah that the servant of the Lord, the people of God, would be a gentle people, a people who would witness to the life-giving desire of God. That's us, folks. How are we at protecting a simple bruised reed, seen by a frozen lake, or at protecting the last gasp of a smoldering candlewick?
I remember well a conversation I had some years ago about this time of year. It was about Martin Luther King, Jr. I guess I had been protected a bit, for it was the first time I had heard members of a church express a total lack of appreciation for the life and ministry of this great prophet of our time. I will admit to being biased. The dean of Wesley Theological Seminary while I was there was L. Harold DeWolf. Dean DeWolf was Dr. King's mentor and friend through his doctoral program and throughout his momentous ministry.
While I always knew Dr. King was not Jesus and was not perfect, I have always respected him as a man who dared to speak truth and face the most violent racism with courage and gentleness. While his heart was frequently broken by those who were known as his followers but did not always follow his nonviolent passion, Dr. King himself stuck to nonviolence as the only way to solve racism or any other problem.
The fact that our country has made so little progress in rooting out racism and violence since his passing is surely the most tragic reality which confronts us as we celebrate Dr. King's life and faith and philosophy of life. As Claude Lewis of the Philadelphia Inquirer has written, "Though King is gone, many still believe in his ideas,'' but the celebration of his life is made far less meaningful by the fact that "the hatred and the killing goes on.''
The words of Isaiah ring across the centuries. The ideal is a precious image for us all. It is an image which the Master, Jesus of Nazareth, fully lived out on this earth, "a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.'' Such was the life of Jesus. And so we have inherited that Golden Rule that we all have printed on our rulers, and then we use those rulers to slap and bruise! "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets'' (Matthew 7:12).
God has designed the world to work smoothly only when the needs and feelings of others are held in the same esteem as our own, where the pain of a mere splinter consumes our lives. God's design is for us to see every other person as sacred.
Some time ago I read about a Doug Nichols who was a missionary in India in 1967. He tells of spending several months in a sanitarium with tuberculosis. Being a missionary, he was eager to share the Gospel with the doctors and nurses and patients, but everyone saw him as a rich American and simply would have none of his tracts and well-meaning witness.
One night Mr. Nichols was awakened by his own coughing around 2 a.m. As he was trying to recover from a coughing spell, he noticed an elderly, very sick patient across the aisle trying to get out of bed. He would sit up on the edge of his bed, try to stand, but finally fall back into bed. He remembers hearing him finally start to cry.
The next morning Mr. Nichols found out that the man was simply trying to go to the bathroom, and ended up going in his bed, producing an awful smell throughout the ward. The nurses were upset, and roughly handled him as they cleaned up the mess. The poor man, embarrassed to death, simply curled up and wept.
The next night, Mr. Nichols again was awakened by another coughing spell and noticed the same man going through the same agony. Finally, Mr. Nichols struggled out of bed himself, and carried the dumbfounded man to the toilet, a small room with a simple hole in the floor. When he got back to the man's bed he said something to him that he assumed was "Thank you.''
You can guess the rest. From the time the sun came up that next day people were at his bed, asking for his leaflets and reaching out for the Gospel of Christ. All because he took a man to the bathroom. All because he treated him as a sacred child of God.
Even those who do not know Christ are precious in God's eyes and are to be precious in our eyes as well. Only secondarily do we try to change a person. All people are children of God, of sacred worth, who have come to their conclusions about life and faith through varied and challenging meanderings, as have we.
We all take our turns at being bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks, don't we? God cares for us right at those points. And we, as God's people, and surely as disciples of Jesus Christ, are called to go and do likewise. So let's do it.
This one vignette graphically portrays the opposite of the message the prophet Isaiah was communicating in the portion of his writings we are looking at now, chapter 42, verses 1-9. "A bruised reed he will not break.'' All of us surely shudder and shrink from the unthinkable carnage and lack of any semblance of human decency depicted in that scene from the film, so different from protecting even a bruised reed in the wind. What is so troubling is that our minds and emotions have adjusted themselves only too easily to scenes only too similar to the one in the movie.
How do we find the road back to a mentality and approach to the world and our neighbors which is gentle and treats all life as precious and loved by God? It's a tough job and the way is long and tedious and frustrating, but it is a way disciples of Jesus Christ are called to travel.
Most of us know something about Albert Schweitzer, the German organist turned missionary doctor, who gave his life to the needy people in Africa, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 and died in 1965. If you knew anything at all about Dr. Schweitzer it was probably the fact, whether it was literally true or not, that he would not kill the smallest living thing, even an insect. There are times even today when I will spare the life of a fly or a spider or an ant, specifically because of a thought about Dr. Schweitzer. Instead of squashing the little creature, I'll slip a piece of paper under it or capture it in my hand and put it outside. (That's probably more humane in the summertime than it is in the winter!) If Dr. Schweitzer felt that way about insects, we can imagine how he felt about people.
So what is our attitude supposed to be about other people? The prophet Isaiah often speaks of the Jews as God's servants. Way back in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, we read of God calling Abram, soon to be called Abraham, to step out in faith and go to a new land which God would show to him. And God said Abraham would be blessed by God, but for the purpose that Abraham might be a blessing to others. He was to be God's servant in caring for other nations and peoples of the world.
The prophet Isaiah, whose ministry began 740 years before Jesus lived, often quoted the Lord as calling the people of Israel "God's servant.'' In chapter 41, right before the chapter we're looking at this morning, we read in verses 8 and 9:
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, "You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off''; do not fear, for I am with you ...
It's clear, then, when we come to chapter 42, that the word "servant'' refers to the people of Israel, in this case, not the Messiah who would come to save them and allow them to return to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon. Even though the servant here is referred to in the singular, it is the whole people of Israel that is meant.
So what will this servant of God be like? What describes the servant of God whom God will uphold? Listen. Here it is, Isaiah 42:2-3:
He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
The servant of God, those called by God's name, will not be loud and pushy; they will protect all life, even fragile, insignificant-appearing life, as an act of obedience and love for the Creator of all life.
I will refrain from dumping all that is in my heart on this matter, for it is not necessarily edifying to hear what we all already know. But let me say this much. I long for gentleness in our society. I long for the day when children and youth will not feel free to trash road signs and break windows and dump garbage from their cars. I long for the day when people will not enjoy the sight of people being blown away by machine gun fire and bombs, when withering language and racism and killing will be as unthinkable in our regular movie theaters as full frontal nudity still is, at least for yet a little while.
The Lord said through Isaiah that the servant of the Lord, the people of God, would be a gentle people, a people who would witness to the life-giving desire of God. That's us, folks. How are we at protecting a simple bruised reed, seen by a frozen lake, or at protecting the last gasp of a smoldering candlewick?
I remember well a conversation I had some years ago about this time of year. It was about Martin Luther King, Jr. I guess I had been protected a bit, for it was the first time I had heard members of a church express a total lack of appreciation for the life and ministry of this great prophet of our time. I will admit to being biased. The dean of Wesley Theological Seminary while I was there was L. Harold DeWolf. Dean DeWolf was Dr. King's mentor and friend through his doctoral program and throughout his momentous ministry.
While I always knew Dr. King was not Jesus and was not perfect, I have always respected him as a man who dared to speak truth and face the most violent racism with courage and gentleness. While his heart was frequently broken by those who were known as his followers but did not always follow his nonviolent passion, Dr. King himself stuck to nonviolence as the only way to solve racism or any other problem.
The fact that our country has made so little progress in rooting out racism and violence since his passing is surely the most tragic reality which confronts us as we celebrate Dr. King's life and faith and philosophy of life. As Claude Lewis of the Philadelphia Inquirer has written, "Though King is gone, many still believe in his ideas,'' but the celebration of his life is made far less meaningful by the fact that "the hatred and the killing goes on.''
The words of Isaiah ring across the centuries. The ideal is a precious image for us all. It is an image which the Master, Jesus of Nazareth, fully lived out on this earth, "a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.'' Such was the life of Jesus. And so we have inherited that Golden Rule that we all have printed on our rulers, and then we use those rulers to slap and bruise! "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets'' (Matthew 7:12).
God has designed the world to work smoothly only when the needs and feelings of others are held in the same esteem as our own, where the pain of a mere splinter consumes our lives. God's design is for us to see every other person as sacred.
Some time ago I read about a Doug Nichols who was a missionary in India in 1967. He tells of spending several months in a sanitarium with tuberculosis. Being a missionary, he was eager to share the Gospel with the doctors and nurses and patients, but everyone saw him as a rich American and simply would have none of his tracts and well-meaning witness.
One night Mr. Nichols was awakened by his own coughing around 2 a.m. As he was trying to recover from a coughing spell, he noticed an elderly, very sick patient across the aisle trying to get out of bed. He would sit up on the edge of his bed, try to stand, but finally fall back into bed. He remembers hearing him finally start to cry.
The next morning Mr. Nichols found out that the man was simply trying to go to the bathroom, and ended up going in his bed, producing an awful smell throughout the ward. The nurses were upset, and roughly handled him as they cleaned up the mess. The poor man, embarrassed to death, simply curled up and wept.
The next night, Mr. Nichols again was awakened by another coughing spell and noticed the same man going through the same agony. Finally, Mr. Nichols struggled out of bed himself, and carried the dumbfounded man to the toilet, a small room with a simple hole in the floor. When he got back to the man's bed he said something to him that he assumed was "Thank you.''
You can guess the rest. From the time the sun came up that next day people were at his bed, asking for his leaflets and reaching out for the Gospel of Christ. All because he took a man to the bathroom. All because he treated him as a sacred child of God.
Even those who do not know Christ are precious in God's eyes and are to be precious in our eyes as well. Only secondarily do we try to change a person. All people are children of God, of sacred worth, who have come to their conclusions about life and faith through varied and challenging meanderings, as have we.
We all take our turns at being bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks, don't we? God cares for us right at those points. And we, as God's people, and surely as disciples of Jesus Christ, are called to go and do likewise. So let's do it.
