Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
Sermon: We interrupt our regular programming ...
This
past week Japhia’s mom, Pearl, was in the hospital for 4 days with pneumonia. She was very weak by the time she got there
Monday, and Tuesday evening I went with Tiffany – Japhia’s daughter, to visit
her.
The
day had been confusing to Pearl, and we found her quite agitated. That afternoon she had been moved from
Emergency through a maze of hallways to the Express Unit where she was to stay
until a bed might open up. She didn’t
like being in the hospital, she was upset she was sick, she couldn’t understand
why they wouldn’t take her back to her first room, and the sleeve of her
hospital gown was wet with spilled water and she really wanted a new gown. She was waiting for someone – anyone, to come
help her, and nothing was going right.
Tiffany,
who works as a PSW, took immediate charge.
With her quiet, calm manner in the midst of this crisis, she calmed
Pearl down. She helped her change into a
new gown, got her settled comfortably into bed, expertly arranged her pillow,
washed her face, offered to brush her hair, and with a few simple words and
touches just made her feel good. Then as
we three visited quietly for a while, at one point Pearl said, “You know all
those stories of Jesus, how he went around healing people – in all the villages
– that must have been something, eh? How
he just healed them all.”
There
was a quiet calmness in how she said it.
So I don’t know if it was said with a kind of longing as a prayer maybe
for Jesus to heal her. Or if she felt she
was being healed, even as she lay there.
And was it said on purpose for Tiffany’s benefit, as a word of witness
to remind Tiffany of the faith that Pearl hopes she will have? Or did the memory of those stories about
Jesus rise up in Pearl’s heart because somehow Tiffany’s response to her –
Tiffany’s words and manner and touches and actions, felt just like Jesus’ touch
and God’s grace in her life?
And
maybe that’s how it happens – how the kingdom of God is revealed in our time,
and how a day of frustration, fear and upset becomes a day of the Lord. In Matthew 24 Jesus says it may come like a
flood from out of nowhere, catching up all the world in its gracious flow of
cleansing and transformation, taking those who are ready towards a new way of
being, with those who are unprepared for a new way, left behind. But it might also be as quiet, as surprising,
and as personal as a thief in the night, breaking open what seemed to be a
horribly locked-up, signed-sealed-and-delivered irredeemable situation, to lead
those who are ready, out of the dark and into the light.
When
we read Matthew 24, often we think all this talk about a flood of new life
sweeping over the earth, and locked-up-tight dark houses being broken open so
things can come into the light, must be a reference to the end of the world. And it may prove to be.
But
might this also be a way of understanding what happens here and now … time and time
again … within the history of the world – all the repeated, unexpected,
surprising times when redemption and healing come to this world, to our lives,
and to the lives of others we know.
Isaiah
believed in it – in the possibility of the worst days we know becoming a day of
the Lord … a day of completely unexpected redemption and healing and grace.
On
one hand, Isaiah knows what the world is like.
He is a counsellor to the kings of Judah during the final corrupted days
of the kingdom. And in the book that
bears his name, he starts right in, in chapter 1 with a long and full
recitation of the woes of the day. The
people, he says, have turned their back to God and God’s way for the
world. Their rulers are foolish, and the
rules they make up are self-serving and corrupt. The country is desolate, and even though we appear
religious it is not really Yahweh we serve.
The rich protect their own interests; the poor are forgotten and
invisible to them. Judges are bribed and
give unjust verdicts against the innocent and powerless. The government is corrupt, the society is
sick, and it can only come very soon to a very bad end.
The
tale of woe begins in chapter 1 and continues to the end of chapter 3 – a long
lament that is interrupted only for 4 or 5 brief verses – the verses Barb read
for us this morning from Isaiah 2:1-5.
These verses really are quite different from all the others around
them. They are an interruption. It’s as though Isaiah – or maybe a later
editor of the book, announces “we now interrupt this newscast and our regular
programming with a special bulletin – the days shall come, we are told, when the
world will be willing to be taught by God in how we should be; people the world
over will learn peace, not war; we will practice justice, not injustice; we will
live towards shalom and well-being for all.
And now back to our regular programs.”
Where
does that interruption – that vision of life being different than we expect, of
our days of lament becoming a day of the Lord, come from?
Isaiah
says it’s a word that he saw – a very interesting way of putting it – a word
that he saw. It’s not unique to Isaiah,
though. This same vision, almost
completely word for word, is found also in the book of the prophet Micah –
4:1-5.
It
makes scholars wonder was this maybe a hymn that the people sang, that Isaiah
and Micah have both quoted? Was it a
traditional prayer? Was it a story told
long ago and remembered? Was it the
vision of some unknown prophet that lingered in the people’s memory from
generation to generation, and was included by Isaiah and Micah, or by their
editors, in their books?
Whatever
its source, it doesn’t really seem to belong where it is – smack dab in the
middle of a long lament about how irredeemably corrupt the kingdom is. It really is just stuck there and it sticks
out like a sore thumb … or, more to the point, it flickers like a glimmer of
hope and real humanity and healing in an otherwise very dark time.
And
isn’t that what the day of the Lord is?
Isn’t that how the kingdom of God often appears in our time? Isn’t that what sustains us, and helps us and
others keep going through whatever dark and fearful time may be ours?
This
past week in The Spectator, for two straight days the main story on the front
page was the outrageous case of Inspector David Doel – a member of the Hamilton
police force who has received a half-million dollars in salary while he’s been
suspended with pay from the force, pending the investigation of criminal
charges against him. The case has been
dragged out for four years on technicalities and delays, and now that it’s
finally coming to court, the accused inspector abruptly resigns from the force
and the case cannot be pursued. And if
that isn’t bad enough, to add insult to injury, some years ago he also won $1.7
million in a Super 7 Lottery jackpot. Some
guys have all the luck, and it doesn’t seem to be the good guys.
This
case has tapped into an outrage, frustration and sense of powerlessness that
many people feel about many things today.
In so many ways – big and little, the world seems to be both wrong and
beyond our control. We feel it, and our
neighbours feel it. We feel it out
there; sometimes we feel it in here as well.
Sometimes it seems every day is just one more step along a very dark
path.
But
then there are the glimmers – visions, big and little, of things being
different, of a different kind of story being told, of the day of the Lord
coming near.
In
the same two editions of The Spec that featured the David Doel story, there was
also a story of the capture of three suspects in the 12-year-old case of the
firebombing a Hindu temple in Hamilton in the aftermath of 9/11. One of the two days, the story was front page
– right beside David Doel, and even if this not a flood of redress remaking who
we are as a people, at least it was a little thief in the night breaking what
seemed to be a very dark house – a long-closed cold case, and stealing us away
to a place of some light.
On
one hand, there was the wonderful juxtaposition of justice in one case delayed
and then denied, and of justice in another possibly being done even after 12
years. But there was even more than
that. The day of the Lord is not just
tit-for-tat undoing of every wrong done.
It’s also the creation of something new, some good unimagined before,
out of the rubble of what was.
Three
things were mentioned in the story. One
is that after the fire there was a groundswell of support for the temple and that
it’s been rebuilt even grander than it was before. A second is that the fire-bombing so shocked
the city, that such a hate-crime could occur here, that since the incident
there has emerged a very strong and vital inter-faith network committed to
peace and co-operation for good. And a
third thing – to me the most amazing of all, is the comment of Narendar Passi,
a leader of the Hindu community, when informed of the arrests by the police of
the three suspects in the fire-bombing of his temple. Quoted on the front page of the paper, he
says he was shocked by the news. “We had
forgiven the culprits … from our part, (he says) it was done.”
Excuse
me? That isn’t what we expect to
hear! We expect some comment about finally getting closure, feeling relief that justice will be done, of now finally being able to get on with their life, or something like that.
But what
an amazing and unexpected witness to a different kind of world we can live in –
a world of renewal, of reconciliation, of new vision and work for peace, of
forgiveness and freedom together from the darkness of the past.
It’s
like Isaiah with his remembered vision from somewhere, like Tiffany putting to
good use her skills she has learned and the natural goodness of her heart, like
Jesus reminding the disciples that the Day of the Lord does come … again and
again:
We
interrupt our regular programming and the way this day seems to have been, with
this special bulletin …
Sometimes
it’s the start of a flood remaking the world in some good way, that no one
really expected would come …
sometimes
it’s a little breaking open of some horribly dark house or heart or situation that we thought
would never be broken open …
sometimes
it’s just the simplest of gestures and words and actions that can turn
someone’s day of anguish and anxiety into a day of hope and healing, of love
and joy … into a day of the Lord.
As
people of God we live for such moments … to act them out ourselves in what we
do and how we do it … and to recognize and give thanks for them in the actions
of others …
