Have You Heard?

Isaiah 40:21-31

5^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

     [The choir has just sung “How Long Has It Been?” as an anthem.]

     I really needed that song this week, in a weird sort of way.  Yes, I especially needed its message about our need to spend time with our Savior, but it helped me in another way as well. 

     You see, on Wednesday, my wife was playing the song “Killing Me Softly with His Song” around the house.  You may remember it; it was a number one hit for Roberta Flack back in 1973.  I suspect that the song’s popularity was why I was taught it in school when I was in the fourth grade.  Yes, you heard me right: a music teacher thought it would be a good idea to teach fourth graders to sing “Killing Me Softly” as a choir.  To this day, I’m not entirely sure what that song is about, which is strange because I distinctly remember her trying to explain it to us.  One thing I know for certain is that a fourth grader should not know that song. 

     Sherry knows that story, so I’m not sure if she was she was trying to be funny or not.  (If you’re familiar with my wife’s sense of humor, you know it’s hard to tell sometimes.)  At any rate, for a good portion of Wednesday, I had that traumatizing song rattling around in my head against my will.  That is, until choir practice. 

     Literally, thank God for choir practice!  Thank God for, not only helping me rid my brain of a song I didn’t want there, but for replacing it with a song I desperately needed in there.  For that matter, thank God for a place—this place—that we can gather together and fill one another’s hearts and minds with better things.  Thank God for this place and God’s Spirit in it to set our minds on things that are true: namely, that our God is bigger than all our problems and that our God cares about those problems and has a plan for our Salvation.  Thank God that we have this time in God’s word to remember, that no matter how long it’s been, you can call Jesus your friend and know that he cares for you. 

     Becky asked me on Wednesday, when we figured out that we would be singing that anthem, if it fit in with the message.  Becky and I like to look for the ways that God uses her process and my process to come together and say the same thing.  It’s a bit like what I was talking about last week: how one of the ways I hear God’s Prophetic Voice, is when I notice that God is saying the same thing through different people in different situations.  It’s one of the things I’ll be looking for in the surveys I hope you’ll be turning in today.  When we hear God speaking the same thing through different voices, it’s wise to pay attention. 

     By the way, I’m still not sure if the message of the anthem and the message of the Scripture lesson overlap.  But I do notice one obvious thing they have in common: they both ask great questions.  The anthem asks, “How long has it been since you talked with the Lord?”  A great question: a great reminder that we are so much better off when we take deliberate time to be in the presence of our Savior in prayer.  But then, our Scripture lesson asks an equally good but very different question: Isaiah says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” 

      I had a colleague, back when I was involved in junior high youth ministry, who would sometimes ask a kid, “What, are you new?”  It was his playful way of getting a student’s attention when they were getting out of line; as if they were unfamiliar with our group’s rules; as if they were new to the group.  That almost sounds like the tone Isaiah is taking today, doesn’t it?  “Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  How could you not know about the God who made and maintains the universe?  How could you not know about the God who raises you up as on wings like eagles?  What, are you new?” 

     Of course, it isn’t that we haven’t heard it before; we know.  Isaiah isn’t saying anything to anyone who hasn’t heard these things before; but he is talking to people who are having a difficult time remembering it; as sometimes we all do. 

     At this point in their history, the Israelites were in exile: literally in Babylon and, in some ways, spiritually too.  Psalm 137 captures their mood: “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered [Jerusalem].”  They were a defeated and displaced people.  They had been driven out of their land of promise and could see no hope that they would ever return.  It isn’t as though they didn’t know of the God of the Universe; it isn’t as thought they had never heard of the God who loved and cared for them; but we lose sight of those things when everything is going wrong. 

     We’ve all been there.  I’ve been there this week.  The theme of this message took an unexpected turn this week.  Good things happened this week—don’t get me wrong—but as it went on, it just started unraveling more and more.  It could have been a lot worse, but I am well aware of the irony: I proclaim to you today, a message about not losing sight of the God we serve with a knot in my neck that won’t go away (and it’s been there for a while), because that’s where I store my stress. 

     This week chewed me up and spit me out.  It was the kind of week where, after a while, I start to wonder if maybe I did something to upset God.  I don’t really believe that that is where bad weeks come from, but that thought does tend to pop into my mind.  After all, that is kind of the point of why the Israelites were in exile: they had disobeyed and betrayed God so much that God sent them to a “time out” in Babylon for about 70 years. 

     But does God sometimes show us things through the situations in our lives?  I believe we are coming to the end of our series on prophecy; an important conversation to have because, as many of us believe, God is doing something important among us.  So we’ve talked about the importance of listening for God’s Voice.  We’ve talked about the ways we listen for that Voice in prayer, in Scripture, and through one another.  So I would say, we have reason to believe that God can and does speak to us in all kinds of ways; even the situations of our lives.  The accident we narrowly avoid; the rock-bottom that turns our behaviors around; and even a horrible week can be used by God to help us hear the things we need to hear.  Now, this kind of discernment is tricky because not all situations are heavenly signs—sometimes a rainbow is just refracting light—but if we’re listening, there might just be something to it.  It gets even trickier because, when those situations get stressful and difficult, that is often when we get panicked and stop listening. 

     So if God had something to tell me through a rough week, what might it be?  Well, several things, actually; but one thing stands out as important for us this morning.  There was one big thing that made this week a little bit better: several people asked me the same question; in different places at different times, as though spurred on by the same Spirit.  Several people, noticing that I was in over my head and asked if they could help.  Frankly, the most helpful part was just being asked.  The asking reminded me that I’m not alone in this; a thing I might otherwise have forgotten.  And sure, you could have quoted Isaiah 40 to me and, in an intellectual way, I would have believed it to be true; I would have even appreciated the encouraging sentiment.  It’s always nice to hear that God is in control of the universe and that God cares even for me; but it was nice to have that embodied for me too.  The kindness I was shown this week told a Truth that went beyond words. 

     So I suppose there are two points to take away from our message today, depending on where you are coming from, and I think they are both found at this Table.  If you are struggling this day, if the situations of your life are more than you can bear: here we remember that the God of the Universe loved you so much, that in Jesus, he gave his life that you might have eternal life.  And if today you are doing just fine: here we remember that by our Savior’s work, we are sent to be the very Body of Christ to this world. 

          We speak of prophecy as telling the Truth God sends us to tell.  And certainly, that Truth is proclaimed through our words; but sometimes it comes through clearer in our actions.  What we say and even what we do are a proclamation of our Savior’s work wherever we go.  As we are sent by him into this world, may we share his power and strength to those who need it most.  As we are lifted by his Spirit, may we be used by him to lift those around us as with wings like eagles.  And may they know, may they hear of God’s power and love through our words and through our actions.