Sometimes, as a pastor, I can get a bit insulated, somewhat disjointed from the reality that is the struggle and hardship faced by many who listen to my sermons. Your lives and the things that make up a very typical week for you are strange to me. I know a lot of you, some of you more than others and some not very well at all. I have been to some of your homes and know the backstory to a few of your lives. But the truth is, as a pastor, my days are quite different from yours. All throughout the week, my conversations, my study and work are, one way or another, connected to the Word of God. It is also connected to this place, to a church where people expect to hear the Word and receive the gifts of Christ. My job is no better or worse than any of yours, but it is markedly different in many ways. In this regard, I realized something the other week that perhaps I should have known years ago. I flew out to Fort Wayne for the week, leaving early Monday morning and returning late Friday evening. I was still here for Sunday, so most of you did not even know I was gone. But for me, things felt weird. Being here one Sunday and then not being back until the next Sunday was strange, and I have to tell you, I did not like it.
I thought a lot about this when I got home and throughout the following week. When I was not so connected to this place and to the Word of God which stands at the center, I was left with room for all sorts of other things to fill my heart and mind. I realized I can sort of “hide away” here from the concerns of our world, from politics, economic fears, and cultural upheavals. This place is (in a very real sense) a sanctuary. But when you leave here, when you go back out into the world, back to your regular jobs, to your families, friends, and regular habits, the Word which guides this place becomes much smaller. In many ways, it becomes just one voice among countless others that are always competing for your attention and your devotion. There is a particular story kept and cherished here, one which has been handed down from the saints who have gone before us. But there are so many other stories, other narratives of human life and significance that seek to shape and mold us.
Those who tell the stories of our age usually gain allegiance by fear on the one hand or the alure and promise of power on the other. This year is a presidential election year, so tell me if you have heard this before: “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” Or “The stakes could not be higher.” And my favorite, “Democracy itself hangs in the balance.” Wars and rumors of wars are all we seem to know. Wall Street seems to be doing well, while Mainstreet is suffering, and the Deep State makes sure the two are pitted against each other to fight for the soul of America, or something like that. My point is these narratives of doom and gloom fill us with passion and fear which seem to easily outpace the Word and promises of our God. The distance between Sundays is full of loud proclamations that would have us fighting for what seems real and eternal but is only a passing shadow. We easily forget we are in the world but not of the world.
It turns out this struggle is an ancient one, one that God’s people have battled with from the beginning. The great prophet Isaiah was sent to turn Israel’s king away from worldly alliances and the narratives of power they promised, and trust in the God who dwells in their midst. But they would not, and their rebellion would lead toward captivity and imprisonment in a foreign land. The strength of humanity would fail them and Babylon would claim them as slaves. Cut off from their homes, from their place of worship, from the land which defined them, they fall into despair. They are consumed only with the voices of their age, only with temporal power and struggle, fighting just to make it one more day. Yes, their imprisonment was not just the Babylonian captivity, their imprisonment was the delusional hope in the strength of man to set things right. But, like us, their elephants and donkeys of power would forever fail, mislead, and give false hope.
I suppose it is when you begin to realize the failure of the voices of our age that things get really difficult. There comes a moment, a point in time for all of us, when we see there will be no peace on earth, no utopian existence for the hurting and the lonely. And the real danger for the people of God is we can get so consumed by the voices of our age that when they fail, and they will, we do not know where to turn anymore. So, in comes the loud prophetic voice of Isaiah, “Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.”
God Himself remains. God stands over all the mess of our lives. Do you not know? Have you forgotten His voice? When you turn on the nightly news, when you “doom scroll” on your social media app, when you get fired up and passionate about your side verses their side, do you forget there is a greater story being told, a greater voice that spoke all things into being? And you are part of that story, part of His narrative. You may forget, but He does not. You may not fully know, but you are fully known by your God. His story includes you. He loves you. He sends His Son to die for you, to bear your sin, your rebellion your forgetfulness, and, instead, gives you life, promise, and Paradise itself. The prophet says, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength… they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”
God’s people live in the midst of worldly powers. We spend our days among voices that compete for our attention and loyalty. Like a Faustian bargain, they always promise something, but will always take something as well. They are loud and convincing and so it may seem surprising how our God works. He does not compete with another loud and spectacular image to rally around. Rather, he does the opposite. The God who stands above it all lowers Himself to the small and unimpressive. As Saint Paul says, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
So, we are invited by our God into a great act of rebellion against the powerful narratives of doom and gloom which saturate our lives. We are invited to receive gifts of life and salvation, to receive the forgiveness and love that makes life worth living. It is a love that stretches beyond this life, beyond this veil of tears and connects you to eternal joy and peace which surpasses all of our understanding. And this is the rebellion, this moment, right here, gathered around a font and altar, remembering you are the baptized children of God, that you have died and risen with your Lord, how you have been clothed in His garments of righteousness. And here you feed upon Him. “Take and eat, this is My body given for you,” for your salvation, for your hope. Here, stripped of our boasting, are the means by which salvation is given to you.
What we see, what it all looks like, seems foolish compared to the concerns and stories of our age. How does this compare to our next election cycle? How can it match up with world powers and the threat of war? But here we see the promises of love which have never ceased, never been silenced, never stopped, not for a moment. We see God is still at work, for you. And when all the other voices fail, His voice will still speak of your salvation.
