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"We’ve Always Dreamed Of A Better Day” Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – November 27, 2011 Centenary United Psalm
80:1-7; 17-19; Isaiah 64:1-9
Before we examine how Isaiah’s passage speaks to our
generation, we need to go back in time to a period where there were
no Scriptures. The few
scrolls that existed in later times had not yet been written. No one
in the general public could read and write.
Stories that revealed the Hebrew’s cultural and religious
heritage, were shared verbally much like when Mom and Dad read Bible
stories to us when we were children. We can still
remember those stories, many of which were filled with fearful
images. We relived those
moments when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, when people
were running for their lives as their cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
were destroyed by fire and brimstone, when Daniel was thrown into a
lion’s den, when everyone on the earth except for the members of
Noah’s family, drowned during the great flood and when
the angel of death passed over all the families in Egypt killing all
the oldest children.
Such stories are quite compelling and we remember them. This week,
Lois, Steve and I saw four rainbows over The Hebrews
were passing along stories that deeply embedded themselves in
listeners generation after generation.
Each story reinforced the
idea that the Hebrews were God’s chosen people.
People learned to interpret their history and their
individual lives from the understanding that God micro-managed every
aspect of life through a system of
rewards and
punishments.
This is how they understood
their covenant with God.
Fear of God dominated much of their religious beliefs.
This morning
we are going to consider what the prophets predicted as they dreamed
of a better day in the future.
A day was coming when the covenant between God and his people
would radically change.
The God of anger and punishment would be seen very differently. Listen to the
words Isaiah used when he addressed God.
“Why don’t you tear open the sky and come down?
The mountains would see you and shake with fear.
They would tremble like water boiling over on top of a hot
fire.” Perhaps Isaiah
remembered a story of an earthquake that had been handed down to him
many years before when he wrote, “There was a time when you did
terrifying things that we did not expect; the mountains saw you and
shook with fear.” Think of how
our lives would be different today if all of us still believed that
God communicated to us in this fashion.
For example, suppose all of us believed that God was angry
with us when hurricane Fabian pummeled our island in September of
2003. Try to imagine our fear if our teenage son or daughter died
and we believed it was the result of God’s punishment for our sinful
activity. These beliefs were
so entrenched in the minds and culture of the early Hebrews that no
one could have persuaded them that their understanding of God was
wrong. If we went
back in time and told the people that mountains sometimes spew forth
liquid rock and that the earth moves not because of God’s anger but
because the earth’s crust is shifting underneath of them, no one
would believe us. Suppose we
tried to teach them that people die of diseases not because someone
sinned in their family, but because of the presence of a deadly
bacteria, that no one can see, living in their water supply.
Who would believe us? Religious authorities would accuse us of blasphemy. No stranger would be allowed to explain away God’s wrath. We would either be stoned to death or thrown out of their village. Beliefs can close the minds of millions of people, preventing them from stretching their minds to reach new roads upon which they have never traveled. Isaiah was a
brilliant thinker for his day.
He knew God was our Creator and he knew that God was in
charge of everything God had made. He
also looked forward to the future where God and God’s people would
achieve a greater harmony with each other.
First, Isaiah confessed the many sins of his people when he
wrote, “No one turns to you in prayer.
No one goes to you for help.
You have hidden yourself from us and have abandoned us
because of our sins.” Isaiah then sowed a seed with his
words that would help people reading his material to think
differently about the nature of God as they entered their future.
Isaiah’s words were pointing to a better day.
Isaiah chose his words very carefully as he reminded God that
God had a role to play in what was happening to the Hebrews.
He wrote, “You, God, are our father.
We are like clay, and you are like the potter.
You created us so do not be too angry with us or hold
our sins against us forever.
We are your people; be merciful to us.” The first
Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of Hope for our future when a
better day will dawn. Advent
is a series of Sundays that help us to prepare ourselves to consider
the meaning of Jesus’ entrance into human history.
All the Major Prophets looked forward to a better day.
Every one of us is
wired to look forward to a better future for humankind. Listen to the
words of Isaiah that were written in an earlier chapter. God is
speaking. “For a long
time I have kept quiet.
I did not answer my people.
Now I will lead my blind people by roads they have never traveled.
I will turn their darkness into light.” (Isaiah 42:14,16f) Jeremiah also
recorded God’s words, “A day is coming when I will make a new
covenant with my people.
I will put my law within them and I will write it on their
hearts. No one will have
to teach anyone about my relationship with my people because
everyone from the least to the greatest will know them.” (Jeremiah
31:33f) When Jesus
began his ministry he shattered the understanding that the Hebrews
had about God. In
Isaiah’s day, such teaching would have been unthinkable.
Even during his ministry, Jesus’ revelations about God’s
nature were interpreted by the religious authorities as blasphemous.
He was not teaching rebellion against What we are
looking forward to, symbolized by the Candle of Hope, is a future
that will be brighter and better than anything we have ever known.
What Jesus taught
would eventually shift the consciousness of people all over the
earth away from believing that God was responsible for the
future of humankind to an understanding that we are.
This was a massive shift in thinking. Jesus taught
that the Even though
there are still vestiges of a terrifying and judgmental God that
carried over into the New Testament, for the most part Jesus would
teach his listeners that God loves them just as they are.
God wants his children to feel encouraged.
God wants his children to know that he pardons their
ignorance. God wants to
nurture them, to enable them and to inspire them.
Jesus was ushering in a day, a day that Isaiah could only hope would
come. God is our
parent just as Isaiah suggests.
Every informed parent knows, however, what happens to
children when parents micro-manage their lives.
No informed parents want their children to remain dependent
on them. They want their
children to enter in the world confident, enthusiastic and eager to
pursue their dreams.
God made dreaming of a
better world part of our design.
The best thing
parents can do for their children is to remain their
cheerleaders as they
develop skills they currently do not have.
Struggling with
wanting to try again when they fail is the best training.
Struggling to develop greater personal confidence after being
rejected by peers is great preparation for life.
We know that the best sea captains are those whose skills
have been tested and polished by being in extreme
weather-conditions. The shift away from God being solely responsible for our future to the understanding that we are is in evidence right now in most parts of the world. When people begin to dream of a better day it produces conflict with those that do not want change. It produces tension within male-dominated societies that want women to remain covered up so that only their eyes can be seen, remain uneducated and forbidden by law from entering the work force. Humanity is right on schedule.
Our dreaming of a better day is why people are streaming into the
streets of major cities in These
struggles are healthy because we now live in a new world where
information about everything is instantaneous.
Governments can no longer hide from other nations what they
are doing to their people.
Citizens can no longer be lied to for very long.
Politicians can no longer
behave and say one thing privately and then live in the public forum
in a manner that suggests that their lives are dedicated to public
service. Even small minorities living in abject poverty in obscure
parts of the world have a voice that the world hears.
Currently,
millions of people feel as though the countries in This is a day
of human accountability, a day when God can no longer be blamed for
inflicting punishment when we choose to
short-circuit the design of
how God wired us. Remember, we were created in God’s image.
When world leaders or nations become
rogue in their arrogance
of self-sufficiency, that decision has consequences for all of us.
Because people want something better, they rise up and give
voice to a different vision. The acceleration of change is forcing
us to live and work together whether we like it or not.
What has caused
this day to come is our ability to dream of a better world rather
than constantly petitioning God to make it happen for us.
God will not do the homework that is ours alone to complete.
What is
happening now is that we are living witnesses to the unfolding of
this budding new world that Isaiah envisioned thousands of years
ago. Rather than
becoming fearful of what is happening, we should feel grateful that
this day is finally here.
The world’s cultures are coming together in community.
Our experience, as painful as it may be for a number years,
is being tempered by our fascination that we are alive to witness
it. |