Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, November 16th, 2014click here for past entries
Loving God, you show us time and again through the Scriptures how your promises are fulfilled and your faithfulness continues. Teach us trust and hope by the power of your Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
There are times when it doesn’t take much for doubt and fear to creep in. You go for medical tests and get a scary diagnosis. You pray and pray for healing, but in the end the person dies. You start to look at budgets and wonder if there will be enough. You pray for reconciliation, or for peace, or for a family member, and it just seems as though God has stopped listening. You hear constant messages about why you need to be afraid and things you really should do for your own security. Do you give in to the fear and doubt, or put your faith and trust in God?
This is the basic question that the people of Jerusalem are asked in today’s reading from Isaiah. The powerful king from Assyria has already conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, as well as many of the walled cities of Judah. Now he has arrived with his army at Jerusalem and stands ready to attack. His chief steward – the Rabshakeh – is outside Jerusalem meeting with three officials sent by King Hezekiah. However, they are close enough to the city that all of the people standing on the city wall can hear him if the Rabshakeh speaks loudly enough. And so he speaks words that are intended to sow the seeds of doubt and fear in the people of Jerusalem.
“Don’t think that your king is going to be able to save you, and don’t think that your God is going to save you, either! Did the gods of any of those other nations save them when we attacked? Of course not! So what makes you think that your God will save you? You can save yourselves by coming out and surrendering. That way you will still have food to eat until the time when we come and take you to another land that is just as good.” Save yourselves. Don’t trust King Hezekiah, and don’t trust your God, either.
Who would you have listened to? – the foreigner saying, surrender and save yourselves, or the king who is saying, trust in God and he will save you? For his part, King Hezekiah refuses to believe what the Rabshakeh says. He goes to God in prayer, and he consults Isaiah the prophet. In our reading today we heard Isaiah’s message that the king of Assyria would hear a rumour and go home. That is, in fact, what happens, and King Sennacherib is killed in his own land.
Today, it would seem, both types of messages are still heard. There are certainly the voices that say, “Be afraid,” and “where is your God, anyway?” There are also the voices that we hear through the Scriptures that tell us to trust in God and to allow perfect love to cast out fear.
One thing about the Scriptures is that we are able to see, over and over again, how God remains faithful. In spite of those times when it seemed as though all was lost, God’s promises always prevail. This becomes ever so important for us to remember, especially at those times when we are in the midst of a crisis. It is always tempting to act out of fear and to look everywhere except God for our own security. However, these are the times when we most need to focus on God.
It can be a hard thing to do in the midst of a crisis, but if the people of Jerusalem had stopped to think about it, they would have remembered all of the times in the past when God had saved them. For us, too, it is usually only when we look back that we see how God was at work and remained faithful to us. And so, the challenge continues to be for us to focus our attention on God during times of anxiety or doubt or fear.
Interestingly enough, the reaction of many people to the last part of today’s reading from Isaiah is both skepticism and doubt. We hear about people beating their swords into plowshares and nations not learning war any more, and we say, “Yeah, right. When exactly is that going to happen?” So was Isaiah lying in this part of the book?
Some people solve this dilemma by concluding that this part of Isaiah is referring to after Jesus comes again. It certainly may be that there will not be a complete fulfillment until the end of all things. However, doesn’t this passage also have something to say about the things that we are to work for now?
What we have here is a picture of the reign of God, or the kingdom of God. In other words, if God were allowed to be in charge, here is what things would look like: People from all nations would learn God’s ways and live according to those ways. Nations, too, would be judged according to how closely they follow God’s commands, and in following God, they would no longer find any need to go to war. This is what things would look like if God were actually allowed to reign.
Of course, nations generally don’t look to God for their direction, and so our world at the present time does not look like Isaiah’s vision. However, we also believe as Christians that the kingdom of God (or the reign of God) broke into our world with Jesus and is made visible in our world through his followers. That’s where the connection comes with “You are the light of the world” (Mt. 5:14). Other people should be able to see what the kingdom of God is like through us.
That means seeking to learn God’s ways and to live them. That also means working for peace whenever and however we are able to do so. It is a matter of shifting our gaze from fear to hope and from doubt to trust. You may have heard that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. However, I recently read that this is not a Christian perspective. Do we believe in the power of God to transform hearts and lives or not? Do we believe that God is ultimately in control, or not?
Ultimately, no matter what the situation in which we find ourselves, God’s faithfulness will be revealed at some point. It might be later on when we look back. It might be right in the midst of a crisis when a miracle happens – like the Assyrian king simply turning around and going home. Or, it might be far off into the future when all of God’s promises are fulfilled.
Whatever the case may be, we are called into faith and hope and trust – believing that the one who has saved us and forgiven us through Jesus Christ continues to be active in our world and in our lives. We sometimes forget that God is quite well acquainted with situations that seem hopeless – like being put to death on a cross. However, that is never the end of the story. Instead, there is resurrection, and new life, and hope for the future. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Pentecost 23 (NL 1) Isaiah 36:1-3, 13-20; 37:1-7; 2:1-4
November 16, 2014 Matthew 5:14
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison
© 2014 Lynne Hutchison All Rights Reserved
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