"Spiritual Amnesia" by The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
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Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford
Epiphany 5 –February 8, 2015
Isaiah 40: 21-31
“Spiritual Amnesia”
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:30-31.
Do you suffer from spiritual amnesia? Do you ever feel like you’ve lost your bearings? That you don’t know how or where you fit in? That you are unsure of what the future holds and you’re not sure about your ability to meet its demands? Do you sometimes where God is in the midst of everything going on in the world or in your life? Do you ever wonder if there really is a God out there? Then you may be suffering from spiritual amnesia.
I remember the fall of 1987, when I was just beginning my first political campaign as a candidate for the Board of Education in Glastonbury. Being a political neophyte, one of our senior Board members, Helen Stern, took me under her wing and the two of us went out campaigning door to door one Saturday morning. From about 9 a.m. to nearly 4 p.m. we walked, door to door, through the neighborhoods of hilly eastern Glastonbury. On Monday, I spoke to Helen, probably 20 years older than me, and told her that after our day’s journey on Saturday I was virtually in extremis with everything aching – I think even my hair ached. She told me that on Sunday she had gone hiking up Talcott Mountain. Clearly Helen was energized by our mission, not exhausted by it; just as clearly, I had a lot to learn.
This morning’s passage from Isaiah has always been one of my favorites, because it reminds me that God, the source of my very being, is also the source of my continued strength. It is also a good reminder of the importance of remembering from whence we come and whose we are. For when that memory fails, we forget our identity; and when a community of faith forgets its roots, and when it forgets those roots, the future of the community itself is threatened.
This passage, which comes from the second portion of the very long Book of the Prophet Isaiah, was written during the period of the Babylonian exile, when the Israelites were without a home, frightened of the present and despairing of their future. The people of Israel were doubting YHWHs promises about their future, and wondering about the power of YHWH to bring them into that promised future. Their feelings are summed up in verse 27: Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? They could have concluded that the gods of Babylon were stronger than their God, or that their God doesn’t exist at all. Instead, they believe that their God has simply lost interest in them and focused attention elsewhere.
This morning’s passage is comprised of two sections. The passage begins with Isaiah confronting his readers with the questions: Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? He goes on to remind them that it is YHWH that created everything they have; it is YHWH that is eternal and everlasting; YHWH’s creatures, by contrast, are temporary, fragile, and ultimately passes away. The second half of the passage, from verses 28-31, begins with those same questions. Then it goes on to remind Israel that the same God who created them and established them as God’s chosen people will sustain them in the present and lead them into a brighter future. Where the people of Israel question and doubt, the prophet reassures them that God is tireless, that God will not forget them or leave them helpless.
The chaos and the turbulence of the Babylonian exile have caused the people of Israel to forget their own story, the story of God’s faithfulness and attentiveness to his people. The problem does not lie with God; it lies with Israel itself.
The prophet Isaiah was writing to his people about the faithfulness of YHWH, in the context of God’s saving works for the people of Israel. As 21st century Christians, some 2600 years after Isaiah’s passage was written, we hear Isaiah’s words this morning filtered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Isaiah asked his people, in verse 26, Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. In John 17.12, Jesus says While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Isaiah was writing to a people who were exiles in a foreign land. They were in the midst of a world that worshipped very different Gods. They had gone from having their own kingdom to having nothing. Nothing about their future was certain, and they were struggling to find a way forward.
So much around us in this 21st century world can make us feel like the Israelites of Isaiah’s time: confused by the events around us and facing an uncertain future. It is easy – perhaps it is even our human instinct – at times like these, to give up hope and to feel like God has forgotten us. We can sometimes even feel afraid of hoping for a better future lest we feel the pain of disappointment yet one more time. We can be less impressed by the grandeur of God’s creative power and focus more on all that is wrong in the world, all that is wrong in our society or closer to home, the pain in the depths of our own suffering.
I can tell you that during months of dealing with the whooping cough, I have experienced times like that. While I hoped that the worst of it would be over in a month or so, the doctor’s prediction that it might take 5 or 6 months or even longer to fully recover have turned out to be the case. At various times my emotions have swayed between anger and becoming depressed over my situation, from flickers of hope on days when I was beginning to feel good to days of having that hope evaporate as I reverted back to coughing and having no energy. And my prayers frequently included an impatient, “Okay, God, this has gone on long enough. Can you work with me here?” And you know, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that I have begun to realize how God has been working on me during this long illness. It has not yet been fully revealed and may not be for a while, but I do know God has been at work.
Like the Israelites, we all can begin to wonder if God has forgotten us. We might even wonder how powerful God is when we are confronted with so much that is not of God; we may occasionally even wonder if God really exists.
To such questions, Isaiah does not provide us an easy answer. In verse 28 the prophet writes that God’s understanding is unsearchable; we, as God’s finite, liminal creatures, can never fully understand how God works in the world, why war, suffering, poverty and injustice continue. Isaiah does call us to remember; he assures us that the God who created us, who counts each one of us and calls us each by name (v. 26) is faithful to us. Even more than the assurance of the prophet, we have the assurance that God has not forgotten us in the person and self-giving of Jesus Christ. When the way is unclear, we who wait upon the Lord can trust in the Lord’s faithfulness, and will have our strength renewed; God will indeed be with us to rise above our present obstacles into the hope of God’s promised future. With that divine promise, join me now in praying the reassuring words of Hymn #185 in the Lift Every Voice and Sing hymnal, Blessed Quietness:
Joys are flowing like a river, since the comforter has come;
He abides with us forever, makes the trusting heart His home.
Refrain:
Blessed quietness, holy quietness, what assurance in my soul,
On the stormy sea, Jesus speaks to me, and the billows cease to roll.
Bringing life an d health and gladness, all around the heavenly guest,
Banished unbelief and sadness, changed our weariness to rest.
Like the rain that falls from heaven, like the sunlight from the sky,
So the Holy Ghost is given, coming on us from on high.
See, a fruitful field is growing, blessed fruit of righteousness;
And the streams of life are flowing in the lonely wilderness.
What a wonderful salvation, when we always see His face,
What a perfect habitation, what a quiet resting place.
AMEN.