Shelter from the Storm

Isaiah 25: 1-8 NRSV

¹O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name;for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

²For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt.

³Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you.

⁴For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,

⁵the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

⁶On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.

⁷And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations;

⁸he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.

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Shelter from the storm…

My first reaction: “isn’t that a song?” Bob Dylan?

So quick over to iTunes and a little search

…there it was, a quick preview listen and “Yea, I”ll buy that song” ($1.29!)

and then I listened…

After listening I pondered…ummm…

at first it seemed the song was about a man who needed a woman for emotional shelter

but then as the words kept tumbling out, there were descriptions of dark moments in the soul, fractured relationships, random accidents and great misapprehensions.

The song was about the human condition

More than romance

More than mere complaint

It was a description of the uncertainties and the great challenges of life…

And underneath the words, images that seemed familiar…Dylan had taken phrases from Isaiah: shelter from the storm

Over the the electronic concordance… and yes, there was the phrase in Isa 25

⁴For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,

(the NRSV translation was more detailed than the old translations
we must remember that the climate in Babylon[Iraq] was dry and quick rainstorms often washed houses away…)

Both Bob Dylan and the prophet Isaiah were inspired to raise their voices by two things:

The political situation around them

And their own intuitive insight into the human condition

For Dylan it was the 60’s when old ideas were passing and new rude but bold ideas were breaking forth, political leaders confused by war and culture shedding old restrictions with new sense of liberation

But for us…this morning, Isaiah’s situation is probably more instructive…

Isaiah was speaking to people whose entire nation had been defeated, deported and dispirited

His stinging criticism of the political decisions made by those who believed they could trust in their own powers and the shifty alliances with nations that did not follow the ways of Yahweh, still rang true

Now, the prophet was saying:

This God has kept this remnent of poor and oppressed,

this God calls you back,

this God has already saved you and will give you yet another chance to be his people!

Isaiah’s message must have been hard for the exiles to hear

For the words of the ruthless oppressors still blasted the captive like a “winter rainstorm”

Captive, oppressed, far from their city, a great distance from the land God had promised, a people unable to be the nation they had been!

Isaiah’s promise to them: the song, the relentless song of the oppressor will be stilled.

The people will be given not only relief from the heat of hatred

…but they will also be fed by the Lord of hosts “a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, wines strained clear!

…and after the feast: liberation…not only from the political mistakes of the past, but even from death itself

What shall we take from this lesson?

Certainly we want to allow the image of “storm” to achieve its full mythopoetic meaning:

The wild, untamable wind of fortune and fate

The dismantling forces arrayed against us through the machinations of ruthless leaders and foreign enemies

The discouragements and disabling diseases that twist our minds and bodies

The randomness of life and the fragile hold upon which seems always threatening our grasp

Understanding the frailty and vulnerability of life is but the first moment in our learning

But secondly: we can’t miss the main point of Isaiah’s ancient message: God is in charge

God is both above the storms of life…and yet present within the events of our lives, personal and political

The trust we have in God is the shelter that we seek…!

I remember a story, from the white moutains, a long time ago

A man was traveling above tree line in the Presidentials

The man was an experience hiker and mountaineer

So he went for his hike towards Madison Hut on a fine August day with blue sky above, without his hat

But, like so often in the high parts of the Whites, the weather changed, the snow came in and a white out ensued as the temperature dropped.

The man became (w/o hat) hypothermic, disoriented and died 100 yards from the hut

Trusting himself…and not anticipating, not trusting God’s own nature to be wild, not being prepared for the storm cost him his life

Isaiah told us about the nature of God…

God is the God that creates weal AND woe

This mysterious powerful God is both the storm and the shelter

Our trust in that paradox should motivate us to wear our hats, depend on God’s teachings, question our political leaders and ponder how our history personal and political is shaped by the presence of this God in each moment!

Such a position does not yield a comfortable piety

…more a discomforting awareness that God is bigger and more profoundly mysterious than our human minds can imagine!

So part of our lesson today is to go deeper into the shelter

To see the presence of the divine in the events of our lives and in the events of our world

In northern Africa people clamor and fight for freedom

In the halls of our legislatures men and women argue about how much the government can do or not do for poor people, sick people, undocumented people

In our churches, we struggle to keep old institutions from disappearing

Where is God in these storms? Shelter or Mighty WIND?

The lesson prompts us to see our Traditions as substantial and our faith as key to living successfully in this world

To take shelter in God is not to hide passively with comfortable ideas about being right (the exiles were the chosen!)

To take shelter in God is to expose ourselves to the ravages of wind and weather, rain and snow and all manners of social dysfunction

To take shelter in God is to have a faith that allows us to look to the past where we have been saved/redeemed from our human mistakes, and to look with dynamic hope into the future trusting that God will act again and decisively in our favor, as we are guided in our personal and political behavior by Godspirit

We can not read Isaiah and avoid the understanding that God is active in our lives, that God is shaping our history, that the only shelter from the Storm is the God whose Spirit pervades every social, personal and political event

Our faith should trust that God is purposeful in redeeming the world, and all its inhabitants, all those whom God has created

AND our role is to be a part of God’s community, God’s people, trusting, teaching, telling the great story so we will be ready…!

Isaiah concludes our lesson with these words!

⁹It will be said on that day,

Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.

This is the LORD for whom we have waited;

let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

¹⁰For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.

The Harvest is Plentiful

Matthew 9:35-38

³⁵Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

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Squash! Apples! Parsnips!

The harvest of fall in New England!

Tasty foods planted long ago in the spring (after last frost!) growing through the summer toward a nutritious climax….when we pluck them up and eat them!

Every farmer knows…the challenges, the hard work…and the deep satisfaction of working as a partner with nature, growing food both to feed families and to take to market

Harvest!

The image is one that resonates at the deepest levels of our humanity

Since we left the hunt & gather phase of human development, ever since we begin to settle down and grow food rather than search it out, the harvest is a symbol of full security: food enough to survive the winter

In the earliest periods, sacrifices and rituals were offered through “sympathetic magic” to please the local spirits (jinn) and secure an adequate harvest.

As humans left the days of primitive animism and became more sophisticated, monotheistic, the imagry and symbolism of the harvest did not diminish: now thanks to God, Yahweh, was offered for bountiful crops and the ability to feed the community.

The Harvest becomes a symbol of God’s blessings, of the end state of fullness and sufficiency, the product of blessing and labor

So when Jesus uses the image of a harvest, he is connecting into the consciousness of his audience at multiple levels: as farmers, as Traditionally religious folks, as parents…

The verses of our lesson this morning finish with a simple statement: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”

What is Jesus telling his listeners?

Here Jesus is creating a transition within his ministry!

He has toured the country side, visited homes and villages in the area around his home town, he has explicated his understanding of God’s scriptures, he has observed the illnesses and misery of many people uncared for by their neighbors and…it has affected him profoundly

Jesus new phase of ministry begins with a broader understanding of the human need about him

…and he knows he needs help…or rather, he knows that those people out there, sick or despairing, need to be gathered in to the new community, into the Kingdom of God

This passage is rich: it has the whole plan for Xn mission!

Went about:

Jesus did not establish a central shrine, a place to come and worship or make sacrifices (temple was for that)

He was more focused on “the street,” the real life of people who were oppressed by the Romans, rejected by the Jews and helpless by themselves.

He was “out there” where it was really happening!

Yes, he went to the synagogue (for it was the center of Jewish life) but he also worked the streets.

Jesus took his message: the good news to the people who had never been given a reason to be optimistic…to look forward to the future with hope

What is the Good News (gospel as we might identify it now)?

Ummm… Good news: God is concerned, God is acting, God is with you, God is going to change things…God’s kingdom of Shalom is at hand!

Those of you who are hungry will be fed

Those of you who are sick will be healed

Thos of you crippled will dance about

Get ready!

Jesus (in the other major focus of his ministry) healed all disease and sickness

This concern for healthiness is so basic to the Xn mission!

Through all ages, those who are disciples of Jesus are concerned with the health and welfare of others

Jesus touch lifted cripples to their feet, restored sight to the blind, disappeared the white waxy evidence of leprosy: Jesus touched the untouchables and they were healed

Jesus was not fussy about who he touched…for as he looked at the crowds (the general population, the hoi poloi, the folks on main st.) he had compassion

Here, certainly, is the center of our lesson: the Xn mission is based on compassion: of feeling with, feeling for, feeling connected to the harrassed and helpless

If one does not have compassion, one would not be motivated to reach out to teach or heal: one wouldn’t care…

for compassion is the profound caring for others, the sine quo non of ministry, the agape at work

So Jesus looks around and everywhere he looks he sees human need

So he turns to his students: The harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few!

You students: you bette ask God for some help!!

So here we are, a couple of thousand years later: we are still asking for help

I don’t think anybody would argue with us:

the mission for the church is not really about gathering a large number each Sunday in a nice room, filled with nice people, with nice music allowing them to leave after worship with a nice feeling

The mission for the church is to teach (with full intellectual vigor) the Tradition God has shared with us, and to heal the illnesses of humanity (“every” physical, emotional, and social)

Such a mission focuses us out on the streets, in the dim places of despair and the not so nice haunts of the disadvantaged

But for me this morning, the critical part comes as I reflect again on Jesus’ motivations: he had compassion on the helpless and harrassed

So the question is “how compassionate are we?”

Do we feel the same about the dirty and down trodden, the confused and rebellious, the ill and the disabled? …with the same motivated emotion?

I know…its hard…

…we love our families, we like our neighbors…but

those whom we don’t know…the homeless on the streets, those with hunger we’ll never know…more challenging to make it a personal compassion!

When Jesus tells us that the Harvest is plentiful…he is not telling us about squash, apples or parsnips

He is telling us, his disciples, about the vastness of human need about us, and the potential of gathering in those about us who are filled with those needs

Now we understand why “the laborers are few,” now we begin to feel overwhelmed

The challenge before Jesus and his disciples then, and the challenge for us now is about how we can address the plentiful need with just a few folks to work!

While around us New England celebrates the autumnal season: we as a congregation are not ready for the harvest!

If anything, we should be, as we begin our program year, about ready to do budget for next year, select leadership for next seasons, determine pastoral coverage for the coming seasons…we should be planting, tending, nurturing, supporting, weeding, watering, weeding, watching…for new growth and new ways to do ministry, to teach and to heal

But where do we start?

My thought this morning is that we begin as we reflect on our ability to be, like Jesus, compassionate

And I don’t want us to be compassionate because we have been manipulated by sad images…(the ad’s for “save the children’ or “save the pets”) which evoke a sympathetic contribution

I would prefer that we have a comprehensive compassion, that not only sees the human needs on the faces of people we pass on the street, but also see the structures and values of our society that put people on the street and out of the comfortable homes that we might enjoy

Somehow, compassion really kicks in when we are able to identify with those who have not, who hurt much…!

Such a profound, Christlike compassion, is needed to motivate us to engage the plenitude of the harvest, with out feeling the depths of Christ’s compassion we are easily bought off with a less engaging mission resulting in the optional quality of our churchly institutions.

After the storms have cleared, after we assess our own capabilities, we have to come to consider: What kind of a harvest do we really want to have in our future?

The Xn mission is not discontinuous from how Jesus set it up (as reported in this passage)

We are still to go about

We are still to be proclaiming Good News

We are still to be teaching the Traditioin and

…we are still to be about creating healthy people

But I really believe that the power is unleashed when we ARE compassionate, motivated by our understanding of the deep, complex human need around us…

…and it is only when we have asked the Lord of the Harvest for help and when others see us working compassionately, that we will be be able to address a plentiful harvest, with more than a few laborers.

Discipline for the Harvest

Hebrews 12: 7-14

⁷Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? ⁸If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. ⁹Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! ¹⁰Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

¹²Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ¹³“Make level paths for your feet,”^ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

¹⁴Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

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The Harvest we address this morning is not one of peaches, pumpkins or parsnips

It is not the foods we crave: carrots, cantelopes or corn

The harvest we desire is somewhat more abstract, and its full impact has perhaps been lost in our contemporary settings

But it is one that requires of us discipline, the same kind of discipline required of farmers

An understanding of the whole process beginning to end

Diligent and timely participation on a daily schedule

Effort and skill in the production of produce

A sense of both timing and purpose

For the harvest we seek is that of the “peaceful fruit of righteousness”

Disciple can be thought of in three ways

A field of study: The discipline of history, of law, of medicine, of engineering etc.

In this sense, it is a body of knowledge derived from a particular way of studying

It requires personal invovlement (study!) and the guidance of teachers or mentor

It yeilds a subset of human knowledge that is both practical in that it brings progress or technology or deeper understanding to the field or inspires the next generation to enter that stream of “learning”

Punshishment: Though we discourage this sense it is often the most popular, even though it may be the least helpful

Discipline in our schools has become behavior management: dentention, suspension or dismissal

Discipline as punishment seems to focus more on the stopping bad behavior than creating good behavior; so misses opportunities and allows for “unintended consequences”

And, finally, discipline as a process for learning

Here we can begin to describe attitude and practice that leads purposefully toward a goal

The disciplined student reads the assignments, goes to classes, writes the papers, listens to teacher, respondes with appropriate questions and generally follows a path to discovery

Here the student engages his/her own imagination, utilizes his/her own intellectual skills and creates a schedule of time and intention and experiences for the accomplishment of the chosen goal

This morning we must remember: WE ARE DISCIPLES

We are the ones that are called to be engaged in learning about what God intends for us, and the manner in which we must live, practice our faith, so that God’s intentions may be fully present in the world where we live

The Harvest we seek through our discipline is the harvest of righteousness and peace

Righteousness is an Judeo/Christian term that means “right relationship” (IDB); it connotes a holy/sacred regard for each neighbor in response to each neighbor’s needs.

Righteousness is not a cookie cutter relationship, it is unique between each person and between each person and God

This is half our harvest

The other half is peace

And again, we tend to put too little into this term: it is not simple a calm feeling within an individual or the state of “no hostilities” between nations

Peace is God’s shalom: the condition/situation in which a consciousness of God’s presence so fills us with courage, compassion, and conviction that we are compelled to seek out and invite people into a relationship with God and into community with us

The author of Hebrews tells us that God is disciplining us

Like a father - here we see the ancient understanding of “father”: one who must be obeyed so, in this passage discipline is obedient behavior

But the “class room,” the learning environment, is one of hardship

We remember that as Hebrews was being written it was not an easy time for Xns: some were persecuted and fed to beasts, others burned for the recreational enjoyment of the Roman mobs

…and some just went back to their paga ways of sexual immorality, worshipping other God and disregarding their neighbors.

The author of Hebrews suggests that God allowed this kind of awful experience to be the conditions in which we (as disciples) learn to be faithful followers of Jesus, the Christ:

What a classroom!

What a teacher!

I think it is imperative that we remember that the church, the gathering of those wishing to be be disciplined, emerged and developed in the context of controversy and conflict

For we again live in a social environment hostile to the church

Not directly persecuted, an even worse enemy is now attacking: disengagement due to a lack of interest

This disengagement and lack of interest is due, in my humble opinion, to the lack of clarity as to the outcome, the product of the church

In the early days, and really up until the critique of the enlightenment, people feared for their immortals souls, the threat of hell was a very real one for most

But with the theological opinion that “a loving God will save everyone” and the disappearance of a world view that put hell as a physical place, a lake of fire in the middle of the earth the church became irrelevant

So what happen to church discipline? (it goes to hell)

Our early history talks about accountability and discipline

When people did not come to church, the church formed a visiting committee to go to them and discover the reason for their absence from the community and its worship(especially the Lord’s supper)

If no good reason was forth the people were dismissed from the church

In those days, parents were held accountable for the religious education of their children with a visit from the pastor to see how well that was being done

A lecture was held once a week for the learning of adults while worship was a participatory event

Disagreements and conflicts were worked out in the community/congregation with all present prayerfully, until a right solution was described and implemented

The harvest of church discipline was a church in which those outside could have visible evidence of the righteousness and holiness of the people within

Without some reclamation of such radical discipline the church will continue to decline and maybe even disappear

Soccer teams, marching bands, scout troops all seem to have better discipline that the church

But that might be because their outcomes, their harvests are simpler and much more pleasant to achieve:

they require less courage and less compassion

They require less valuing and engagement of wider social issues and focus more on the needs and wants of families whose values are shaped by our society.

Ultimately, God wants God’s harvest NOT JUST IN THE CHURCH, but in all of society, a planetary harvest of right relationship and shalom

Yes, I really believe that God wants to save the world, everyone on the planet, all creatures human and otherwise and be happy that all creature rise and sing praises to the Creator, while living justly and cooperatively together.

Ok, so that is a little daunting, but that is what is the church’s ultimate mission

And while a small church may not accomplish this all by itself, it is required to save what it can in its own neighborhood

HOW? By being disciplined…a discipline for the harvest

I have many times described the methodologies of discipline

Richard Foster has written the book “A Celebration…”

Prayer, study, solititude, worship, celebration, service all contribute; each is required practice on a daily basis

And we can tell, we can see if the discipline is there or not

If not, the church languishes

If it does, we learn through our challenges and we are successful and effective in creating right relationship and shalom

Part of the discipline God requires, is that we prioritize our time and efforts according to God’s outcomes!

That means deciding for the church and against other social involvements

…even family (Jesus was never shy about his claim being stronger than claim of family)

that means being in conflict with coaches, parents, children, band leaders, and other public agencies

For me personally, discipline is a schedule of personal efforts

I read and study the bible

I maintain a regular time of prayer and physical refreshment

I ponder and analyze theological issues

I engage a dialogue with other christians and religious

I worship in the community on a regular basis

I participate in both local and regional church efforts

I am not unique nor particularly gifted to do this (or because I’m the paid pastor): I do it because it is the discipline which is required

So, if we are this morning to respond to this lesson from Hebrews, we must reclaim the discipline that leads to harvest

“lift our drooping hands, strengthen our feeble knees and let’s get on that straight path towards God’ harvest: the peaceful fruit of righteousness

Lets demonstrate our good training and practice a discipline for the harvest!