Sermon

Michael Lehman
“Here is Your God”
Isaiah 35
Preached at Eastwood Christian Church
7.13.2008
Written and Inspired by the Border Trip, Vanderbilt Divinity School, May 18-25, 2008.

Isaiah 35 (NRSV): The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

(Rattle chains for 15 seconds and continue through second page). Whatever words were spoken in that cold federal courtroom on that hot day in Tucson, Arizona, were accompanied by the persistent sound of chains. Proceedings of Operation Streamline were going on as normal as 70 Mexican and Central American men and women waited to stand before a judge; 70 of the 300 or so migrants that were caught by Border Patrol just a couple days before; 70 of the 300 or so that were not immediately sent back home, but would spend 30 or 60 days in an overcrowded “holding cell”. They would stand 5 at a time in front of the judge to plead guilty to the charge of illegal crossing over the U.S./Mexico Border.

We awaited the start of the court session with the persistent sound of chains like a soundtrack accompanying the sad movie our eyes were watching and filming. The migrants, mostly men, sat closely together. Their weak hands were shackled, their knees feeble from the days and weeks they had been walking in the desert wildernesses of Sonora, Mexico and the Tucson Sector of Arizona, and just below their knees, were their shackled feet. They wore shoes with no laces because the Border Patrol took them when they were caught…as a means of intimidation.

Just a couple of hours off of the plane from Nashville, me and twenty two other students and professors witnessed a group of people whose brown skin, “funny” accents, and willingness to do jobs most Americans refuse, have made them the target of racist hate in this country. We witnessed men and women, faces wrought with distress, faces sweaty and telling tales of desperation and despair from the dry lands, the dust of hopelessness and helplessness still covering their brows and lace-less boots, faces that told tales without words; until of course it was their time to speak their case. While most pleaded guilty and accepted their prison sentences without comment, others opted to tell their stories. For some, this was there 2^nd time, 3^rd or 4^th time crossing the border. “My family is starving to death.” “There is no work in my country.” “I have waited 8 years for a visa to see my parents and I can wait no longer.” “I need to get to Colorado. I haven’t seen my children in 4 years.” “I need work.” “There is no work in my country and I need to send money home.” “I was starving to death in my pueblo.” “My family is starving to death.” “My family is starving to death.” “My family is starving to death.” And so the stories went on.

I could not help but watch a man the entire time who sat in a juror’s chair. His heart was fearful of the future, his face in distress and filled with tears for the duration of the two and a half hour trial. He wept bitterly. What was he thinking about as he pondered his release? “Should I go back home? Should I try and cross again? Will my family still be alive? How can I go back home with nothing? This was my last hope. Is there any good news left for me to believe in?” (Stop chains).

Millions upon millions of peoples from Mexico down through Central America are in an upheaval. Political, social and economic chaos, government and police corruption literally force hundreds of thousands of migrants north to the U.S. border every year. Border fences that have gone up in Texas and California because of the increased enforcement by the U.S. government beginning in 1994 have funneled the many desperate migrants into one of the harshest and deadliest parts of our country; the Sonora Desert in Arizona. Many leave their impoverished homes and families as a final resort to find work and money that their families might survive, but only to find survival themselves difficult at best. If they’re lucky enough to make it through Mexico and Mexican immigration, if they’re lucky enough to survive the estimated 5,000 Salvadorian gangs which seek after Central American migrants to rob, rape and kill them, then they make it to the Sonora Desert where they will likely seek out and pay a coyote or guide to smuggle and lead them north over the border. Once in the desert, they are often abandoned and robbed by the guides they once trusted with their lives and face up to 125 degree temperatures. The desert is unforgiving. It is dry and hot. There is no water but the occasional station that Rev. Robin Hoover and Humane Borders have set up for migrants. The sand is burning and snakes, jaguars and other ravenous beasts are real threats. Dehydration, starvation, heat stroke and death are likely if migrants are not first captured. Hundreds of bodies are being discovered dead in our soil every year. A bitter reality it is. A horrendous captivity and last resort; to face a most certain death for the chance that those they love could be saved; a people who cannot return home the same.

A similar upheaval surrounds the people of Israel in our verses today from the 35^th chapter of Isaiah. A people sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep as they have endured decades of captivity under foreign rule. Their way of life vanished from them some decades ago as they were led away from Jerusalem and their Temple was destroyed. God’s very dwelling place was no more, as well as the faith of many in a God who promised to forever protect God’s people. Many of those who were first captured and who could tell of the glory of the Holy City and of the destruction that had been brought upon it as they were led away, were now dead and those that had been born in captivity only had the stories of their parents to offer them a glimpse as to what it was like to live in Jerusalem, in peace and prosperity, and to be a people of God, a God who dwelt in the midst of the city. Would redemption ever come? Would God save the people again? Would their sorrow flee away? Would they make it home again, a place they had only heard about, maybe dreamt about, but had never seen? The prophet Isaiah answers, “yes”, but they could never be the same.

“God will come and save you”, exclaims the prophet Isaiah as he paints a picture as to what life will soon be with flourishes of color mixed with bright tones and hues of good news. So joyous is this news in fact that the land itself will rejoice. “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” The land that had once devoured them and killed them shall break forth with water! “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees,” he exhorts, “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God!” The time of captivity is coming to an end. The time of sorrow and sighing will soon flee away and the time of joy and gladness will soon arrive. The time of captivity in a foreign land is over and the return to the Promised Land will soon begin. So great is this deliverance of God that the very natural order of the world will be reversed and the impossible will be the very possible. “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.”

The people begin to see their Lord coming, feel the hot sand begin to cool beneath their feet, taste that cool water they will drink on the way back to the Holy City, see that highway begin to form, that Holy Way open up with gladness to receive them, the ransomed and redeemed of the Lord. (pause) But… they continue to sit; they continue to experience their captivity, pain, and sorrow. Day after day, week after week, perhaps even month after month, life as usual goes on around them. And the good news they received from Isaiah is but a distant voice that occasionally haunts their minds, but really only brings them more doubt than faith that their God was still the God of Abraham who promised to bless all of his descendents, the God of Miriam who after bringing the Hebrews through the Red Sea gave her a joyous song of God’s faithfulness, the God of Moses who brought liberation and freedom to a nation in slavery, a God who provided water from the rock in the desert wilderness after the Exodus and a God who provided bread from heaven when the people still complained. They had more doubt than faith in their God who promised they would inherit the Land forever, the God of Esther who saved the Israelites from destruction, and the God who consistently desired to and saved God’s people when they were headed for death. Their God had been about the business of liberation and salvation but that was not the God they knew anymore. For even a prophet of God and his joyous words that brought hope to so many had not happened. And so this good news sounds to them utterly foolish. Can’t you hear them say…“If our return to the Promised Land won’t happen, how will the very order of things be reversed?” “How can we believe it?”

And so it is with us today when we hear and say again and again, week after week, that God is a good God, a God love and mercy and salvation. We may hear it but we may often fail to believe it when hearing it from our own wildernesses, our own deserts of dried-up lands of bad situations or habits, broken or failed relationships, or loss of passion for life. When meaning has been lost in those things and people that we once loved, that we once believed in and trusted, when our jobs cause us stress that affect how we treat people around us including our families, when uncertainty about our futures makes our paths unclear and scary, when people have deeply hurt us and forgiveness still looms in the air un-grasped, and when God could not seem farer away to us while we suffer and experience pain and heartache, ultimately bring us doubt and confusion, not faith and hope. And even to hear someone say that God is good, that God cares for us with mercy, grace and love, could not seem harder to take.

You’re not alone. Israel felt this when everything they knew was taken away from them. I feel it when I think about what Alzheimer’s disease is doing to my Nana and Grandpa. The migrants feel it when the only chance for their families’ survival puts them face to face with a desert ready to swallow them. And even Jesus felt it when he spent 40 days in the wilderness, tempted and without food, and a man of sorrows who took the weight of the world’s sin on his shoulders as he cried out, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” So from the desert, the good news will sound foolish to our ears…until we begin to believe that God longs to save us; redeem us from the chains of hopelessness and complacency and calm our fearful hearts and lift us up out of our wastelands.

We must realize that from our deserts we will always return home. While were in the midst of the dry lands this is indeed hard to remember, especially when relief never seems to come and we can’t take it any longer. But it is our nature to be inwardly focused. We want to sit often and wallow in our sorrows. We all do it to a certain extent and for different reasons. But it is always up to us how we will deal with pain and suffering and where we will look to find a highway out that leads home. It is not beneficial for anyone to ask why suffering, pain and evil exist in the world and why they affect us or affect me. But it is beneficial to ask how we are going to better learn about ourselves because of them and then go on living because they have happened to us and will happen to us again. So many beautiful books are written because people have experienced hardship and suffering. And it is often when those people see the importance of their struggling that they are forever changed and come out of their storms and return home a different person. It is often in difficult experiences and circumstances that people emerge with a new passion to love and serve the world. We find our callings and purposes when we are caused to believe that we can’t do it on our own that we need others and others need us. And ultimately they should lead us to deep longings to dwell with those who suffer, not only whose pain we have shared, but to those like Hispanic migrants whose situations we can’t even begin to imagine for ourselves.

As Christians we long to dwell and minister to those that suffer because we worship a God who knows what it is to suffer with us. When we say the word Emmanuel or “God with us,” usually only around Christmas time, we hardly, if ever, realize how radical a statement that is. That God came to be one us, to suffer with us, and to die with us; there is no greater expression of humility and love. Because when we hurt, when we suffer, when we witness our brothers and sisters in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, America and all over the world suffer from injustice and inhumane treatment, our God knows what it is to feel all of it. God loves us because God came to us in a Lord, a Savior, a Teacher, a Liberator, and a Friend to show us the very character of God. And so compassion and love must make up our hearts as followers of Christ. We must be bold to have the good news on the tips of our tongues and be bold to proclaim that our God is good, that our God longs to save us from the deserts that dry us up and that keep us from being led daily by God’s Spirit that dwells within us. God longs to save us from all that we do, directly or indirectly, that hurt our fellow children of God, by our actions or our inactions. God has given us the grace and the strength to believe that life is possible for all because death was defeated once and for all. God longs for us to come alive and take risks for God’s sake because we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Friends, let us look with compassion at our world and in so doing may we find ourselves and what it means to be human. May we take time to learn about programs and organizations like Strangers No Longer and the Tennessee Immigrants’ Rights Coalition in our own city that are helping the thousands of Hispanic immigrants seeking a new life here. Let us look to others suffering from injustice with mercy and love. That we protest unjust laws in this country which ignore the fact that there is a humanitarian crisis happening on our Southern borders right now and that people are dying daily because they have no other hope. Let us look with the eyes of Christ to the laws which rip families apart without warning and the imaginary political line coupled with incompetent bureaucracy that keeps them separated for more than a decade. And when were tempted to bow down to the idol throne of government above the throne of God whom we worship, may we be stopped in our tracks! For the migrants cannot go home the same, for if they do, their families will die.

Will we as a nation, a nation of immigrants ourselves, take the words seriously which are etched into our very symbol of liberty when she says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door?” And even more so, will we remember as Christians Jesus’ words that “if you welcome stranger, you welcome me?” Will we remember that by showing hospitality to strangers, “some have entertained angels without knowing it?” Will we say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God!” And we will take seriously the honor and responsibility to be called Christ’s body on earth and say with our Savior, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yolk upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Do you believe the Good News? Amen.