"God's Vision" - Isaiah 58:6-14
August 21, 2022
Psalm 103:1-8 // Isaiah 58:6-14
God’s Vision
Kate Fiedler
This week, Frederick Buechner—writer, preacher, theologian, and teacher—died at age 96 at his home in Vermont. He published 39 books—novels, memoirs, collections of sermons, historical fiction, and theological essays—influencing the faith of countless seekers and preachers searching for insight into how faith and life connect. As Buechner wrote about the events of his life and the holiness of God, he urged his readers to pay attention, to look for grace, and to trust God. In his memoir, The Eyes of the Heart, he shares one time on a hike when paying attention led to grace and trust.
[H]e and his wife were visiting their grown daughter and her children [in Switzerland.] On a family hike in the Alps, they came across a picturesque cowshed, where a previous visitor had scrawled something. Mr. Buechner took a closer look at the graffiti, wondering if it would be ''a Swiss version of the crudities'' one sees in the United States.
But instead, the words declared (in German), 'God is love and life,' a phrase that seemed, he writes, as 'serene and transcendent as the snow-capped mountains.'
Buechner continues…‘Trust what? Trust that it is worth scratching on the wall that God is love and life because, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, it may just be true. Trust that if God is anywhere, God is here, which means there is no telling where God may turn up next -- around what sudden bend of the path if you happen to have your eyes and ears open, your wits about you, in what odd small moments, almost too foolish to tell.’[1]
Buechner wove his writing about God with beauty and honesty, encouraging the faithful and the skeptics to watch out for God’s grace. He will be missed. His understanding of vocation is often quoted: “[t]he place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” Buechner did not shy away from the deep hungers and pain of the world. Yet, Buechner observed how God’s love and grace are often known through the complexities and challenges of life. Through his sermons and writing, he calls us to pay attention to the gladness and hungers of our lives and the world.
Today our texts from the Old Testament call us to pay attention to the gladness and hungers of our lives as well. In the opening verses of Psalm 103, Sally read how the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The faithful are called to bless the Lord, for God will forgive our shortcomings, heal our diseases, and work for justice for the oppressed. God will meet such hungers with love and mercy. We bless the name of the Lord with gratitude for the promise that God is present and will provide what we need. We praise God because we trust God’s care and compassion.
Our passage from Isaiah calls us to pay attention to God with a different lens. Isaiah describes the hungers and pain of our lives, and he calls us to respond with the same love and justice of God. Speaking on behalf of the Divine, Isaiah declares what God wants from us—not empty words or going through the motions, but compassion for our neighbors and honest worship of God. Listen now to these verses from the 58th chapter of Isaiah, one of the most quoted and beloved because it states God’s vision so clearly:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and God will say, “Here I am.”
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
13 If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests or pursuing your own affairs;
14 then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Isaiah calls the faithful to pay attention to how they serve each other and how they worship God. The prophet offers a glimpse of God’s vision for what is possible, for how life in community could be with service and Sabbath as the foundations of living. Isaiah makes God’s expectations clear: God wants the people to take care of one another and to take care of keeping the Sabbath different from their everyday business. God is not impressed with empty worship and rituals that do not lead to love and justice. God’s vision for the community includes continual guidance, strength and vitality, and sustenance in the parched places. Remember, his passage is from what scholars identify as Third Isaiah. God is speaking to a people who are returning home from exile. Isaiah is instructing the people how to be imagine what is possible after years of oppression and loss. Imagine what it would sound like for our Ukrainian neighbors to hear that God will remove their yoke, ancient ruins will be rebuilt, the needs of the afflicted will be cared for, and there will be food for the hungry. Isaiah is telling the people who have been oppressed and exiled from their home and their place of worship that God will satisfy their needs and they will restore the breach. It’s as if Isaiah is offering the people a virtual reality headset to see the world through God’s love and tender care instead of the despair before them.
God’s vision becomes a reality through the work of the people in two ways: by serving those in need and by serving God by honoring the Sabbath. Serve, rest, repeat. This sounds familiar to us, when we remember that Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And [to] love your neighbor as yourself.” God instructs the people to do the same. We honor God by keeping the Sabbath, by setting time apart for rest and worship, for serving God and not our own agendas and schedules. We honor God by serving our neighbors, sharing our bread, clothing, speaking up for justice, and working to keep the streets we live in safe. Through the prophet, God gives us a roadmap of how to live into God’s vision of good health and harmony. Through service and sabbath-keeping, we too are able to delight in the Lord. Isaiah calls us to the cycle of serve, rest, repeat as a way to keep our focus on God’s vision instead of mired in the mess.
Our common call as a church family is to do our part to make God’s vision a reality. One way we are restoring the streets of the city is by supporting a new art project at Richmond Hill, called Transcending Walls. Last fall we heard from Hamilton Glass and the Mending Walls project, how public murals around the city are inspiriting conversations and building a common vision of what is possible. Richmond Hill is partnering with Mending Walls to transform the 500-foot wall on the south side of the property, using local artists and community members to “build empathy and connection across the walls that divide us. Throughout the process, [the] aim is to transcend walls that are physical, social, personal, and systemic.”[2] Funds from the Al Winn Mission Endowment were given to Richmond Hill in support of the project, and we will be invited to help the artists paint. We are invited to work with local artists in a public space to share messages of hope and connection. You may not think of yourself as an artist, and yet, I encourage you to take a chance and help paint this wall as part of a sacred space in our city that is adding art to add a message of hope. Joining the Transcending Walls project is one more way, like Walk In, and showers, like volunteering at Chimborazo Elementary and at Caritas, adding color and art to the walls of this city is one more way we as a church family are answering the call to serve and be repairers of the breach. When we focus our hearts on serving others, we hold on to the hope of God’s vision. Light breaks forth and our community becomes more tightly knit together. We at Second are invited to respond with service and to hold on to the hope of God’s vision.
Buechner writes about hope and grace in his second memoir, Now and Then, this way:
[If] I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.[3]
Life itself is grace. Jesus echoes this teaching to listen to our life by loving God and loving our neighbors. Isaiah reiterates that we are called to listen to our lives by repairing the breach, serving our neighbors, and honoring God by honoring the Sabbath. Life itself is grace when we love God and love our neighbors. Life itself is grace when we work for justice and practice the Sabbath. Isaiah guides us to understand where our gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet: by sharing our bread, by restoring the streets, by honoring God in Sabbath moments. We are all called to serve our neighbors and honor God. It’s exciting and comforting that we are called to use our own sparkle and talent to do so. God is love and life when we follow the call to serve and worship.
So, Beloved of God, as you go about your day and begin a new week, remember to rest, remember to serve. Remember that God is love and God is life. God’s light breaks forth, even now. May our lives reflect the light and love of God with unearned grace and boundless love. The call is clear: rest, serve, repeat. We do so together, unified by grace and hope.
[1] Niebuhr, Gustav. “Religion Journal; Author-Minister Advocates a Life Off Autopilot.” The New York Times. January 15. 2000. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/us/religion-journal-author-minister-advocates-a-life-off-autopilot.html
[2] Mending Walls, RVA: What’s New https://www.mendingwallsrva.com/
[3] Buechner Themes: Hope Through Grace: https://www.frederickbuechner.com/hope-through-grace