NOTICE TO ON-DEMAND WORSHIPPERS
In order to expedite posting the worship services here on our website, we are reducing the transcript to just the scriptures used and the message. Holy Communion is offered every Sunday. If you are worshipping with us online whether during the live-cast or through on-demand viewing, you are encouraged to have bread and juice or wine available as you watch the service and to participate in communion just as if you are present with us.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
God, open us to hear and receive your scriptures today as you would have us hear them, understand them as you would have us understand them, and to act upon them as you would have us act upon them.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
*Scriptures this morning are from the NRSV.
Isaiah 2:1-5
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
Psalm 122
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, built as a city that is bound firmly together.
To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.
Romans 13:11-14
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Matthew 24:36-44
“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.
Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
L: The scriptures of God for the people of God.
A: Thanks be to God.
Message – Aint No Mountain High Enough (1st Sunday of Advent)
Rev. Val
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer, and may you see fit to use me as a vessel from which you pour out your Divine Word.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
For almost fifteen hundred years, the people of Israel lived in anticipation. Freed from slavery in Egypt, they spent 40 years wandering the desert, anticipating – not always patiently, the Promised Land – the land of milk and honey and abundance where they would become a great nation. In the greater timeline of earth, those 1500 years were a blink of the eye and it took them less than half a blink to begin to mess up. Their great kingdom divided – Israel to the north and Judah to the south. That seems to be the way kingdoms go, doesn’t it – that North vs. South thing? North Korea vs. South Korea. China to the north of Japan and Taiwan. Russia to the north of Ukraine. Even here in this country, we divided – north versus south. And today, while the north and south are not warring with each other, the ghosts of their ideologies are rising up and dividing us once again and, this time, partnering with religious ideology that is more interested in power than God. But … let’s get back to our scriptures and Isaiah’s story as Rev. Dr. Derek Weber tells it.
About halfway through those 1500 years, God called Isaiah to be a prophet to the people of the southern kingdom of Judah. Isaiah was not the normal, run-of-the-mill prophet. Not the backwoods, wild-eyed, messy-haired, bad teeth prophet of the street corners, holding up cardboard signs scrawled with illegible doom. Not Isaiah; he was as corporate as prophets get. And as much an insider as any of them. He had an office down the hall from the king’s. He had a secretary who took his notes and typed them up for the press release. At least at first. At least before the whole house of cards fell.
Isaiah didn’t spout a party line; he wasn’t a mouthpiece for the king. It’s kind of amazing that he was able to keep his job as long as he did, given that more often than not he had bad news to share, fingers to point, doom to pronounce. Maybe those in power considered him a lightning rod. As long as he was there giving warnings and calling them to a higher standard, then nothing bad would actually happen. It makes you wonder if anyone listened to him. Or whether they just shook his hand each week and said, “Nice sermon, Pastor Isaiah,” and went about their business. And he had to bite his tongue every now and then so as not to say, “Weren’t you listening?” It was a messy time. And then it got worse. When doom fell; when the enemies swept through; when the country crashed around their ears, and they were left in burning rubble or carried away to a foreign land where they were sure even God had abandoned them.
Ok, Rev. Dr. Weber got a little ahead of us there. That last part hasn’t happened here in chapter 2. At this point in Isaiah’s story, it’s all palace intrigue; it is ringing the bell to call the powers-that-be back to the Power-That-Is. Now it is warnings and worries and the day-to-day tedium of running a nation. And still, Isaiah manages to see something more. “The Word that Isaiah . . . saw.” What did he see? The mountain of the Lord’s house. An odd configuration, to be sure. But there it was rising above every other mountain, every other house. Not to lord it over, but to invite the world. The world. The whole world. Not to conquer, but to teach. To dispense wisdom. And what will be taught by God’s people? Peace. The end of war and that calamity that tears the very fabric of existence. The house of the Lord, the people of God, will teach peace. And farming, apparently. Well, if you aren’t going to kill them, you need to learn to feed them.
Isaiah could see all that. He could see the hope, the Word at work, even when the not-word was all around him. Even in the corridors of power that seemed hellbent on making things worse rather than better. Even as the people went merrily down the path that led them to destruction, Isaiah saw the Word. He saw another way, another hope. It seems to me that the call of Advent is not to proclaim doom, but to see hope, to see possibilities, even when no one else can see them. We are called to not give up on hope and to walk in the light of the Lord. Walk by the light we see in hope; move toward the kind of world God has in store; work for what makes for peace—even while we work to repair what is broken.
Maybe the gladness can return here as Advent begins to take over again. Maybe what we can remember is that we gather not for an empty ritual that doesn’t make any difference in the world or in our lives, not really. But what we go to the house of the Lord to do is to learn peace. And to learn how to live peace. And how to teach peace. We are being made into disciples – disciples who make disciples – of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. That is the Advent proclamation. We’re transforming the world. The whole world.
We are gathering in the Lord’s house to restore our mission, to restore our hearts, to restore our gladness. I was glad; we were glad; let’s be glad up to restoration.
Rev. Dr. Weber is a great storyteller, don’t you agree? But how do we apply all that to our time, our place in this world that’s settling more and more into three parts – one part of humanity striving to conquer and control and conform everyone, one part striving to liberate it, and the third part caught in between the other two waiting and hoping? Expecting … anticipating … what?
Isaiah saw … saw the coming of the Word into the world, the Word made flesh, Emanuel, God with Us. Isaiah didn’t just see a baby being born, though. He saw much more. He saw what that baby would grow up to do. To not just teach us how to live in peace, but how to teach others peace as well. To set us on the path that would, could, will transform the world.
That part of humanity caught in between the other two parts is anticipating … wondering which of those other two parts will win, but mostly praying for peace, for relief, for a savior they’ve either forgotten, given up on, or never known.
But … we know the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy. We know the Word Isaiah saw. And here’s something else we know. We know that the God of the Mountain is the God in the valley, too. We know what God is like, that God is love and forgiveness because we know that Jesus was God with Us, God in the flesh. And we know from everything he taught us while he was here with us and from what he did for us on the cross that there is no mountain high enough, no valley deep enough, no river wide enough to keep us from His grace, His mercy, His unconditional, all inclusive love.
And now we must become Isaiah, reminding all far and near that He is coming. We must do as Paul told the Romans in his letter to them, and put on the Lord … be his hands and feet, let everyone we meet see Christ in us.
And, from experience, I want to tell you that I know how hard it can be. I know what it’s like to stand opposite people who’ve been convinced to hate you without ever knowing you. I know what it’s like to stand opposite people who were so consumed by hate they do their best to emulate followers of Hitler … literally … and not the SS or KGB … just conscripted foot soldiers.
But I know that, if we draw on what Jesus taught us and remember we are God’s children, we can and will defeat and drive hate out of our communities, even the world. And we know that God loves those five men every bit as much as God loves those who were legitimately attending the event and standing in counter-protest. That makes it a little bit easier to do knowing that.
Before we finish up, I want to share one more person’s writing with you. The following is shared with permission of the author, Flamy Grant who wrote, “A quick word, and my last on the matter for a minute… I’ve got a tour to finish getting ready for! Can’t wait to see all of you in the Bible Belt!
When I spend time engaging with religious fundamentalists (I know — I promise I don’t do it often), I’m usually left hopeless at our inability to communicate.
I can anticipate their every argument, every verse they’re going to quote, every platitude in their arsenal that reinforces their rightness and dismisses my whole being — my entire lived experience, intuition, spirit and spirituality and spiritual practice, and the work I’ve done.
The distance between us is so massive. It can’t be crossed intellectually or emotionally on the internet, or even when meeting in person. There’s no actual exchange, no true listening, not an atom of openness.
When they say “love the sinner, hate the sin,” I can’t take them on my decades-long journey to better understand love. I can’t show how they’ve misunderstood and mislabeled love. We don’t have time to go through the work of bell hooks.
When they say “the Bible is clear,” I can’t walk them through my lifelong journey with a sacred text, all the exegesis done by scholars who helped me see things in new light, the danger and smallness of a literal and unadaptable reading of ancient words never intended for them.
I can’t help them stop spiritual bypassing, I can’t sit down with them and listen to the hours and days of music and podcasts that healed me, I can’t take them on a journey of inner child work or introduce them to a therapist.
I can’t convince them that I am healed rather than haunted or depraved or reprobate.
And I can’t heal them.
The vast majority of them will leave our interaction even more stubbornly insistent that they have all the answers. Even less empathetic than they arrived. Even less likely to listen to the next person who challenges their hate and arrogance.
I’ve argued and pleaded with and debated in every format, on every platform, to every tune I can think of over the years. One thing has been almost universally constant in these interactions:
Their faith is actually fear, and it turns them mean, callous, and cold.
***It’s the kindness for me.***
When I reflect on the moments where I expanded, grew, evolved, and transcended, they always happened in a cocoon of kindness, whether it was a kindness I gave to myself or one extended to me from a fellow traveler.
I didn’t have the bird’s eye view. There was no single compelling argument that changed my mind. I was never Saul on the road to Damascus. But my moments of miniature transformation are bookended by kindness.
I am learning — so, so slowly learning — that perhaps the most effective tool I possess is an ability to resist the bait, to not overexplain, to not engage with the arguments and platitudes and Bible verses.
And to instead offer a gesture of kindness.
Just a moment to let them know they are seen. That their own deeply internalized pain matters. A gentle acknowledgment of their dignity, even as they behave in the most undignified of ways.
It doesn’t mean I can’t fight when I’m called to. At the ballots, of course. In defense of a specific individual or group of people, of course. Courage… of course.
And kindness. I know that’s its own platitude. But unlike “love the sinner, hate the sin,” this one gets results.
It takes all kinds, and we might find ourselves in any of these roles at any given moment: the fiery confrontations in the public square, the activists at the march, the policy writers, the nurturers tending to our wounded, the parents, the teachers, the documenters, the artists.
I think there’s a place for kindness in all of it. I’m in pursuit of that. I want to be more kind.
It won’t change their mind in the moment. We still probably won’t communicate very well.
But it might remind them that they are human. And more importantly: that we are, too.
And all God’s children said, Amen.
Credits:
- Unless listed below, all works cited within the text above.
- *Adapted in part or full from Preaching Notes, Discipleship Ministries Worship Planning Series.
Copyright Disclaimer: Under §107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for educational purposes. No copyright infringement is intended. All rights belong to their respective owners.
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