Let us pray: Gracious and loving God, comfort, console, and strengthen us with these words today, that we might find your joy in the midst of our grief. Amen.
In this final chapter of Isaiah from today’s Old Testament reading, God calls a people who have been mourning to rejoice. The people of God are mourning the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the destruction and desecration of their temple, their occupation, and subsequent deportation and exile. During this time of unimaginable national agony, God is calling for rejoicing. What? Are we missing something here God?
One of the daily devotions I read comes from the Forward Movement, you may know them from the little “Forward Day by Day” booklets. They have an app for students and people who work with youth called “d365”. This week’s author Valerie Lott helped me understand what’s going on here. She says:
Isaiah 66 calls for rejoicing, celebration, and joy for the people who have just experienced great loss and hardship. So, it may seem hard to believe that scripture asks them to celebrate. But the verses do not ask the people to embody joy and celebration at the cost of ignoring or forgetting their hurting. The verses hold both things to be true: there can be joy and mourning, comfort and sorrow. The work God sends us out to do can be challenging, especially amidst a hurting, mourning, grieving world, and it may even feel irresponsible to have joy amidst the hurting. But God’s gift of joy can be a part of what we turn to for strength on our journey.
(Valerie Lott, https://d365.org/devotions/big-impact-sent-out-to-serve/ accessed on 6/27/22).
Strength on our journey. With everything that’s been going on in our world lately, and that continues to go on with no clear end in sight, today’s prophetic words from Isaiah about the power of joy and celebration in the midst of anger, pain, and suffering, hit home. In times of despair, it’s not as simple as, “Just believe!” Or, “Have faith!” Or, “Pray harder!” In fact, those sayings do more harm than good. As Episcopalians and Anglicans, we believe in God’s gift of our minds and the science of psychology to help us as we struggle through traumatic times. We mustn’t ignore, compartmentalize or make light of the very real distress and anxiety that many people in the United States and around the world are feeling right now. We know that it’s healthy to express our feelings, to name and claim them, to get angry, to grieve, and to lament injustices in our world today. And we are called to align ourselves, as Jesus did, with those who find themselves outside the power structures of society. These are the same groups of people that Jesus recognized, invited, healed, and restored.
Last week I celebrated my first baptism at our Spanish service, a joyous occasion. During the service we were all invited to renew our baptismal covenant and the questions and responses of our communal promises rang truer than ever:
¿Proclamarás por medio de la palabra y el ejemplo las Buenas Nuevas de Dios en Cristo? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Así lo haré, con el auxilio de Dios. I will, with God’s help.
¿Buscarás y servirás a Cristo en todas las personas, amando a tu prójimo como a ti mismo? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Así lo haré, con el auxilio de Dios. I will with God’s help.
¿Lucharás por la justicia y la paz entre todos los pueblos, y respetarás la dignidad de todo ser humano? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
Así lo haré, con el auxilio de Dios. I will, with God’s help.
This is what we are called to do in our world today. To seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love our neighbor as ourselves, ALL of our neighbors, to strive for peace and justice and to respect the dignity of every, EVERY human being. This important work that we do is never done alone. We do it in community and we do it with the help of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Today, I want to encourage you to grieve, WHATEVER and HOWEVER that looks like for you, your feelings are your feelings and they manifest themselves in MANY different ways in our bodies, minds, and spirits. Take time for that, recognize its effect on you and those around you. Bring those feeling to others in conversation, listen well and ask other to listen carefully to you. And then sit together in silence. Allowing space, allowing presence, dwelling in this experience. Bring those feelings to our loving God who knows and understands all of our emotions. Come together, like we are doing here today. This is how and what we are created for.
Our relational God, manifested in the Trinity— The Lover, The Beloved and Love itself— is the model and example of our interconnectedness.
We need to make our way through this life together, in community. And that’s what we do here at Saint Mary’s. We come together to sing, to praise, to hear and respond to God’s word, and to ask God to care for us and our hurting world. To ask for forgiveness for the evil that we have done, and the evil done on our behalf. And then we come to the table to be reminded that we are forgiven and restored, nourished, renewed, connected with Christ and one another.
Today, I invite you to find strength, hope, and encouragement in the words of God to the hurting people of Israel, and to envision and dwell in the joy that is ours as we give ourselves into God’s loving care.
Isaiah 66:10-14
Thus says the Lord:
"Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
all you who love her;
rejoice with her in joy,
all you who mourn over her--
that you may nurse and be satisfied
from her consoling breast;
that you may drink deeply with delight
from her glorious bosom.
For thus says the LORD:
I will extend prosperity to her like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm,
and dandled on her knees.
As a mother comforts her child,
so I will comfort you;
you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;
your bodies shall flourish like the grass;”
Wow! We don’t get very many images of our loving Mother God in our lectionary, but they ARE there! If we look, we can find more of them in the scriptures. Here is a lovely one for today. Rejoice and be glad! As a young child is fed, satisfied, and bonded to her mother in the most intimate way through breastfeeding, so God invites us into her care as we too yearn to be consoled, drawn and held ever so close. God promises prosperity like a river, good things like an overflowing stream from our Mother who will nurse us and carry us in her arms, propped up on her hip, bounced on her knee, safe and secure in her lap. As a Mother comforts her child, so will God comfort us. We will see, and our hearts will rejoice, and our bodies will flourish, shoot up and grow like the greenest of grass after Oregon rain and sun. People will see that our Mother God is with us, loving, feeding, caring for us during these toughest of times. Sweet!
Siblings in Christ, I pray that you may take these images of our loving parent God with you today. Yes, our grief is real, and so is our hope in the joy that God delights in us as beloved children.
I close today with this slightly amended blessing from Terry J. Stokes:
“May God console you; may God affirm you, may God shepherd you, may God delight you out of the inexhaustible stores of [Her] divine love and joy.” Amen.
Blessing from Terry J. Stokes, from “Benediction” in Prayers for the People: Things We Didn’t Know We Could Say to God (2021)
