(Preached on March 11, 2012)
Welcome to the 3rd Sunday
in Lent. We are exploring the songs that
Jesus read in Isaiah. In the first song
we heard the servant receive the challenge to bring justice to the ends of the earth and the shocking revelation that
he would do this by paying attention to the ‘bruised reeds’ and ‘smoldering
wicks.’ In the second song, we heard the
servant receive the challenge of reflecting God’s glory and bringing salvation to the ends of the earth and
that he would do this as a ‘sharpened sword’ and ‘polished arrow.’ This morning we come to the 3rd
song in which things take a little turn toward the violent. How is God calling the servant in this
song? What is the servant’s task and how
might this passage have influenced Jesus?
How will we let this passage influence us? Listen now for the word of the Lord.
Isaiah 50:4-9
4 The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. 5 The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back. 6 I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. 7 Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. 8 He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! 9 It is the Sovereign LORD who helps me. Who is he that will condemn me? They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up.
The way in…
“The
sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains
the weary.” Do you know anyone who
is weary? Do you know anyone who is
tired? Do you know a child who is weary
of going to school because they struggle so much to ‘get it’ or they struggle
so much to make friends? Do you know any
parents who are weary? Perhaps they work
long hours, they try to get their kids to school, try to get them in sports,
try to fix good meals day after day and they regularly feel weary. Do you know any folks who are weary with age,
their bones ache, their eyes grow tired quickly and what used to be a simple
walk now wears them out? Do you know
anyone who is weary? Yes, we know weary
people, but what do we read here in this opening verse? We read that there is a word to sustain the
weary; a word to sustain the weary.
Wouldn’t we love to know that word?
I spoke with a weary person on
Friday. She is elderly. She is mostly alone. She feels abandoned by some of her children
and her health is failing. I had some
words for her, they seemed to help a little, yet as will always be the case in
this human condition, none of my words magically changed her situation. If there was word that I could have spoken to
sustain her, I would like to know it.
Jesus and the weary
Jesus lived among a weary
people. He lived among a people who’d
been promised a land flowing with milk and honey, yet after 800 years in that
land it had more often flowed with swords and shields. For four times as long as this country has
been one, they had been occupied by a foreign power and no doubt they were
weary of this. They were also weary of
the poverty, weary of the struggle to pay their taxes, weary of the burdens
placed upon them that bore little fruit.
No doubt Jesus looked around and saw a weary people. What joy he must have felt when he read that
the servant, who by now he would likely have understood to be him, would know
the word that sustains the weary. What
was this word and where would he get it?
“He
wakens me morning by morning…”
Morning by morning? Why would he
need to get awakened each morning if this was just a word? Couldn’t the Sovereign LORD just whisper the
word to him and be done with it? What
was so difficult about this word that it needed to be taught morning after
morning after morning?
If given the chance our kids would
spend half their day on the computer.
There is no shortage of kids websites and videos that could occupy their
time. For this reason and others we
limit their time on-line. In a way this
makes them want to get on the computer even more. To control this, we put a password on the
computer and they have tried everything to figure it out. They started by just asking what it was,
casually as if we’d just forgotten to tell them. “Oh, hey, mom and dad, what is that password
to the computer, I forgot…” When this
didn’t work they moved into detective mode and began to try and guess it. I heard Will telling Janie that they’d just
start going through all the words they knew until they found it. I don’t think they’ve gotten out of the A’s
yet. Next, they moved into deceit. I found a note card next to the computer
which read, “Ken, I’ve forgotten the password to the computer. Just write it on the back of this card and
leave it on the desk. Love, Erin.” I wrote, “NiceTry” and flipped it over. Who knows what tactic will come next. But what is evident is that my kids
desperately want to know that word that unlocks the internet. Its just one word, perhaps with a capital
letter or number to make it more secure, but a word nonetheless. If they only knew it… the world would be
opened to them… If only we knew that word.
Sometimes we treat the search for
‘the word that sustains the weary’ like this don’t we? And there are no shortage of voices out there
trying to tell us that they know what it is.
Do you remember the ad where the mother is in the kitchen, dishes piled
a mile high, laundry overflowing and her three kids are fighting and spilling
their dinner. She looks at the camera
and says the magic word, “Calgone, take me away.” More recently there are the ads that show the
office worker falling asleep at his desk in the afternoon when the voice comes
on and says, “Tired in the late afternoon?
Try 5 hour energy.” The world of
marketing knows we live in world of weary people and they will try to convince
you that they know the word that will sustain you; it comes in a bath, a pill,
a bottle, a car or a vacation. Just buy
us it says and you’ll no longer be weary.
And they are right, it works, for a little while until the bath is over,
the caffeine wears off or the new car smell is gone. And then you’re back where you started,
weary.
Maybe this word that sustains the
weary is more than a password or pill or magical incantation. “He
wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.” For some reason this word takes time to
teach. It sounds more like a language
than a word. It is as if the servant
gets up every morning to learn this new language. The servant says he has, ‘…opened my ears and I have not been rebellious, I have not drawn
back.’ Curious. Why would the servant be rebellious? Why would the servant draw back? Schools cool right? Learning is fun. Well, it isn’t always fun, in fact, it is
often very painful. Now, I learned
German in college and it was painful to learn, but not nearly as painful as
this word was for the servant.
Tragic turn
“I
have offered my back to those who beat me, my cheek to those who pulled out my
beard, I have not turned my face from mocking and spitting…” Back beaten? Beard pulled?
Face mocked and spit upon? What
kind of school is this? Is this some
fraternity initiation? Is this some
military boot camp? What is the
Sovereign Lord doing here?
Perhaps this training was not a part
of the class and instead was a part of the reality the servant faced. In Matthew 23 Jesus looks at the holy city
and says, “O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you
who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you…” In his confrontation of the Pharisees Jesus
reminded them that ‘God sent prophets and
apostles, some of them you will kill and others you will persecute.’ (Luke 11:49) Ug,
who knew giving a word to the weary could be so dangerous. What must Jesus have thought when he read
this? How could anyone endure such
abuse? Why would anyone be willing to
accept it?
How can he endure?
“Because
the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced…” Have you ever been beaten? To have ones beard pulled out was not only
painful but humiliating. And even more
than that, to be spit upon was and remains a sign of ultimate humiliation. How could someone endure these things? Everyone else may be against him, but as
long as the servant knew one person was on his side, he could endure. In fact, he would not just endure, he would
thrive. “I have set my face like flint and I know I will not be put to shame.” Flint
is the hardest of rocks. For one to set
his face like this was to be resolute, determined and unwavering. Flint
is the opposite of weary. Flint is determined. Flint
is steady. Flint is unwavering. Flint
is not the word that sustains the weary, it is the appearance of one who is no
longer weary. Have you ever seen someone
set their face like flint? I think of
Michael Jordan when his team is down by 10 in the fourth quarter and his face
changes to say, “we will NOT lose.”
A face like flint
In the passage Cami read what
happened? “Listen carefully,’ Jesus tells his disciples. Is he about to give them the word? “The
Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” What the disciples must have thought, this
doesn’t sound like a word that sustains the weary. This sounds like suffering. And they did not understand. This showed in their argument about who was
the greatest. This showed in their
response to the Samaritan opposition.
When the village rejected them, they asked to call down fire upon it. And then we read in the 51st verse,
“As the time approached for him to be
taken up into heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” I’m not a fan of this translation. In the NRSV it reads, “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The same word used here is the one used in
Isaiah. Jesus set his face. He was now like flint, determined,
unwavering, set.
Examples of faces like flint (Nashville soda shop)
There are weary individuals and
there are weary people. The Jews were a
weary people, the Samaritans, Native Americans are weary people and our
African-American brothers and sisters have been a weary people. But they heard the word that sustains the
weary and many of them set their faces like flint. Watch and listen for echos of the suffering
servant.
34:30 –
38:00 [We watched a clip from the documentary A Force More Powerful which revealed how students in Nashville led by Rev. James Lawson integrated downtown lunch counters despite and perhaps because they set their faces like flint in the midst of mocking and beating]
“I
offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my
beard, I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” Few places offer a more clear imitation of
the ethic of Jesus and the suffering servant as the civil rights response to
violence. How? How could they endure? “Because
the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced, I have set my face like
flint and I will not be put to shame.”
Word is a way, a community and a
person
The word that sustains the weary is
not just a word. What we witness in the
gospels as well as the Civil Rights movement is that the word is a way. These folks were taught a way to respond to
violence, not with more violence but with love.
They learned this way, day by day, morning by morning. Not only was the word a way, it was also a
community. When one was arrested,
another filled their spot. They endured
because the person next to them endured.
United they stood, divided they would fall. The word was a way, the word was a community
but underneath and behind all of this was a part this video only alludes to. This way was taught and this community formed
in the basement of a little Methodist church in Nashville.
It was taught in a place by people who knew that the Word was also a
person. “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced, I have
set my face like flint…”
The way out…
Brothers
and sisters, the word that sustains the weary is not just a word, it is not
even just a book of words, it is not just a name. It is a person. Will you allow this person to waken you
morning by morning? Will you open you
listen like one being taught? Will you
open your ears? Will we trust the Word
so much that we are even willing to endure suffering? Because the Sovereign Lord helps us we will
not be put to shame…may our faces become like flint.
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