Things Change.

Isaiah 1-12

Antonio Balestra, Prophet Isaiah 18th Century (PD)

Sitting in my first systematic theology class one afternoon, my professor posed a remarkably simple question to my classmates and me. 

Does God suffer?

Throughout seminary, there are a number of questions that can divide a classroom, but rarely do you find a question free of devil’s advocates and soapbox know-it-alls. 

That is the beauty of this question.

It starts so innocently. 

Does God suffer?

Of course, nine times out of ten you will find the same answer agreed upon. 

Yes, God does most certainly suffer!

It is apparent in the stories of the Bible, especially in the Christian narrative in which God suffers and dies on the cross as Jesus Christ. 

But this question is the little thread that unravels the whole theological Christmas sweater as we move into Advent. 

Because the term to suffer by its very definition implicitly means TO CHANGE. 

And at first glimpse, this isn’t such a bad thing until we consider what other problems this causes. 

Because a God that suffers and changes, means that God may not necessarily be immutable, consistent, reliable, dependable, and worst of all; 

God could very well be… unpredictable. 

That is a God who exists beyond our need for safety and for control. 

Putting it all in God’s hands is no longer an option, because we would have to redefine what it means to “trust” in a God that may be just as unpredictable as a human being. 

It usually takes less than 120 seconds to throw a seminary classroom into complete disarray after tossing that theological molotov cocktail in the middle of a conversation. 

I enjoyed the experience so much that I threw my own crisis of faith hand grenade when I transferred to another seminary to complete my Lutheran requirements. 

I couldn’t resist throwing out the same question one day in another classroom setting. It was just as exciting the second time as it was the first, because in that setting I found my peers to be far more emotional, and far less thoughtful about the question. 

Rather than approaching the issue as a challenging theological question, it was seen as an offensive challenge to classmates personal views of God. 

The best thing about this question in a setting like this is that the person who ends up setting off that little landmine usually goes unnoticed by the end of the conversation. 

This is the same exact question that has erupted in the midst of the eloquent poem that was read from Isaiah in our first lesson today. 

The Jewish people have just returned from exile, and there are many questions being asked about what had transpired over the course of those roughly 50 years. 

The invasions of Israel had shaken the confidence of God’s people. 

It had shaken their confidence in God, yes, but it had shaken their confidence in the very nature of the world, the very nature of human beings. 

They had experienced pure brutality at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. 

Gebhard Fugel, On the Waters of Babylon circa 1920 (PD)

Armies that had far surpassed anything beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, in size, tactics, and resources. 

Committing atrocities, far beyond what even the most twisted mind ever thought imaginable. 

The Assyrians and Babylonians had learned the power of fear, and they used it. 

Isaiah’s poem is beautiful, though. 

Beautiful because of the raw emotion of the poem, but partly because it bears witness to the post traumatic stress of what the people are seeing as they return to their homeland. 

Returning to the ash of their homes and fields. 

The ash of their nation’s seat of power.

The ash and ruin of the most sacred holy place imaginable, the temple, God’s home. 

It rekindles their memories of the battles they’ve experienced. 

The sight of these ruins brings back the pain and horror of what they have lost, not only the loss of places and people, but a complete loss of innocence. 

Having intimately studied post traumatic stress on many levels, I am always deeply moved by Isaiah, especially the third and final portion of Isaiah. 

Anyone who has ever found themselves wrestling with trauma and pain can relate to Isaiah in the most personal way. 

It is especially so in this poem, which asks where God has gone and why God has changed. 

A God who has begged and pleaded for the people to turn back, not in perfection but in relationship, responding to the love of God with love FOR God. 

But like most relationships, people do not fully appreciate what they have until it is gone. 

And so Isaiah calls out for God’s return. 

Isaiah calls out to God to return in the same way God always did before in mighty acts and awesome deeds. 

Isaiah asks God to again be on full display, undeniably so, in a way that no one can ignore. 

Sound familiar?

It's nothing to be ashamed of, we all do it. 

I did it a few times sitting outside of an operating room waiting for the doctor to invite me in as my children were born. 

I’ve done it at the bedside of those suffering and dying, in cemeteries, funeral homes, and hospitals. 

I’ve done it on the ash of a battlefield and as I waved at a big yellow school bus on the first day of school. 

These are the times we look to God, these are the times we call upon God’s mighty acts and when those cries for God go unanswered, our own relationship with God can become conditional. 

Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli on Unsplash

Last week, I did something I hadn’t done in a long time. 

I went to see a movie. 

Regardless of what the critics had said, I love comic books and I couldn’t resist the urge to go see Justice League. 

The opening sequence is a home movie of a little boy interviewing Superman, asking him about the big S on his chest. 

Asking Superman if it is really a symbol for hope, which Superman confirms it to be. 

The home movie then fizzles out and we are returned to the scene of a world without Superman. 

A Metropolis in shambles where Lois Lane kneels before a shattered statue of Superman. 

A Gotham city plagued by crime and preyed upon by new villains.

A Batman regretting the part he played in Superman’s defeat and death, knowing that he now must defend the world without Superman’s strength but more importantly without Superman’s character. 

It wasn’t the most well written script, but it did a good job of portraying a world quite similar to the world Isaiah is gazing upon in our reading today. 

A world that has changed, a world either without the hope it has relied on or perhaps unable to recognize that hope it had relied upon.

A world that has suffered so much that it is unrecognizable to the hero’s who defend it. 

At one point Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler exclaims, “This is a world I do not even recognize anymore.”

To which Bruce replies, “I don’t have to understand this world, I just need to help to save it.”

Later in the film, Batman, the Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman decide they need to resurrect Superman. 

But there is opposition among the heroes towards this plan because they realize that death and yes, suffering, changes us all, even a superhero, even God. 

And so, they resurrect Superman in fear that he may not only turn away from them but perhaps even turn against them. 

~

We are always looking for God to enter into the world in big ways, but it is the little ways that God enters into the world that seems to have the greatest impact. 

But this makes no difference to us, especially in times of want, need, and tragedy. 

And if God gives the slightest hint that God is present with us, we only want more and more evidence of that presence. 

We ask God to jump through our hoops, to come to us in the way that we want, the ways that we think we need. 

The same is true in Isaiah’s poem. 

Verses three through nine are a confession of sin, a lament, and a plea to rekindle the estranged relationship with God and God’s people. 

But this poem is paralleled by two other pleas. 

Verses one and two proclaim that God should once again stand before all other nations like a secret weapon that will lift up Israel as a military might. 

For the nationalists of Isaiah’s day, this is the conditional action that will prove God has once again returned. 

The portion of the poem that was left out of our reading for today, the portion that closes the poem, comes from the high priests who have an agenda of their own. 

First they look out upon the desolation of what they see in verses 10 and 11

Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness,

Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house where our ancestors praised you,

has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. 

Photo by Jordy Meow on Unsplash

Then, in verse 12, they lay out the condition God must fulfill in order for them to recognize and declare to the people that the Lord has truly returned to them;

After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?

It is a radical change in tone from Isaiah’s confession and plea, but not such a radical change in tone from our own today. 

Isaiah’s returning community believes that if they can restore their national identity on the throne or their religious identity in the temple, God will return. 

So, they pour all they have into the temple after Rome finally subjects Israel to occupation once and for all. 

Riches, labor, resources, and time, while the world rises up around them ignoring them as they obsess over this building. 

It’s a truly ironic response given that so many of the prophets declare that God’s presence will depart from the temple and dwell WITH the people from now on. 

It is a call for they themselves to be the place where God dwells and to look to the lowly places where God will dwell. 

It is a call to stop figuring out new ways to “DO church” and embrace the ways we are called to “BE church.”

It is a call to stop reliving the church we grew up with and pick up the pieces of the church before us. 

Sometimes, pieces that are unfamiliar, sometimes pieces that we aren’t quite comfortable with. 

Shattered pieces of our own temples. 

Broken pieces of what we knew and loved. 

But when we take those broken pieces and we accept them for what they are, we can make new things from them. 

~

Ethiopian Mosaic at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth

Years ago, during my pilgrimage  to Israel and Palestine, I had the chance to visit what may potentially have been Mary’s home in Nazareth. 

Outside the church that has been built around the site, nations were invited to provide art depicting Mary, the Mother of our Lord. 

Interestingly, as you look at each piece of art, every nation seemed to try and outdo one another. 

The most wealthy nations seemed to have made the most gaudy and grandiose depictions. 

Because they seemed to have latched on to this same notion that bigger is always better. 

But among these depictions of Mary, it was the simple mosaic provided by Ethiopia that was the most striking. 

A collection of mosaic tiles, gathered together to make the image of a simple and beautiful, young woman holding a young boy in her lap. 

The amount of money spent on this art must have paled in comparison to all the others, but its simplistic beauty reminded me that God takes the broken pieces of the church, the world, and our lives and collects them together to make something new. 

So as we go into Advent, while we are busy building things that are grand and magnificent, like a temple, remember to keep your eyes open for those times, places, and people where God may prefer to dwell.

Places like the filth and squalor of a stable. 

Amen

Sources

Snyder, Zack. Justice League. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, 11/17/2017. Warner Bros. Burbank, California

Watts, John D. W. 1987. Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 25, Isaiah 34-66 (watts), 420pp. Waco, Tex: W Pub Group.