February 20, 2009 — 11:34 AM
Are we there yet?
Isaiah 65:17-25
This past Christmas, my family engaged in a tradition that we haven’t observed for a very long time: the holiday road trip. My two siblings and I met up at my parents’ house in Phoenix where we all piled into a van for a full day’s drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico. My brother and I were not so sure about this plan, but my father was very happy about the arrangement. And, in the end, it turned out to be a good trip.
On the first day of the holiday, after we had been on the road for a couple of hours, I yelled out from the back of the van, “Are we there yet?” I said it as a joke because I knew full well that we had many more hours of driving before we would even be close. But, in the spirit of reliving traditions, I figured that I, as the youngest, should be the one to start the chorus from the children of asking that often annoying question. With all the road trips that my family took when I was a child, I know I easily asked that question several thousand times.
“Are we there yet?” A question favored by children the world over, I’m sure. And, really, the length of the trip has no bearing on whether the question will be asked or not. This is a question often posed when the one inquiring knows that the answer will be “No.” It is a question that often is posed to express displeasure with not being at the destination yet. It is a question that, depending on the tone in which it is asked, can signal great hope, impatience, or even resignation.
“Are we there yet?”
This question immediately sprung to my mind when I read our Scripture passage for today. I read the opening words, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth…” and I wanted to yell from the back seat to the driver, God, to ask “Are we there yet?” And, in all honesty, when the question came to my mind it brought with it all of those emotions: hope, impatience, and resignation.
Can one read those words, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth…,” and not be filled with an overwhelming sense of hope? I can’t. God, through the words of the prophet, is promising God’s people a brand new future. A future so good that it will block out any memory of the past. And that had to be good new to the original hearers of these words.
These were people who had been conquered, uprooted, moved around, and finally sent back to their homeland. The promise of good things to come must have been a welcomed balm to their wounded souls. According to the prophet, soon these people would no longer remember their deep sense of rejection by God and God’s very palpable absence during the long years of exile from the land God had given them. To be claimed once again as God’s people whom God would call “a delight” must have seemed too good to be true.
God’s words continue to reach out to us today offering a healing balm for our wounded souls. The words call out to us offering us hope for the future. They tell us that the way things are is not the way things will always be. And in these unsettled times – when more and more people are being laid off, when yet another family is pushed out of its home, when there doesn’t seem to be a way forward through this whole mess – these are welcomed words indeed.
But while they are words that bring deep hope, they are also words that bring impatience. God, through the prophet, says, “I am about to….” “I am about to….” A phrase that’s used to show an action on the cusp of beginning. Like someone standing next to you at a table set for dinner holding a pot of steaming garlic mashed potatoes with a serving spoon poised to dig in who says, “I am about to give you a large serving of these yummy potatoes.” Everything is set and ready for that to happen, but it hasn’t happened yet. Your plate is still empty. Your fork has nothing to dive into yet. You are left waiting.
The prophet tells the people that God is about to do this wonderful thing, but, hold on, it hasn’t happened yet! The prophet offers this wonderfully idyllic picture of what is to come – long life; good, secure shelter; plentiful food; dignity for every human and creature – and by giving that description points out that this is not yet the reality in which they are living. The people listening are not yet free of working for another. They are not yet free from worrying about shelter and food for themselves and their family. They are not yet able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor.
The picture of how life will be must have the people chomping at the bit. It sounds so good, they must want it to be a reality already. Their mouths must be watering like ours as we sit waiting for the serving of mashed potatoes, envisioning how it will taste and feel to finally have what has been promised.
And this is where the emotion of resignation comes in. If God is saying that these things are about to happen, then why doesn’t God just get on with it and make it so. I can imagine that the Israelite people, having been through hundreds of years of unrest and upheaval have little patience left for waiting on God’s time. Sure, they are back in their homeland, but now the truly hard work is just beginning. Now they have to figure out how to live with those who never went away – those left in the land when the conquering armies came through. They have to figure out how to reunite as one people and live once again as God’s chosen people. That seems more like a lot of hard work that will probably get ugly at times than a bright, shiny new future.
And if resignation was a real possibility for the original hearers of this promise, how much more so for us hearing these words over two thousand five hundred years later?! As far as I can tell, the wholesale change God promised hasn’t become a reality yet. Realizing this makes me want to join my voice with those throughout history, including the many great examples from the Scriptures (like Moses), who have called God to task and reminded God of God’s own words and promises.
The opening words from our passage, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth…” make me want to cry out to God, “Then why haven’t you? What’s holding you up? Come on, God, fulfill your promise already. Why aren’t we there yet?!” It certainly feels like God is taking all the back roads to get to this destination instead of taking the much more direct, and therefore quicker, freeway.
But as I cry out, I hear a voice asking back, “Why do you put up roadblocks?”
Oh. Huh. Well. Uh. Good question.
This is a question we need to ask ourselves. This is a question we need to ask our leaders. This is a question we need to ask powerful people around the globe. “Why are we putting up roadblocks to God?”
God has called us to be co-creators of the new heavens and new earth. But so many times we throw up roadblocks and resist the ways that God is trying to work in and through us. We have given in to the feeling of resignation that nothing is ever really going to change. And this has led us to live in ways that ensure that nothing ever will.
Can we let go of that resignation? It’s so comforting to hang onto. By hanging on, we don’t have to change anything. And, Lord knows, we really don’t want to have to change. But change we must if we are to be useful to God in the creation of the new heavens and new earth.
We all need to let go of the resignation. Let go of believing in the self-fulfilling prophecy that nothing will ever change. And, in so doing, we will open ourselves to be used by our God, creator of all that is and all that will be.
Let us believe the hope of these words from Isaiah and ask God, “Are we there yet?” knowing that the answer is “No” but expecting God to add, “but we will be soon.”
Amen.
