February 6, 2006 — 2:57 PM
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Isaiah 40:21-31
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Where was God?
Where was God in the face of the destruction brought by hurricane Katrina? How could God allow so many people to suffer or die and to lose everything they had? If God is really all good and all powerful as we Christians assert, how could these events have happened?
And, where was God in the face of the earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia a little over a year ago? Or where is God in the face of the seemingly never-ending fighting in the Middle East or in places like the Sudan?
Where is God when hard-working people are laid off and given no clear options for where to find new work? Where is God when people die unexpectedly or much too young? Where is God in the face of climbing numbers of homeless and uninsured people? Where is God?
These are questions that people asked often. Maybe you have found yourself asking "Where is God?" It doesn't seem right that good people should have to suffer or die. We say that God loves justice, but experience tells us that true justice, the justice that our Scriptures call for, does not exist. It seems that bad people prosper all the time while good people often struggle to face difficulties in their lives.
Where is God in times like these?
This is the exact question that the Israelite people were asking in our passage from Isaiah today. "Where is God?" they ask. "Why does it seem that my way is hidden from the Lord?" "Why does it seem that my right as a member of the covenant community of God's people is being disregarded by God?" "Where is God?"
God had made a covenant with the ancestors of these people to be present with them in steadfast love. The people's questions show that they were feeling God's absence more than God's presence.
This is understandable. The people crying out for God had seen their temple destroyed and their ruling class hauled off by the Babylonians. They were left in the land to pick up the pieces and to try to survive under foreign rulers. As they understood it, this wasn't part of the plan when God promised to bring the people to the Promised Land. This looked more like chaos and disorder than being cared for by the steadfast love of God.
So the people raise their pleas to the heavens: "Where are you, God?"
And God answers through the prophet - "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" These are obviously rhetorical questions expecting the answer "Well, yes, actually I have known and heard."
But, the prophet knows that the people are in the midst of suffering. He knows that they have lost sight of God and lost faith in the promises made to their ancestors and to them. And so he reminds them of what has been taught to them from the very beginning, from the foundations of the earth - that God is the creator of everything that is. This God, who uses all of the heavens as a dwelling place, who brings down earthly rulers by blowing on them, nothing can be compared to this God.
This God who spreads the stars in the sky knows each one by name. And this God makes sure that not one star is missing from the sky. And if God knows the stars by name and makes sure they are not missing, then you can bet that God does the same for each human being as well.
In the light of these tenets of faith, which the people have heard from the very beginning of time, in the light of this, how can the people doubt that God is right there with them? That's what the prophet wants to know. In verse 27 the prophet asks: "Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God'?"
And again the prophet asks: "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" It looks like the prophet is repeating the questions that he asked earlier, in verse 21. But there is a difference that our English translation does not show. In verse 21 the prophet used verbs in the imperfect tense as one who is viewing the situation as an insider. He knows the pain and struggle that the people are facing. He can understand where the people's questions are coming from. But he wants to remind them of what their faith has taught them.
By the time the prophet gets to verse 28 this is no longer the case. Now the prophet uses verbs in the perfect tense. He now speaks as an outsider who knows the beginning and end to the story. He has just reviewed who God is and this gives him confidence to ask these questions knowing that God is not guilty of being absent from the people. Nor is God guilty of disregarding the people's rights.
By using the perfect tense of these verbs, "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" the prophet is calling the people to stop asking where God is and to start experiencing God right there with them in the midst of all the struggles they are going through.
The prophet is calling the people to remember that God did not promise an easy life free of suffering. Rather, God promised to always be with them - no matter what came their way. And that included being right beside them, offering them strength when the suffering seemed too great to bear. This is the everlasting God - the one who does not faint or grow weary, two feelings with which the people were all too familiar. This God wants to strengthen those who faint and give power to those who are powerless.
But this can only happen when people are attentive to God and look for God's presence in their lives. The prophet calls the people to do this in verse 31: "but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint"
God had made a covenant of fidelity with these people to be with them always. But the people had turned and were looking for God elsewhere. They looked for God in security in their land. They looked for God in material comfort. They even looked for God in their own leaders. But, when they went looking in those places, it seemed that God had forgotten the covenant that God had made. The prophet reminds the people that those things cannot compare to who God is. God is bigger and more powerful than any of those.
The people are to wait for the Lord in the middle of their suffering because it is there where God wants to help them - to give them strength to face their difficulties and power to work for change. God, the creator of all that is, continues in steadfast love for creation - staying true to the promise "I will be with you always."
This is the good news, or "gospel," that convicted the apostle Paul - the good news that God continues to be faithful to that promise made so long ago. Paul knew this promise to still be true because of what he saw in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ - the one called "Immanuel, God with us."
Paul believed that by coming in human form in the person of Jesus, God had not only renewed the promise made to the Hebrew people in the original covenant, but had also expanded it to include anyone who sought to be faithful to God.
Paul saw in Jesus' own ministry the beginnings of reaching out to people thought to be beyond the scope of the original covenant. Because of this, Paul, a devout Jewish scholar, found himself preaching the gospel to everyone proclaiming that in Jesus Christ there was no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. Jesus' ministry broke down all the old dividing lines so that all could be included in the covenant with God, the creator of heaven and earth.
This was truly good news.
But, in order to be effective in his ministry, Paul felt he needed to do two things, which he defends in our passage in 1 Corinthians for today.
First he felt that he needed to wave his rights as an apostle. Here, Paul is referring to the ways in which philosophers (including apostles such as Paul) could find support.
The two held in highest esteem were either to charge a fee or to become a member of a rich patron's household. For Paul, neither of these options would allow him the freedom that he needed in order to reach a wide spectrum of people. If he charged for his appearances, then those who could not afford it would never hear what he had to say. If he took on a patron, then his testimony would only reach the people in the circles in which his patron moved.
A third option was to beg on the streets. But that was viewed as demeaning and shameful and Paul feared that engaging in it would then project badly onto the message he was trying to share.
So Paul settled on the final option that was acceptable for philosophers - manual work at a skilled or unskilled job. Paul became a tent-maker which allowed him to earn enough money to support himself and thus not be beholden to anyone except Christ. This was Paul's way of making the gospel "free of charge" so that all might hear it.
Since the option was one of those that were less favored by the people of the time, Paul found himself having to defend his choice. It was a choice he made so that those who heard him could focus on the gospel that he shared instead of focusing on Paul himself. Unfortunately, Paul's detractors used this against him and continually caused people to question Paul's choice.
The second action that Paul defends in our passage for today is his decision to "become all things to all people."
This way of sharing the gospel goes directly in the face of the typical way of sharing about the God of the Hebrew people. The Jewish leaders of the time were happy to receive converts to their religion provided those seeking admission agreed to abide by the Jewish laws, including circumcision.
But Paul said that this was no longer necessary. Jesus' own ministry made these laws obsolete. All were welcomed. Everyone who sought after the God that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection pointed to could come to the table and be a part of the covenant community.
Paul wanted those to whom he ministered to know this immediately. So he met them wherever they were - in whatever situation they found themselves. He did not change who he was, but he accommodated himself to the people with whom he spoke so that they would have the greatest opportunity to hear the message that he was sharing.
If Paul was to approach someone who still observed the Jewish purity laws and begin speaking of his disregard for the laws, how would that person be able to hear Paul's message?
Or, if he approached someone who was outside of the laws of God and began speaking of the laws he followed to worship God in Christ, how would that person understand that they could also know this God?
If he approached someone who was weak and began speaking of the power that he had in God through Christ, how would that one be able to know that he or she could also be a member of God' covenant community?
Paul understood that the manner in which he approached each person could effect how well his message might reach him or her. And so he wanted to take away anything that might get in the way of that person hearing God's promise to always be with him or her.
If we were to meet Paul today and hear him give this explanation, we might be inclined to call him a flip-flopper. After all, he says one thing to one group and another thing to another group. That is precisely why he is defending himself to the Corinthian people.
It's not that he is changing who he is or what he believes. It is that he is trying to make it easier for people to learn about God and to know that God's promise is for them as much as it is for anyone else. Paul, following Jesus' example, wants to break down any barriers that might keep people away from experiencing God's love.
And we are called to continue to break down those barriers today. How do we need to modify our behavior so that others can hear God's promise in their own lives? What rights as Christians do we need to wave so that the focus is on God's promise and not on our own lives.
Maybe we need to get out of the comfort of our homes so that we can share God's message of steadfast love and fidelity with the homeless of our city. Maybe we need to leave the security of our jobs behind so that we can talk to those who feel abandoned by God in their struggle to make ends meet. Maybe we need to leave behind the judgmental language that often typifies Christianity today so that we can meet those who feel excluded and looked down upon and let them know that God loves them as much as God loves anyone.
We are blessed to know that God is here with us offering us power and strength to face each new day. But we cannot just sit on that knowledge. God wants us to be like Paul - convicted by this knowledge so much so that we feel obliged to share the good news with others.
Many people are asking, "Where is God in the face of the injustice that abounds?" And, as Isaiah reminds us we have the answer - we have known it and heard it since the beginning, since the foundation of the earth.
God is here.
God is here, with us as we gather for worship.
God is here, with us as we celebrate Holy Communion.
God is here, giving each of us strength and power to act so that God's justice may abound.
God is here! Hallelujah! That is good news.
Amen.
