“Do Not Fear, Beloved” based on Isaiah 43:1-7 and…

The words we heard from Isaiah today were spoken to a community abandoned to despair. Isaiah chapters 40-55 is called “Second Isaiah” and Second Isaiah was written to the exiles who had been force-ably marched across the desert to Babylon after the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem. The exiles in Babylon were despondent. They’d watched their city, their temple, and their nation be destroyed. They’d seen entirely too much death. Those who were left behind had all of their possessions and food taken form them, and were left without city walls to protect them. And the ones in exile were supposed to be the leaders of the people who took care of them, but instead they were in captivity in a foreign land.

In the midst of all of this, they were likely struggling with their faith. Not only do terrible events tend to make most people struggle with their faith, the faith of the Israelites at that time centered on two things: 1. The story of God of Liberation who had freed them from slavery in Egypt and 2. The gift of the Promised Land to God’s beloved people as a sign of God’s intention to keep them safe as a light to the other nations. You can probably see how a faith based on freedom and land would be seriously shaken by being taken back into slavery after losing the land.

To those struggling former leaders, now slaves, Isaiah send a message of hope. Isaiah was a prophet, so he spoke what he believed to be a message from God for the people. The message is shocking. It may help to know that “To be redeemed according to Israel’s law means to be bought out of human bondage by one’s kin, a close member of the extended family.”¹ More specifically, “The verb refers to a family intervention and solidarity whereby a stronger member of the family intervenes to assure the well being of a weaker member.”² Let’s hear the first verse again.

This is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God, who formed you:
Do not be afraid. You are in need of a family member to pay for your freedom,
and I have done so. You are my family. You bear my name.

Wha-what!?! The people are ENSLAVED. In a foreign land. After a major defeat, that most of them took to be a judgement by God. This cannot be what they expected to hear. Not even the beginning, the reminder that they were formed by God’s own hand. And definitely not the next part that God was going to pay for their freedom … since they thought God had sent them into exile. After feeling abandoned by God they got this message that God claimed them, loved them, acted for them. I imagine that it was confusing to try to parse out if this could be true. As a scholar puts it, “Israel is now fully identified with, belongs to, and is cherished by Yahweh.”3 But they’ve been interpreting their experience as exactly the opposite.

This experience, while very specific, seems to have some universal themes underlying it. Life has its ups and its downs, some of the downs are very far down, some of the downs are for a whole family or community, and quite often the downs feel like God has forgotten us, abandoned us, punished us, or… maybe like God ISn’t afterall. Today’s Isaiah scripture speaks into those times. “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you by name, and the name I call you is ‘mine.’” We are not forgotten, abandoned, nor punished. We are still connected, beloved, claimed… and when things are at the there worst, God is with us for it.

The passage then turns to possible threats that could harm Israel, and assures that YHWH is available to help them if that happens. Floods and rivers, not too much for God. Fires and wildfires, not too much for God. This, too, applies to us. Bad things may come, disasters may come, raging loses may come, they aren’t too much for God and God is still with us.

Second Isaiah speaks words of comfort and hope. This is particularly notable because First Isaiah (the first 40 chapters) come before the exile and speak rather dire warnings of what might come to pass if the leaders of the people don’t chance course. As most of the Hebrew Bible was written down during and immediately after the Exile, I am convinced that the primary questions it is asking is “why did this happen to us?” and “how do we understand God in these circumstances?” The Hebrew Bible answers those questions in a lot of ways, and Second Isaiah’s take is “it happened, that’s not the right question. But as to how do we understand God, that’s the important one – we know a God who comforts us, cares for us, never abandons us, and claims us. Because of God, we have hope for the present and the future.”

There are so many themes that bounce back and forth between our two scriptures today, it can seem that Luke 3 is using Isaiah as a source text. However, Isaiah is inherently talking to the COMMUNITY, and in Luke 3, God is speaking to Jesus – just one guy. Or, at least, I think that’s what is happening. The story says that it is of God speaking to Jesus, but I also think the story becomes much larger when we consider the baptism of Jesus as one of the primary reasons we baptize people into membership in the Body of Christ, and that this story then resonates within all baptized Christians. So maybe both them are written to communities, but only one of them admits it? I’m not sure.

Luke’s telling of Jesus’ baptism is brief but powerful. Jesus was baptized, he was praying, the Spirit came (like a dove) and then voice (from heaven) said, “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Within the Gospel this serves as an affirmation of Jesus’ identity as Messiah. However, have the words have echoed through the ages, and been passed on to each Christian at their baptism, they have come to mean even more. They have become like the words in Second Isaiah, an affirmation that God knows us, sees us, claims us, and is with us. They are words that tell us that we are LOVED, and that God also LIKES us. They are words that tell us of grace – that we are loved because God loves us and that’s the final answer – that our FIRST identity is “loved by God” – individually and communally.

Our second identity, then, is to show God’s love. In the United Methodist Communion liturgy, the second question that is asked fo parents of babies being baptized or of adults answering for their own baptism is, “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” I have come to LOVE this question. In fact, it has been MY cover photo on facebook for two years AND the church’s cover photo for a year and a half. I’ve considered changing both, but it is too on point. In these times, when the powers of injustice and oppression feel like they’re crushing in, both within the church and in the world, it feels liberating to hear that question again. “The freedom and power God gives you….” We do not have to be pulled into. We don’t have to participate. We can choose another path. We are FREE, because God frees us from the powers of evil, injustice and oppression.

That’s some great stuff. And Jesus is one of the examples of what a life can look like when it is free from evil, injustice, and oppression.

“This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is easy to look at the babies we baptize and see how true those words are for them. It can be very easy in adult baptism to hear the words echoing as well. One of the challenges is remembering that it keeps on echoing for all of us, all the time. In sacred moments, we see it, but it is omnipresent. Each person we meet is beloved by God, a child of God, one who God LIKES. Each of us are beloved by God, a child of God, liked by God – even when we aren’t able to like ourselves.

And then there is the correlated bigger picture. We, as a church, are a community of God’s, a Body of Christ together (even as we are part of larger and larger versions of the Body of Christ in the world.) We are not the entirety of God’s beloved community, but we ARE a beloved community of God’s. Which means that we are some of the recipients of the words in Luke as well of the ones in Isaiah. We are children of God, beloved, and with us God is well pleased. Also,

This is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God,
who formed you:
Do not be afraid. You are in need of a family member to pay for your freedom,
and I have done so. You are my family. You bear my name.

We are God’s, together. In fact, as a community, we come together knowing ourselves to be an expression of God’s love, together. We are formed together by being people seeking God, seeking to understand things of God, seeking to live out God’s ways in the world. We are formed by the Divine stories, by Divine love, by building the kindom of God together. We bear God’s name.

This means that God is with us in the ups and downs. God was with us when this community was large, when Sunday School was overflowing and this sanctuary was full every week. God is with us now when we are fewer people, with just as much commitment to God’s ways. God is with us when new people are joining us, and God is with us when we gather in gratitude for lives well lived. God is with us when we are struggling to find our ways of being in this world and in this community, and God is with us when we know we’re up to just the right ways of being love in the world.

We are God’s. Thanks be to God. Amen

 

Preached by Sara Baron on January 13, 2019

1Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective on Isaiah 43:1-7,” in Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 1, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 221.

2Walter Bruggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 53.