Category: News

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
    that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

³ A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
⁵ And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all flesh shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

A voice says, “Cry!”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades,
    when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
    surely the people is grass.
⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades;
    but the word of our God will stand for ever.  Isaiah 40:1-8

I sit in front of my computer, looking out my dining room window upon 60 inches of now blowing snow thanks to the Alberta Clipper coming through and wondering to myself, if I must shovel my driveway one more time, I might scream in frustration!  My routine while stuck at home during the blizzard was to shovel two or three times a day and to try and keep a runway to the road.  Each time I think to myself I have overcome the snow; the clouds drop six inches more.  Even with over-the-counter pain medication, my arms and back could not handle having to shovel another few inches let alone the foot the forecast threatens me.  I wonder what the use is in shoveling if more snow keeps dropping?

The strength in my arms has faded, now I know what Isaiah means when the flowers fade.  My motivation for a clean driveway withers, just like Isaiah’s grass when the breath of God blows upon it.  A voice says cry and Isaiah said cry what.  A voice says shovel and I say I am buying a snowblower.  Isaiah is speaking to people in exile in Babylon and buried under snow and melancholy I find Isaiah still speaking to us in exile in Siberia.  Commanded to speak and cry to the people and he didn’t have it in him.  Buried in an avalanche of snow and upheaval, we are commanded to prepare for the LORD’s coming and we don’t have it in us.  We wither and fade in faith because it feels like we shovel or prepare in vain to no effect; we clear the driveways of our hearts and something new drops in.  We clear a foot and creation drops two more.

I can understand Isaiah’s situation, but I can also appreciate the response of God.  Isaiah was in exile, and we find ourselves also in Babylon.  But the enormity of his and our surroundings, surrounded by idols and unfaithfulness, God reminds Isaiah and us, that while our strength and situations wither and fade, God’s strength and faithfulness stands forever.  Our existence is not an achievement in which we can put on the mantel, but a divine gift given precisely into our withering and fading hearts.  Spoken not into prosperity but into exile, which creates renewal.  Spoken not into abundance but into scarcity, which creates renewal.  Spoken not into energy and imagination, but into tiredness and staleness, which resurrects.  Since the Word of God stands forever, we don’t need to achieve it, we can, as finite creatures, open ourselves to receive it, and come to life again.

This is why Isaiah found the strength to comfort the people of God, because the strength of God finds him in his exhaustion.  And if God could find Isaiah and exodus him from his fatigue, God can do likewise with Israel from Babylon and God can do likewise with today’s church from Babylon.  Energy for our weariness.  Hope for our despair.  Peace for our polarized nation.  Joy for our misery.  Love for our malignities and nastiness.  Comfort ye my people, because God has come to exodus, or bring out his people from their exiles.

This is how we find the strength to prepare the road out of Babylon, because it isn’t ours, but the very power of our faithful God.  This is how the valleys could be filled in and the mountains shaved off, the crooked curves made straight, and the rough patches of asphalt smoothed out; because it isn’t really our work, it is really God’s work in God’s power, and it will never be in vain or empty.  But for it to be God’s work then something needs to change in us.  Perhaps instead of building a Christian Empire, we need to do the hard and vulnerable work of building the Kingdom of God.  Relationships and community instead of building and budgets.  Gratitude instead of envy.  Courage instead of fear.  Security instead of anxiety.  Love instead of hate.  Forgiveness instead of guilt.  That’s building the road out of Babylon.  Maybe that’s the work this Advent which needs done.

Friends, I am tired of shoveling snow, but I also think we are tired of witnessing Gospel.  Every time we make headway, we suffer setbacks and discouragements.  But Advent reminds us that we never labor in vain, because we labor under the gracious and loving work of the Word of God, who stands forever, even while our energy and commitment wither and fade.  So, find comfort in the faithfulness of God this Advent season, do a little road work in our hearts, but most importantly live as the new people that come into God’s Kingdom, because God has already come to us.  Advent means coming… maybe it is time for us to come back to God, again.  Amen. 

¹⁵ Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; ¹⁶ and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
            But you have made it a den of robbers.’

¹⁸ And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. ¹⁹ And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. 
Mark 11:15-19

Many people have campers in my neighborhood.  Whether they enjoy parking their campers in a campground for a summer or an evening.  The Winnebago transports people and their possessions from place to place.  Going to see the Grand Canyon?  Your camper can take you there and cook your meals, keep you cool and wash the dirt and sweat off.  But what happens when you purchase a Winnebago and park it on your driveway and never use it?  The camper becomes a status symbol or perhaps even something to brag about: my camper is bigger and better than yours.  The point of a camper is to travel and deliver people and possessions to their destination.  When you buy it to show off, something needs to change.

Just as it can be with campers parked in driveways instead of campgrounds, so too is it with Churches or Temples.  The Temple of Herod was meant to be a vehicle for connecting with God by prayer.  Every symbol from the Exodus, the law and the sacrifices, were meant to be the vehicle for delivering the people to God and God to the people.  A Winnebago is a vehicle that can get someone from Ohio to California, the Temple was the vehicle to get the people to God, through prayer.  The Temple was not god, but a vehicle or a symbol to transport the people to God, to close the distance between Heaven and Earth, from Creator to creature. 

The great dilemma for Jesus was the purpose of the Temple to be the vehicle for faithfulness and covenant between God and Creation and finding the temple to be for a different purpose.  “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”  But you have made it a den of robbers.’  The point of a Winnebago is to be a vehicle for transportation, not to sit as an object of pride in the driveway.  The point of the Temple is to be a vehicle for transportation to God, not to sit as an object of pride and greed.   The people were to connect with God in the building, not to stare at the building and earn a fortune.  Instead of using the temple, they park it in the driveway and to brag to the neighbors and to fleece a fortune.

Now we can understand why Jesus cleaned house.  The point of the Temple buildings was to be a vehicle moving the people to God and Jesus reinstates or rededicates the building to that purpose.  Instead of being used unfaithfully, Jesus cleans the temple to be faithful to why God created it in the first place.  Not to park the vehicle in the driveway, but to be a vehicle moving the people to God.  To be a house of prayer connecting with God inside the covenant, not to be a house of thievery, connecting the leaders with mammon or money inside greed.

What then is the purpose of our buildings?  To be a vehicle moving us to God, or to be a vehicle parked in the driveway to brag about to our neighbors, or to be a source of income increasing our cash flow.  We need a building, but that building needs to serve God’s purpose and serve our needs as a community.  We need a space to worship God, but it doesn’t need to be gilded in gold, to connect with God.  We need spaces to study and learn, but it doesn’t need to be the lecture hall of Harvard.  We need spaces to cook, eat and fellowship together, but those spaces do not need to be a 5-star restaurant, limiting the clientele.  We need spaces to store goods for our neighborhoods and to serve the physical and emotional needs of our neighborhoods, but those spaces do not need to be the Waldorf-Astoria.  We have needs as a community, but to what end, God’s or ours: a vehicle to connect us with God, or to park in the driveway to gather fortune and fame?

As we begin the process this month of discerning what we need from our building spaces, I will repeat Ad Nauseum, that our buildings need to serve the purpose of connecting us to God not filling our checking accounts or our egos.  Perhaps this is the golden opportunity to clean house, literally and metaphorically.  Are our sanctuaries about worship or entertainment or competition?  Are our kitchens and dining rooms about fellowship and camaraderie or snobbery in the form of gilded plates and professional kitchens?  Are our rooms about learning, and nurturing faith, or are they about status and showing off?  What changes can we make to make our buildings to change them into the vehicle they were supposed to be, to bring us closer to God, not to become gods that deliver us further from God.  Jesus cleaned house, maybe the time is now for us too also.  Amen