Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Seek the Lord


Seek the Lord
Isaiah 55:1-9[1]
I’d say we’ve all been there. Someone has done something to offend us, and our first impulse is to vent. We want to justify ourselves, and cast blame on the “other.” And we want someone to confirm our insistence that we’re right and we’ve been wronged. These days the question, “who you gonna call?” can be answered by the simple press of a button on your cell phone. And if the first person doesn’t answer, surely someone down the line will, because in these days of instant gratification, “everybody lives on their phone,” right? Justification is only a phone call away.
Many of us have probably also been in the position of overhearing such a conversation. Not that we wanted to. But when you’re in a public place and somebody is going through that whole process within earshot, it’s hard not to. It’s amazing how much different the whole thing sounds from that perspective. Even the tone of voice makes it so very obvious that the “complainant” is presenting the case for his or her “innocence” in the most favorable light possible, while outlining the “guilt” of the offender in the most negative way. Unfortunately, as common as this may be, it’s probably not going to actually help us in any meaningful way. We may go away from it “feeling better.” But that’s probably not what we really need.
Our lesson from Isaiah addresses a people who have run the gamut in their relationship with God: from a self-satisfied and complacent people convinced of their own righteousness to a broken people hauled away into exile with their faith in tatters. And at every stage, the word of the Lord to the people through the prophet addressed their need. To those who were self-satisfied, the word of the Lord was one of judgment: “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand” (Isa. 6:9). The prophet’s calling with a people who sought to justify themselves was to “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes” to keep them from turning to God and being healed (Isa. 6:10).
Although this doesn't sound much like the God of love, the problem was not with God, but with the people. God had not changed his mind or his purpose for them. It was not as if God were incapable of fulfilling the great promises he had made to the people of Israel. It was not as if God had somehow forgotten to make good on the offer of grace and mercy. The problem was that the people were convinced that they were in the right and they were innocent. When we are convinced of our own self-righteousness, we are not in a position to receive God’s grace and mercy. We have cut ourselves off from the life God offers.
But now, to a people who had been humbled by the devastation of conquest, deportation, and exile, the invitation to receive the gift of new life comes again. Those who are thirsty are invited to drink freely. Those who are hungry are invited to enjoy a lavish feast at no charge. And the only “requirement” to partake is that they be hungry and thirsty![2] Those who had shut their ears to the word of grace and mercy and had been prevented from finding life are now invited to “listen carefully … so that you may live” (Isa. 55:2-3).[3] God’s grace and mercy continue to be extended even to those who may have hardened their hearts.
In order to accept this invitation, however, a change of heart is required. Rather than seeking our own “way” and clinging to our own “thoughts,” those who would accept the gift of new life through God’s grace and mercy must “seek the Lord.” In the Hebrew Bible, seeking the Lord implies giving up other paths, paths that may seem attractive and yet in reality are destructive. Seeking the Lord here means giving up the stubborn insistence that my “way” is right and my “thoughts” are true. Instead, we are to acknowledge that God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa. 55:8-9). This implies that in order to seek the Lord and the life he offers us freely, we must abandon all thoughts of justifying ourselves, and we must abandon all efforts to maintain our self-righteousness.
The impulse to justify ourselves is a powerful one. Whenever we are attacked, or feel offended, or think ourselves to be otherwise slighted, it seems that the first thing we think of is how to justify ourselves. It’s a kind of defensive mechanism that almost automatically kicks in whenever we face opposition. As much as we would like to think that we are being entirely rational when we “rationalize” our way through something like that, I’d have to say that our response is primarily driven by our emotions, especially the desire to feel “right.”
But that impulse to feel “right” truly blinds us to those aspects of our own behavior and character—our “way” and our “thoughts”—that we need to examine continually. In order to accept God’s “way” of grace and mercy that bring new life, we have to acknowledge that our “way” and our “thoughts” fall short. Beyond that, especially when they indulge our desire to be “right,” our “way” and our “thoughts” prevent us from hearing the offer of grace and accepting the gift of new life. The Scripture calls us to repent: to “forsake” that path and seek the Lord instead. When we do so, we find an open invitation to receive the gifts of grace and mercy and new life God offers us all freely.


[1] © 2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/24/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf. Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 177; cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 283.
[3] Cf. Christopher R. Seitz “The Book of Isaiah 40-66,” New Interpreters Bible VI:482.

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