Energy for Exiles

 Isaiah 40:21-31

Rev. Monte Marshall

 

For the Jews in exile in Babylonia during the sixth century BCE who were the original recipients of the prophetic word found in this morning’s scripture reading, weariness was a way of life.  It’s not that the Babylonians forced the Jews to work long hours with little rest.  No, the fatigue of God’s people had more to do with the burden of living faithfully in the aftermath of defeat, and in the midst of a hostile and threatening culture.

You see, the people who identified themselves as God’s people, were a conquered people.  The Babylonians had overrun the holy city of Jerusalem, laid waste to the Temple, and carried away God’s people into exile. 

It was a great Babylonian victory, but the Babylonians wanted more.  The Babylonians wanted to destroy the distinctive identity of God’s people.  The Babylonians wanted to erase Israel’s memory, steal Israel’s imagination, destroy Israel’s hope, and sap Israel’s courage.  The Babylonians wanted Israel utterly powerless and dependent on Babylonian power.

But to achieve these ends, the Babylonians had to neutralize Israel’s God so that the exiles would live as if there were no alternatives to Babylonian power.  As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has written:  “It was the ideological intent of the [Babylonian empire] to talk Jews out of Jewish perceptions of reality and into Babylonian definitions of reality, to define life in terms of Babylonian values, Babylonian hopes, and Babylonian fears.”[1]  This kind of conformity would make the captives easier to manipulate and control.

The Jews in exile bore the stress of these subversive pressures day in and day out for over 50 years.  Despair was always close at hand.  The temptation was to give up and to give in.  And the exiles wanted to know:  Has God abandoned us?  Are the gods of Babylon more powerful than the God of Israel?  Has our faith been in vain?   

But then the prophet spoke to remind the exiles of the consequences of giving up on God and giving in to the Babylonian culture.  Weariness was one of those consequences!  The prophet used powerful images to underscore the point:  Young women who should have been vital and full of energy, were instead, bone-tired.  Young men who should have had the strength to endure a long journey were so weakened in exile that they stumbled and fell along the way. 

So what does all of this have to do with us?  Well, I don’t know about you, but in many ways, as a 21st century Christian living in America, I feel like an exile.  I feel the weariness of trying to live faithfully as a disciple of Jesus Christ in the midst of an alien culture.  In fact, I want to suggest to you this morning that the church is in exile in America.  Some commentators have even referred to our current condition as the “American captivity of the church.”[2] 

Now let me be clear.  I believe that this culture of ours certainly has its positive aspects.  But I also believe that in some very fundamental ways, our American culture is at odds with the way of Jesus.  As Walter Brueggemann observes, this culture “wants to shape our values, fears, and dreams in ways that are fundamentally opposed to the voice of the gospel.”[3]   

Let me illustrate the point.  In his book The Call to Conversion, Jim Wallis tells the story of a night he spent watching TV.  Christmas was right around the corner.  Wallis writes:  “In one night I saw advertised an array of gadgets and comforts beyond the wildest dreams of any previous generation….All these consumer ‘goods’ were far beyond what any of us could ever need, especially in a world where millions of people find themselves locked in a daily battle for mere survival.” 

Wallis concludes:  “What was happening through the television that night…was spiritual formation.  Far more effective than crude totalitarianism, this continual electronic suasion is forming the values, the mind, and the spirit of each of us in our all-consuming society.  Such spiritual formation whets our appetite for more while closing our eyes and hardening our hearts to the worldwide consequences of our materialistic way of life.”[4]

In the midst of this kind of culture, is it any wonder that you and I as the followers of Jesus simply heave a wearied sigh every time we encounter a challenging gospel vision like the one Luke describes in Acts 2 and 4.  Luke writes of the first community of disciples in Jerusalem after Pentecost.  The members of this community lived together, renounced private property, shared their goods in common, and voluntarily sold possessions to redistribute their wealth to those in need.  This way of living was in response to the teachings of Jesus and to the power of God’s Spirit at work among them.  It was counter-cultural then, and it’s counter-cultural now! 

So what’s our response to this gospel vision?  We say, [heavy sigh] “I can’t do that.  I won’t do that.  It’s impossible.  It’s unrealistic.  It’s too hard.”  This kind of response reflects the weariness of exiles living day in and day out with the burden of being faithful in the midst of an alien culture. 

And this response grieves me, even though I’m guilty of my own resistance.  I love the church; I’ve given most of my adult life to serving the church; and yet I know that as long as the church fails to produce increasing numbers of disciples who say “yes” to a vision like that of Acts 2 and 4, and do the hard work required to make the vision a reality in our day and time, we’ll stay mired in an ever-deepening weariness that highlights our hypocrisy to the world.  We’ll stay stuck no matter how many gimmicks we desperately try to revitalize ourselves.  As long as we say “no” to the way of Christ, and “yes” to the culture, we will remain worn out and bone-tired as all of this church-business grows increasingly burdensome. 

And of this I’m certain:  The leaders and defenders of the status quo rejoice in our unwillingness to live differently because our failure to provide an alternative to the way things are makes it easier for the status quo to remain the status quo.  

And it’s not just about the vision of Acts 2 and 4.  On a whole range of discipleship issues from economics to loving the enemy and more, we simply give up on the gospel as being too hard and we give in to the culture.  We may try to stay culturally neutral, but neutrality is impossible.  Our lives will either be shaped by the counter-cultural way of Christ which embodies the reign of God, or by something else.

And make no mistake about it, the power of God is called into question here.  I must confess to you that as an exile, I often question God’s power in my life.  In fact, it seems to me that in so many ways, this culture in which we live has been more powerful in shaping my life than the power of God in Jesus Christ.  So like the exiles of old, I want to know:  Has God abandoned us?  Is the spirit of our culture more powerful than the Spirit of God?  Has my faith been in vain?  Is there any good news for us today? 

Well, the prophet proclaims good news.  To every tired, worn out, exhausted exile, the prophet says, in effect, “Remember!”  The prophet tries to jog our memories with pointed questions:  “Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  Was it not told you from the beginning?  Have you not understood since the earth was formed?” 

The prophet declares God’s sovereignty over the creation:  “Yahweh sits above the vaulted roof of the world, and its inhabitants look like grasshoppers!  God stretches out the skies like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent for mortals to live under!  God reduces the privileged to nothing and throws the rulers of the earth into chaos….Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  This God does not faint or grow weary; with a depth of understanding that is unsearchable.” 

According to the prophet, it is this God who gives “strength to the weary, and empowers the powerless.”  And the prophet promises that “those who wait for Yahweh find a renewed power:  they soar on eagles’ wings, they run and don’t get weary, they walk and never tire.”

So isn’t the prophet’s point clear?  Don’t give up on God, because with God, there is energy for exiles!  There was energy for exiled Jews in Babylon in the 6^th century BCE, and there is energy for us, the exiled followers of Jesus in 21^st century America.  This energy is available to us as we give ourselves to this God—this God proclaimed both by the prophet and by Jesus.  When we yield ourselves to this God in deep and profound trust, amazing things are possible.  A bold leap of faith can break us free from this alien culture in which we’re exiled, and energize us to live in the risky, radical way of Jesus that models for the world, an alternative to the way things are.

Shane Claiborne is one young man who has taken this leap of faith and found the energy to live differently even in the midst of exile.  Shane says that he used to be “cool”—meaning that he used to be culturally acceptable.  But then, Shane writes:  “I met Jesus and he wrecked by my life.  The more I read the gospel, the more it messed me up, turning everything I believed in, valued, and hoped for upside-down….I know it’s hard to imagine, but in high school, I was elected prom king.  I was in the in-crowd, popular, ready to make lots of money and buy lots of stuff, on the upward track to success.  I had been planning to go to med school.  Like a lot of folks, I wanted to find a job where I could do as little work as possible for as much money as possible.  I figured anesthesiology would work, just put folks to sleep with a little happy gas and let others do the dirty work.  Then I could buy lots of stuff I didn’t need.  Mmm…the American dream.”

Shane went to college.  He attended Eastern College in Pennsylvania.  It was there that he discovered other friends who also had a “hunch” that there was something more to life than they had been told to pursue.  So they decided to act on a gospel vision of life together.  They took a leap of faith.  And what did they discover?  They discovered nergy for exiles!  

Shane writes:  “Poet David Thoreau went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately, to breathe deeply, and to suck out the marrow of life.  We went to the ghetto… .We narrowed our vision to this:  Love God, love people, and follow Jesus.  And we began calling our little experiment the Simple Way.  In January, 1997, six of us moved into a little row house in Kensington, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest neighborhoods.”

In that setting, the people of the Simple Way share life with their neighbors:  the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill, the families struggling to get by, and the children.  They witness for peace and practice the non-violent way of Jesus, and they act for justice in a variety of ways, including practicing an alternative economics based on cooperation rather than competition.[5]

            Now if Shane Claiborne and others like him in the Simple Way and in similar discipleship communities scattered across the church can find energy like this, then what is there to stop us from accessing this same energy but our own fear?  It seems to me that the church is like an eagle perched on the rocks waiting for the updraft that will catch its great wings and cause it to soar free from the bonds of captivity that constrain us.

And mark my words, when the energy comes, the surest sign of our renewed strength won’t be more and more people joining churches or participating in uplifting services of worship.  Things like this can happen as weary exiles seek to feel better in the midst of an ever-deepening cultural conformity.  No, the surest sign of our renewed strength will be more and more people breaking with our culture to practice more faithfully the way of Jesus no matter the costs.

So my brothers and sisters, this is my prayer:  Come, Creator God, come.  We are wearied and we are tired, but we’re ready for a life-giving burst of energy that will break us free and set us soaring.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.