That is the Question

Isaiah 25:1-9

O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt. Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

This passage from Isaiah is used often for funerals as an image of eternal life.  It’s my favorite image of eternal life, for what it’s worth.  But this passage is mostly NOT ABOUT eternal life in the sweet by and by.  It’s mostly about God’s frustration with people all over creation, continuing to act SO VERY DIFFERENTLY than the way we were created.  To continue to act so horribly to one another, that we have become nearly unrecognizable to God… like aliens!  This passage is mostly about God’s ongoing desire for us… all of us… to return to be what God made us to be… human beings filled to overflowing with love and life.   

While the current horrors in Israel and Palestine will inescapably come to mind when we talk about humans being horrible to one another, the truth is that people being utterly ruthless and completely awful to one another is far from confined to this time and that place.  The truth is that no matter where you might find yourself, the powerful of our world blast the powerless with, as Isaiah writes, the unrelenting brutality of a winter rainstorm.  And what’s the result?  The result today, is as it was in Isaiah’s time... cities in ruins… homes lying in a heap… clouds of dust… the smell of death… bitter loneliness… and tears… oh my God the tears… rivers and rivers flowing into bottomless oceans of never ending tears.  

And should we be tempted to once more fool ourselves into thinking that we have the power to route and direct ruin, death, and tears FROM us exclusively TO them (whoever play those roles in the moment)… this passage from Isaiah reminds us that destruction and tears always rebound on the sender.  Destruction and tears caused by profound, prolonged, abusive, and violent treatment inflicted by one group ALWAYS rebounds on the other with unjustifiable but totally predictable, fear filled retribution which in turn invokes a nothing to loose violent reaction and more retribution that then unleash new torrents of tears until everyone is drown.  

It’s a broken record of human misery, playing without ceasing now for countless millennia.  An endless tune that makes God weep for God’s beloved creation.  A human madness which God has been calling us to end with God's word delivered from patriarchs and poems, prophets and parables since God's feasts were first abandoned for Human death by Cain and Able.  I often think that if our God could be driven stark raving mad, this evil and injustice, blood and death, and our constant obsession with ruthlessness, revenge, retribution, and reprisal leaving all of creation a smoldering tear-stained ruin would surely do it.  

Thankfully God is not driven to madness as easily as I am… and so, even in the midst of the world's latest still-smoking ruins, strewn with bodies, and soaked with tears, God reminds us all once again of God’s true desire for all of creation.  It is God's desire to make a feast for all peoples… ALL PEOPLES… ONE People, as God created them.  A feast which has the power to repair the chasms cut into creation by the ever repeating pickaxes blows of human retribution.  God’s desire is for us to stop trying to out-dig one another to hell, and instead to come to God’s FEAST… a completely top notch feast at that… where all of humanity sits down TOGETHER, eats divine food TOGETHER, at God’s table TOGETHER and return TOGETHER from living as aliens, to living as the sisters and brothers God created us all to be.

ONLY THERE and ONLY THEN… at our Divine Parent’s Table, will ALL the death, we claw at one another for as if it were gold... Only there at God's Table will all of that death be swallowed up and the death we've been eating for so long be replaced with rich food filled with marrow and well aged wines strained clear!  THAT, Isaiah reminds us, is what The Lord desires.  THAT is the Word of the Lord that has been spoken.  THAT is what the Lord continues to call us toward, even as humanity continues the race to dig my grave faster than you dig yours! 

Its overwhelming!  What can WE do?  

We always seem to ask that question in times like these, don't we?  What can we do?  But that's not really the right question.  We know what to do, don’t we?  We’ve been reminded of what to do for thousands of years by patriarchs and poems, prophets and parables, saints and sages.  We know what to do.  Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly.  We KNOW what to do.  Start right here, right now, in the one square foot in which you are standing and begin to Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul.  Do that by living God's Way.  A Way that puts the other’s needs ahead of ours.  A Way that does what is in the other’s best interest.  A Way that fully adopts God’s ways of thinking and builds on reconciliation not retribution, forgiveness not fury… takes joy in feasts not fighting.  What can we do is not the question.  To be what God created us to be, or not to be? THAT is the question. Amen.