Make Way for the Future…By Your Knowing God

Isaiah 43:1-7

Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan

We begin Stewardship Season today, as we heard our moderator Calva introduce it. “Making Way for the Future” is our theme. St. Andrew is invited to make a way into the future God is calling us to. But, how do we do that? How do we make a way into the future? Over the next 4 weeks, we will look together at various scriptures to help us think through how to make way for the future. Today we first heard the story of Jesus’ baptism and now a familiar text from the prophet Isaiah, written when little nobody people of Judah had been dragged into exile in Babylon. Earlier parts of Isaiah warned, “If you don’t clean up your act, Judah, something terrible will happen. You will be overrun by your enemies.” And now, when the worst has happened, when little Judah has been conquered and many people have been dragged into captivity, the next prophet in the Isaiah school does not say, “Told you so, Idiot!” Instead, Isaiah reminds the people who Yahweh God is and repeats a message from God to each person, reminding each one who she or he is to God. Here is a paraphrase: “You individuals, who are yearning to go home; who feel abandoned; who fear your culture, your tribe, your identity, will waste away to nothing in Babylon, listen for a word from your God.” And, St. Andrew family members, as you wonder how you will make your way into the future, listen for a word from God to each of you, from the 43rd chapter of the book of Isaiah.

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

After reading the scripture, take a pencil and (seriously) circle all the times the single word “I” appears. Count them. It’s 13! In 7 verses, 13 “I” references from God. Now, in verse 1, underline “Do not fear,” and circle “you are mine.” Take time to read it again.

You might know, I love the communal understanding of scripture. God’s guidance for who we are called to be as a community of faith means a great deal to me. But in this passage, every “you statement” is individual, not communal. You, Johnna, are precious; you, Diane, are mine; I will be with you, Jim. I give everything in exchange for you, Rev. Bill. I will be with you, Patty. I am your God, Carole. Your savior, Bruce. I have redeemed you, Linda. Your name could be in every line, because this is your God talking to you. Saying “I love You!” 

The language is beautiful, But I know, I know, but some of these claims you rightly struggle with. They just seem false. You hear: God will not let the water overwhelm you or the fire consume you? Tell that to those who lost everything in Milton or in the LA wildfires. So here is your first crucial task as you think of making your way into the future as part of St. Andrew. You have to determine who you individually believe God to be. Each person comes to belief in God individually. Faith comes one by one, so you need to answer questions about God individually.

Remember the Middle School book, If God Loves Me, Why Can’t I Get My Locker Open? Questions may start in your tween years, but they shouldn’t stop there. You need to keep asking about God. “Why are God’s Jewish children killing thousands of God’s Muslim children in Palestine? Why doesn’t God stop it? Could God stop the killing?” Martin Luther King Jr. preached once that no one should treat God as a cosmic bellhop. God is not at anyone’s beck and call to carry out their wishes.

So then, who is God? If you claim to believe in God, you already have some sense of who God is. But then you rightly work to understand more of God’s will and God’s power. And you have to think through the answers for yourself, no matter what the denomination, or church history, or even what your pastor says. Stewardship season is a good time to push yourself for answers which make sense. For instance, if you think there is a creative force in the universe, is that creative force aware of you? So then, does your behavior matter to the creative force (which you might call God)? Does the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice? Check out the UCC Statement of Faith (which is #885 in the hymnal). The sentences may sound simple, but taking them seriously is difficult and takes time to think through. Some of the claims people make may be difficult for others to commit to, no matter how simple they sound. So you take time to figure out what you believe about God.

Then if task #1 is figuring out what you believe about God, what is task #2? Task #2 is choosing to connect with God. In one of her books, Rachel Held Evans quotes a minister’s explaining the difficulty of affirming statements as you join the church. He said that it is okay not to be sure of every item you think people expect you to believe. “What you promise when you are confirmed,” he explained, “is that this is the story you will wrestle with forever.”[1] He’s right, but I don’t think you just wrestle with scripture stories. I think you need to wrestle with knowing God. Figuring out how to connect with God is an important part of anyone’s faith life. Since no one has all the answers, each person can only commit to keep striving to know God better. And be open to surprises.

As you think about moving into the future, know that God is attentive to you individually and accompanies you in every decision, every step, even every question. As you listen to what Isaiah claims God says to you, allow the ideas to shape a connection with who God is. Certainly, some of Isaiah’s specific statements may not ring true, but what you can grasp is that God is eager for relationship with you. After all, why would God create people if not for relationship? So as you move forward, your relationship with God can grow. Even though you can’t know everything about God, you already know some things, from your own experience. People through the ages have claimed their relationship with God deepens over time, if they want it to. As you trust God more, the connection strengthens. You get surer that God is for you. Then you find that no matter what you do, God does not abandon you. If you drift away, whenever you turn back, there is God already full of forgiveness and welcome, accompanying you in bad times and good, figuratively carrying you when you reach the point of fatigue where you can’t go on. God’s Spirit stimulates your actions and choices, and guides your way into the future. Scriptures like Isaiah 43 help, not because you take them as direct promises, but because they express how God feels about you. Trust the relationship is already there. You can believe the source of all light and power, love, and goodness in the universe treasures you.

[1] Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (Nelson Books, 2015), 194.