Epiphany 5B, Have you not heard?

“Have you not known?  Have you not heard?” (Isaiah 40:21)

Perhaps you have a specific memory associated with this passage. 
For me, this is what it brings to mind: a midsummer’s night at a Christian rock concert, a field lit up by a stage, standing far back in the crowd, I hear a call to conversion, a call to turn to Jesus, to turn to a faith I suspect we all largely had, and this Australian voice is booming out these words… “Have you not known?  Have you not heard?” and later, “those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Is. 40:21; 31).  And although I have no need at the moment to turn to Jesus away from some bleak path, I still feel exhilarated hearing those words.  Exhilaration, pure and clear, fills me, like the night air.

  

How we remember things and how things are shared with us is so important.  And last week, many of this congregation shared their truths; their history.  In this History Day we were remembering, without necessarily meaning to, the same assumption that is rooted in this Isaiah passage from today, the “assumption that faith begins with memory,” as Richard Puckett asserts.[1]  Faith begins with memory.  When we are able to remember what we have heard and what we know, this so often helps us claim our faith tradition.

Speaking of remembering, I also remember how I heard another verse from this week’s readings.  I am a seminarian, busting my rear to make a two and a half hour each way Sunday commute to my field education parish, a small Latino mission in Northern California. 

 We are sitting at a vestry meeting.  At one point, one of the parish leaders, the lone Anglo woman except for me, glares at me and says “you must be all things to all people!”  I cannot remember the context, but I remember I was miffed!  “No I don’t!”  I thought.  How dare she ask me to be so omnipresent—wasn’t I already trying hard enough?  And then I realized… it’s scripture!  Oops.

Hearing this passage today, I was reminded of our ground rule for our History Day discussion last week.  “Everyone’s perspective is OK.”  I thought that they might have something in common, because in order to “be all things to all people,” you really have to listen and understand others and understand that everyone’s take on things is OK, because we are all on a journey of faith. 

 Being all things to all people doesn’t really mean dissolving your identity into that of other people or spreading yourself too thin—that wouldn’t be healthy either, but it is sharing your story and then listening with an open heart to another’s story such that you can understand their perspective, at least for a moment.

And this sharing, this openness of spirit, this sharing of stories in community at the History Day and in the parish as in our families, creates healing.

Speaking of the healings that take place in the gospel passage for today, healings that speak of some of the very first healings in Christian communities, Gerald May says, “the power of grace is nowhere as brilliant nor as mystical as in communities of faith … just to be in such an atmosphere is to be bathed in healing power.”[2] 

 Did you feel a bit of the healing power of sharing stories in community last week?  I felt exhilarated and heartened by the healing power that I felt in our parish hall as we shared stories.  Not all of it was easy, I know, and the work is far from complete—we have a way to go, but we turned a corner on some of our healing work, work that as Gerald May says, happens powerfully in Christian community.

Looking at this gospel, you may note that Jesus is always getting in trouble for stuff like this—these healings on the Sabbath.  Of course if you know a bit about Jewish law, Jesus was stirring things up by doing what looked a lot like work in the Sabbath.  But Jesus points out that if we can’t get healthy and whole on the LORD’s day, then what day will it happen? 

 Now, we Christians are used to healing on the Sabbath.  It’s part of what we come to church for, part of what I hope some of us felt on Sunday last, part of what we experience in other Sabbath times, or times with the LORD, like our Wednesday healing Eucharist.  We are all about healing. 

And this healing process can lead to a sense of re-claimed identity.  Mort Ward shared with us numerous times during our journey where he sensed that All Saints has had and continues to have a sense of mission, a purpose that is about healing the world or Tikkun Olam in the Jewish tradition.  Traditions like Paper Saints and Bread of Life, among others, have helped heal the world a little bit in this small part of the world that is Oxnard.  As we look back at our history, this parish can begin to piece together its sense of mission and identity today. 

 We will continue the conversation together, because this sense of mission may look different to the folks who do Bread of Life than to the folks who work at the Community Garden or make tamales as a fundraiser, for example.  Because the assumption that we discussed about the beginnings of faith being in memory aren’t just about our remembering our history, no, they are also about remembering God’s faithfulness.  And this congregation tells me a story of that faithfulness, as you have not only soldiered on through much transition, but you have been faithful to being a community of faith.  You have faithfully loved each other despite difference and difficulty, and we know from Isaiah that “those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31a).  There is such hope in these words, not only or those who patiently wait for the LORD but also for those who wait for the LORD’s sake.

 Because we know “His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of the runner; but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love…” (Ps. 147: 10-11). 

We are those who hope.  We are those who continue on this healing journey and seek a renewed sense of identity, which will include a sense of vision and mission for this community of faith.  We are those who hope.   And GOD surely will not disappoint.

Praise the LORD!

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[1] Richard A. Puckett, “Exegetical Perspective: Isaiah 40:21-31,” FOTW Year B, Vol. 1.

[2] As quoted by P.C. Enniss, “Pastoral Perspective: Mark 1:29-39,” FOTW Year B, Vol. 1.