Scripture:
Isaiah 65:17-25
1 Thessalonians 5:12-23
Preached 11/17/2013
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. . . No, just kidding. It was about nine years ago, and it was in Wisconsin. Rob and I, and our friend Nate, had just left a concert we all went to together. It was late, and it was dark, and we were all exhausted. It was one of those shows with way too many people crammed into way too small an area, and we were all hurting. We were ready to go back to our homes, and go to bed. So, the three of us piled into Rob’s Explorer, and started the three hour journey back to Iowa.
To be fair, nine years ago was a long time in the world of navigation. Now, when I’m taking a trip, I simply put part of the address into my phone, my phone comes up with the rest, and it gives me three or four different routes I can take to get there. Nine years ago was before this kind of technology existed. It was before Rob, Nate, or I owned a GPS. It was back in the dark ages of MapQuest, when we had to print off directions before we went somewhere. And- brilliantly-- we had done that. But it was dark, and it was hard to read those directions, as we began our journey back to Iowa.
Rob was driving, and Nate was in the front seat with him, attempting to read the directions. Now, Nate is a wonderful guy. He’s still one of Rob’s and my closest friends, and we love him very dearly. But Nate is not so helpful terms of navigation because he’s directionally challenged. But, he was sitting in the passenger’s seat up front, which is clearly the navigator’s seat. This seating choice may not have been the wisest, but Nate is 6’8” tall, so he was not going to fit in the back.
So, in our less that wise seating arrangement, we drove home. And as we drove, we came to an exchange in the interstate. We had two choices—we could pick north, or we could pick south. Not having read ahead in the instructions, Nate was scrambling to figure out what step we were on, and what way to take. He couldn’t find it in time, so he just went with what made sense to him at the time. We were in Wisconsin, North of Iowa. So, he logic-ed, should just take the south option to get home.
Who needs directions when you can just go with your gut, right? Well, we realized a few hours later that something seemed off. The interstate signs were directing us towards cities that were nowhere near where we wanted to go. We started to get a little nervous. And then, off in the distance, we saw something strange. Used to heading back to Iowa, we were expecting to see nothing in the distance, because Iowa pretty much looks like nothing at night. But we definitely saw something. A tall, tangled and twisted mass of metal—a roller coaster. A tall skinny tower—one of those rides you go up and then drop down quickly, and then the giant sign. It was Six Flags, in Chicago.
Instead of directing us home, where we wanted to go, Nate’s instinct had taken us, in several hours, to a dark and locked up Six Flags. If you look at the map, we started at that top point. We wanted to go to the point on the left, where the purple line goes. What we actually did was go to the point on the right. We were far away from home, and, without any helpful directions, it seemed like we were hopelessly lost.
I’ll admit that it’s not just Nate. I am also directionally challenged. I need that little voice on my phone’s Google Maps app, telling me when and where I need to turn to get where I need to go. But even for those of you who are really good at maps and directions and getting where you want to go, I bet that you’ve felt really lost, at least at some point in your life. And, in terms of our spiritual life, I am confident that we have all felt a little, or a lot, lost too.
Our Isaiah reading this morning lays out our intended destination, our spiritual home with God. And it’s a beautiful vision, one of the most beautiful and most powerful in the Bible, of God’s intentions for all of creation. Along with that beauty though, this vision is also strange. It’s foreign to us because this intended destination is definitely not a place with which we’re familiar. We don’t know that place Isaiah describes. We don’t know a world where there is no weeping, and no cries of distress. We don’t know a world where babies don’t die sometimes, where people don’t die before their hundredth birthday. I bet all of us do often feel like we labor in vain. And I’ve never seen a wolf and a lamb feeding together, or a lion eating straw like an ox. Isaiah’s vision is definitely strange, but oh so beautiful at the same time.
I want to go to that Holy Mountain where none will hurt or destroy. As much as I wanted to get back to Iowa that night nine years ago, I want to go to that Holy Mountain a whole lot more. My guess is that all of us would like to go there too. So let’s go. But wait. First things first. If we don’t want to get lost, to end up outside of Six Flags in Chicago, so to speak, we need some directions to get to this new place. So where are our directions to it? MapQuest isn’t going to help, my phone won’t tell me, and for those of you amazing people who can actually still use paper maps, it’s not going to be on there either.
Thanks be to God that we have our 1 Thessalonians text to give us some guidance, huh? And, as it tells us, to get to that Holy Mountain where all God’s creation is at peace, we need to start, not with the biggest leaps we can take, going the furthest we can go, but with small steps, within ourselves, and the community around us. I suppose, as Lao-Tzu would put it, our spiritual journey of 1000 miles begins with right beneath our feet. And this letter to the Thessalonians helps us start that journey to the Holy Mountain of God’s peace right where we are.
Rather than even venturing to the ground below our feet, this text has us start within ourselves. It starts with the attitudes we hold of others. “Respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; 13 esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.” Respect, esteem, love, are the foundations that will lead us to that peaceful mountain. It doesn’t sound all that hard, until, of course, we get into the actual practice of it. And then there are people who drive us nuts, people who don’t seem to respect us, people working against us, people who don’t treat us with these same attitudes of respect, esteem, and love. And it’s really easy to go off the route that leads to the Holy Mountain at this point, when we deal with these people. It’s really easy to stop respecting, esteeming, and loving.
And Paul, the author of 1 Thessalonians, was well aware of this. As you can clearly see as you read his many letters, Paul was familiar with conflict. It was really why he wrote most of what he wrote—the churches he or others had started, with the best intentions of respect and love, had gotten lost. They were not doing the things they were supposed to do, they were doing things they weren’t supposed to do, and they were at war within themselves. It’s the reality of every church, even this one, that at times, we stray from the peaceful path. So Paul, in this letter, gives us some more instructions to get us back on the path to God’s Holy and peaceful mountain.
I’m not really going to touch the part about admonishing the idlers—actually meaning people who are making trouble-- right now. That verse really deserves a sermon of its own. For now, it will suffice to say that when you see a brother or sister making trouble, if you really, really need to respond, do so out of that place of respect and love. And of course, Paul goes on. Encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, and be patient with all of them. For us today, that might look like visiting those members and friends who can’t make it to worship with us all the time. It might look like praying with or for those who are sick. It might look like holding someone’s hand when they’re afraid or offering a kind word to someone who needs it. It honestly looks a lot like doing our best to imitate Jesus—who served, and cared, loved, and encouraged tirelessly, to everyone he met.
And it takes a lot to follow in Jesus example, or, since we’re talking in terms of maps, to follow in his footsteps. So Paul gives us some ways to strengthen us in our faith journey, and to keep that foundation of respect and love for God’s creation and all our sisters and brothers strong. Pray without ceasing. Remember to thank God a lot. Make room for words from others and movement from the Spirit in your life. Avoid the things you know are bad. Hold on to what is good tightly, and don’t let it go.
And then, knowing that even with all that, we will probably still get lost in our journey to God’s Holy Mountain of peace, Paul gives us one last thing. “May the God of peace sanctify you entirely.” So basically, even though we try our best and get lost on the way to the Holy Mountain, Paul blesses us, and asks God to make us holy—sanctify is a fancy word for making holy—wherever we are on our journey to that mountain. And not just make us kind of holy or part of us holy, but all of us. Because without that, we are just going to keep getting lost. To make it to that glorious destination, our journey to that Holy Mountain must involve our whole selves, and our whole lives.
This includes the part of ourselves that we tidy up for worship on Sunday morning, and the part of ourselves that we really hope others don’t see. It includes what we do in this building, and what we do when we’re away from here. It includes how we use the gifts God has given us, and yes, stewardship of our money is included here. So as we are asking you to take home your pledge cards and your time and talent sheets home this week and return them next week, let these texts help guide you. Your financial and time commitment to this church is important, because giving of our money and ourselves is a spiritual practice. It’s a way of expressing gratitude for all that you have and all that you are being sanctified by God, and belonging to God. And it’s also a way to help being that Holy Mountain a little closer, through.
We don’t get to that Holy Mountain by kind of sort of partially committing to going there. That’s trusting ourselves rather than the directions that our wise God in Christ, and Paul, have given us. And that’s how we end up by a random Six Flags on accident instead of the Holy Mountain. So I encourage you to take this opportunity to sit down, think, pray, and talk about how you are going follow God’s guidance and Paul’s help to that Holy Mountain.
At the end of that night, actually, in the early hours of the morning of that day nine years ago in Wisconsin, all three of us did make it safely home. Wherever you are on your journey to God’s Holy Mountain of Peace, know that God will guide you there. This pledge card and time and talent sheets are good tools to use to assess where you are on that map—if you’re headed to Six Flags, and need a route change to get to the Holy Mountain, if you’re stalled on the path towards the mountain, or if you need to pick up pace to make it before daybreak. So use these tools, and when we consecrate these cards next Sunday, we can rejoice in knowing that we are all a little closer to arriving at that new heaven and new earth of God’s and our rejoicing.
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