Sermon: Isaiah 2:1-5

Theme: Advent

About this:

This is a talk from Advent Sunday last year.  As I read it this time I heard words I needed to hear again.  Unfortunately we are still facing very dark times.  I still need the encouragement to find and share the light within and around me. Reading the passage again in the light of the current conflict in Gaza I long for the peace it speaks of.

I hope these words will be encouraging and comforting as we enter the season of Advent in a week's time.

Here's a link to the Bible reading:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+2%3A1-5&version=NRSVUE

Last week Riffat spoke about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  She talked about sheep – how they are not very bright, how they wander off, how one will fall off a steep edge and others will follow to see what happened and end up falling off the edge too.  As I listened to Riffat I thought again how like sheep we are.  How, unfortunately, we are not very bright – including those of us who have qualifications and experience and learning: when it comes to spiritual things we still struggle to understand.  How easy it is for us to be oblivious to our shepherd and wander away; to get ourselves lost or in danger.  How we follow each other and are unaware of what is ahead of us until it is too late.  This speaks to me of the current times that we find ourselves in.  How like sheep we are.  How lost we are.

But today is the first Sunday of Advent.  Advent is a time of waiting, and a time of hope.  We have the anticipation of something good coming – the hope of God being born among us.  Immanuel – God with us.  As we look at today’s passages my prayer is that God will speak to us and plant that seed of hope inside us in the difficult times we face.  Because there is hope for us, even though we are sheep!

In the passage in Isaiah we are given an image of God rising up and all nations streaming towards Him.  The Lord’s temple will be raised above the hills and all nations will stream to it.  And then in verse 3 it says: “Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.  He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

Let’s just spend some time dwelling on this verse…

“Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.  He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

What is your deepest desire?  What is it that you want the most in life? 

I think this verse speaks to us of our deepest desire: when people see God rise up, when they see the beauty of his temple, their deepest desire is to go to God’s house so that they learn his ways and walk in his paths.  I think this desire is deep in each one of us even if we are not aware of it: even if that wasn’t your first answer to my question. Sometimes this is spoken of as ‘a God shaped hole’ – there is a space in us that can only be filled by God, a desire in us that only God can meet.

I am currently on a course called ‘Encounter’ which is very interesting – maybe I will get to share with you more of what I am learning as time goes on.  We recently had a session on the fall and looked at different understandings of sin.  One of these understandings is that sin is ‘misdirected desire’.  If we understand humans as beings with that deep desire for God, then sin can be seen as what happens when we start desiring other things in place of God.  This can lead to all kinds of addictions because it is impossible for us to find a replacement for God that will meet our deepest desire.  I wonder how obvious our addictions are – some of us may have struggled with alcohol or drugs or cigarettes; for others of us the addiction may be a lot more subtle.  For myself I would think of food – which I eat when I don’t need it – and television – I can really watch too much of it.  In those things I am looking for comfort and rest and pleasure – but those things will never meet my need in the way that God can.

Unfortunately, Christmas is a time when we very often get distracted by all the other desires in our lives.  These might be material possessions – from an early age the question has been ‘what do you want for Christmas?’ - or it might be the desire to see friends and family, or to keep one of our dearly held traditions.  Christmas is an incredibly busy time of year and the danger is that we do not pay attention to our deepest desire which is for God. 

So this verse, I think, is very helpful:

“Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.  He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

But then I ask myself – where is it that I need to go?  Where is this ‘house of God’?  Of course, one answer is that it is here, at church.  This is a house of God.  We come here to meet with God, to learn his ways so that we can walk in his paths.  But I think that there is something else here, something that doesn’t need a building, something that I carry with me all the time.

When I read this verse I am reminded that my body is described as ‘a temple of the Lord’ and that Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within and among us.  This verse invites us to remember that God is inside us: it invites us to drop down inside ourselves and find the place inside of us where God dwells. 

In my sheep-like humanity it is easy to forget or ignore this.  It is easy to busy myself with the demands of my life, to get caught up in all that is going on in the world, even to busy myself in doing good, and not take time to be still and connect with God in his temple inside me. 

The journey I need to take to the house of God is an internal journey.  I need to be still and drop down into God; into the place where he lives in me.  When we find this place of connection with the sacred we will be taught his ways.  The ways of peace as described in our Isaiah passage. Connection with Christ brings peace, just as Jesus breathed peace on his disciples when he appeared to them after the resurrection.

Within myself I am aware of stresses, of fears, of burdens – related to what’s going on in my life as an individual and related to what is going on in the world.  But I am also aware of a deeper place – a place of peace, where God dwells within me.  God invites us, again and again, with his infinite patience to drop down into that deep place and find him.  He is the shepherd who follows us, who seeks us out and rejoices when he finds us.  He longs to hold us in his embrace.  And the truth is, he is always embracing us. But we need to find the stillness within - drop down into that stillness and rest in him.  Rest in peace, hope and love.  That is our home.

Isaiah 2 verse 5, at the end of our passage, says: “Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord” As we begin advent can we find the light within us, and about us, and walk in it?

At Christmas God dropped down from heaven to dwell with us.  Can we drop down into the depth of God within us during this season of advent, so that we can bring light and hope into the dark times we are experiencing?

We live in fear because we do not follow our deepest desire, our deepest yearning – to be in the house of love – in God.  At the beginning of advent be reminded – every day, every hour, every minute – God invites you there, God waits for you there, God seeks you there.  Let’s follow our deepest desire and find God – find peace, hope and love – this Advent.

 All is Well: A Journey in Contemplation

d Everything

How do we think about God?  Yes, how do we even begin to think about whatever we call the force that holds everything together?  It seems to me, more and more, that in trying to understand we have squeezed and squashed God into a box.  In making the indescribable describable we have limited him.  In defining what it is right and wrong to believe we have excluded God – we have shut the bigger part of her outside of the door. 

At this time in history I believe it is critical that we open up the doors and see that God is everywhere.  We need to wake up - open our eyes - and see that God is in everything.  At the beginning of time there was no written word but God was manifest in creation.  You don’t need to believe in God to wonder at the way that the natural world is designed: to marvel at its beauty; to observe its patterns; to be amazed at its resilience and strength; to stand in awe at what surrounds us.  Who is not struck by the beauty of a rainbow?  Or the swell of the ocean? Or the grandeur of mountains? In the natural world each one of us finds phenomenon that stop us in our tracks and give us the sense of something beyond us.

Those of us who come from a Christian background need to be careful with the way we think.  When we are struck by the beauty of creation we get opened up.  But we also so easily get closed down again by trying to own this beauty: by trying to own the creator.  God is love, and God is manifest in his love - in his creation - all over the planet.  Life abounds where it has not been nurtured or fed – something comes from ‘nothing’: is that not seemingly how the world began, whatever story we subscribe to? When we understand that creation is God manifest we understand that God is available to all.  When we understand that we too are part of that creation – fearfully and wonderfully made – we understand that each human life has the imprint of God.  We open our eyes and recognise that God is in everything and everyone – he always has been and she always will be.

I am not a scientist but I am intrigued by the knowledge that science gives us, and by the way that so many fields of study are being drawn together even as they expand.  Science teaches us that the universe is unfolding and expanding.  This is in essence what we need to do with our thinking – let it unfold and expand.  For me, if my thinking is unfolding and expanding then God is unfolding and expanding.  This in turn means that love is unfolding and expanding.  I want to be a part of that and believe that is what this journey of contemplation is about. 

As science uncovers and explains more and more, the truth is that there is always still more beyond that to understand.  Again, is that not a picture of God?  God is so big that we can’t get outside of him to look back and make objective observations of what she is like.  Which is why it is just impossible to put God in a box.  It is a bit like being on planet earth.  Most of us will not have the opportunity to go up into space and see what earth looks like from a distance (although of course we have photographs).  But equally we don’t need to see earth in this way because there is so much to explore even in our vicinity.  This is also true for us as individuals – I can never get outside of myself and look at myself objectively, but there is so much to explore and work on, on the inside, that it doesn’t really matter.  And however far we go- whether it be to orbit and look back at our earth, or beyond our solar system to look back, there is always a further place to be.  For me, this is a picture of the immensity of God.  It is a picture of infinity – I can never reach the end.  This gives me a sense of wonder and awe, and a sense of the limitations of my own understanding.  But this does not put God out of my reach because, as far as he expands, she is still right here with me.

I am struck that whilst the universe is unfolding and expanding, gravity keeps us rooted to where we are.  There is an expanding force and a grounding force.  Again, this seems to me to be a picture of God – ever creating and expanding and always beyond our grasp.  And yet at the same time so firmly within us – drawing us down as we search for him in our souls; rooting and anchoring us when we feel set adrift.  This is also a picture of what I need to let my mind do – I want my mind to expand, to open up to all that is there and I want my mind to be rooted and anchored in God.  My mind, or my soul?  Probably both. The sense of being opened up to all there is, to all God is, is freeing.  The sense of being rooted and anchored, of finding God deep within me, when I explore under all the masks I wear, is grounding and gives me a safety and a peace which is beyond that which the world gives me.  With these contrasting forces it is not an ‘either, or’ but a ‘both, and’ – a picture of the love that God is: more generous and all-encompassing than our finite brains can understand.

How do I begin to recognise God in everything?  I begin to slow down, to take time, to pause.  There is a presence in animals – we may sense it more clearly in animals we are close to – those who work with animals or who have pets may be particularly attuned to this.  There is something powerful in recognising God manifest in an animal you are close to.  But can we also recognise God’s presence in: trees and plants; rocks and stones; the sea and the sky; the stars and the planets.  St Francis called all things sister or brother.  This gave him an affinity with all of creation which in turn gave him an affinity with God.  ‘Draw close to God and he will draw close to you.’  She is on your doorstep wherever you are: whether you are privileged to live in view of mountains or sea; whether you live in a tower block or cramped conditions where you jostle against other humans.  In the smallest plant that pushes its way through the tarmac; in the biggest creature moving through the ocean; in the planets and stars we see as we orbit and are orbited.  God’s presence – love available at every turn.

 

 Poem

Let the Silence Be

 

Let the Silence be

 

Let it seep into your skin

Don’t fight it

Don’t hurry it

Don’t ignore it

Don’t push it away

 

Let the Silence be

 

Let it whisper to you

Let it touch you with love

Don’t interrogate it

Don’t prod it

Don’t give up on it

 

Let the Silence be

 

Let it move around you

Let it reach into you

Let it open up your heart

Don’t resent it

Don’t turn your back on it

 

Let the Silence be

 

Let it embrace you

Let it fall into you

Let it expand within you

Let it in

Don’t fear it

 

Let your defences dissolve

Relax

Let the Silence be

Be still

And

- in its presence -

Simply

Be