2024-09-10
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
9-1-24 Homily Federated Curch UCC Rev. Betsy Wooster
Isaiah 40:25-31
25 To whom, then, will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
God who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because God is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint or grow weary;
God’s understanding is unsearchable.
29 God gives power to the faint
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted,
31but those who wait for God 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.
Let us pray….. God, take my lips and speak through them;
Take our minds and think through them;
Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
Have you ever gone through something so terrible, so disheartening that you felt that God’s promise to care for you was broken? Most of us have. Some setback, loss, betrayal, or tragedy, and then it feels like getting out of bed in the morning is as tiring as a triathlon. Life feels like a rate race. It feels like you don’t know how you’ll put one foot in front of the other. It is the experience of being totally disheartened. We haven’t all experienced the same thing, but we’ve all had experiences leaving us despairing or afraid, or both.
I find it remarkable that Isaiah, rather than comforting people with reminders of God’s everlasting love and care, reminds of them of God’s STRENGTH. It is the strength and power of God that gets us through the valley and into the sunlit hills when we feel weak or frightened. Isaiah is reminding them, and us, that our restoration ultimately comes from God’s strength, the strength given to us and the strength planted within us. By the grace of God, this is so. Isaiah gives assurance that we can trust in God’s strength and that we may have to trust for awhile, for longer than we think we’re capable.
The Hebrew people were taken into in exile. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon brought his armies and attacked them, destroyed the first temple, sacked Jerusalem, left Judea in ruins, and forced the Hebrew people from their homes, took them captive, then marched them back to Babylon, making them refugees from their own land. And throughout their captivity, they longed for Jerusalem, they wept, as the scriptures and the musical Godspell remind us, by the rivers of Babylon, “by the willows there, they wept,” they wept to hear and sing the songs of Zion, their homeland, the songs of hope.
They endured captivity and trusting in God for a long time, about 100 years. Generations would come and go. And yet, eventually, they are released to go home by King Cyrus of Persia, and surely that must have been an extraordinary moment of release, of praise and celebration. The truth, though, is that we can’t know what they were feeling. It was an unimaginable journey for a nation of people to make, across the Arabian peninsula to Judea, knowing even when they completed the journey they would arrive at a city and a countryside in ruins.
The prophet Isaiah is prophesying to remind the people of God’s strength for them and God’s strength within them. Isaiah testifies to God’s strength and protective power to declare the awesomeness of God. He goes on to use commanding language to describe God as everlasting. God who is the creator to the ends of the earth and beyond.
Isaiah tells them it is God who renews their strength; they shall run and not be weary; they will walk and not faint. Run and not be weary.
The image of walking and running across a distance is a resonant metaphor for faith. In the New Testament letter to Timothy, his mentor says “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (1 Timothy 4:7) And in the letter to the Hebrews there is this encouragement: “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Maybe these metaphors of running a race bring to mind the races you watched at the Paris Olympics this summer: runners like Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas, Noah Lyles, and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, winning medals and setting records.
And, if you’re like me, then the metaphor of running the race calls to mind the runners in the 1924 Paris Olympics, a hundred years ago, remembered in the best picture film Chariots of Fire. If you remember that movie, or know about it at all, you probably remember that group of young athletes out for a training run along beach, their bare feet kicking up the surf and the sand as they run along the water’s edge, with that iconic music playing…(Marcia plays the theme song on the piano for the congregation).
Could you picture the runners? It is an image of strength and perseverance, made iconic by the musical overture.Chariots of Fire tells the true story of Olympic medalists from Great Britain, including Eric Liddell of Scotland, who was raised in China in a missionary family, and went to continue that ministry in China after the Paris Olympics. Chariots of Fire is a movie about both sport and faith. A movie about the way that God lives within us, both in our secular pursuits and our lives of faith. The movie brings both of those together in the person of Eric Liddell, an Olympic champion and a man fully committed to God throughout his life. The movie shines a spotlight on the way that Eric reflected on running as an expression and a metaphor for his faith.
Being from a missionary family, Eric views his athletic career as an opportunity to share the message of the gospel. As he competes in local races, he arranges speaking engagements and worship services later in the day for people to hear about faith, about God, from the star runner. In one of those events, Eric gives a powerful speech. Here is what he said:
“I want to compare faith to running in a race. It's hard. It requires concentration of will, energy of soul. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it.
But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe your dinner's burnt. Maybe - maybe you haven't got a job. So who am I to say, "Believe, have faith," in the face of life's realities? I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, "Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me." If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race.” End Quote.
These are the words of Eric Liddell of Scotland in 1924, the human being who inspired the movie to be made. In another memorable scene, when his sister is urging him to return immediately to the family’s mission in China and give up his pursuit of the Olympic games, Eric holds his ground and tells her: “I have decided to go back to China, but I have a lot of running to do first. I believe that God made me for a purpose, for China. But God also made me fast. And when I run, I feel God’s pleasure.”
A gift for all of us, the best reason to watch this movie is to witness God’s strength and power at work within Eric Liddell, a man of faith who studied the scriptures, and in them he saw God’s presence in both his work in a missionary family, and in his recognizing, and utilizing, the gifts God that instilled within him. Recognizing the strength of God within us matters. When in the midst of a crisis, it matters. Think about how we function in the midst of particular challenges that we, ourselves, have chosen to take on, challenges that excite us while also taking every ounce of our forbearance, like running a race. We can think of Eric Liddell and the Olympic runners of today, who need strength not just at the beginning of the race, but through to the end.
And even when it’s excruciatingly hard, strength can continue to be found. God gives life in the beginning, in the middle and in the end, in the past and in present, and in the future. When you feel powerless, strength comes by recognizing that we can’t always maintain it on our own. “God’s lifegiving power is ongoing,” it doesn’t just come at the beginning and then stop. As the prophet has told us, it is everlasting.
Think about the strength that God has planted within you, to move through the challenges that are a part of every life. When the way forward seems daunting. When you can’t imagine how you will follow one step after the other. Remember that God makes you strong, and the strength of God within you is like the strength of those Olympic runners. You can run the race and keep the faith:
“Those who wait upon God will renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. “
So we are seeing that we can be grounded in God in the midst of very different kinds of circumstances in our lives. The Hebrew people were grounded in God while ripped away from their homes and held captive as slaves. A strength more powerful than they could have imagined.
And, Eric Liddell, the 1924 gold medal winner of the 400meter race, was grounded in God because he was devoted to his faith and to the gift that God instilled within him. He could run, and when he ran, he felt God’s pleasure, God’s Joy. What a beautiful reminder that God finds JOY, finds pleasure, in US.
We think quite a bit about how we can please God, but when we live into the fullness of who God made us to be, simply being our best selves with the gifts God has given, God is already delighted! Think about when you’ve watched a child quietly figure something out on her or his own, right in front of you. Something that has been a struggle for them. Think of the smile or tear that wells up as you watch this child. THAT is delight. And why do we experience delight? Because, like strength, it is God’s delight within us. Yes, life can sometimes feel like an endless race, and we can claim the strength and the delight within us, these powerful gifts from God, so that we will run the race without getting too weary. Thanks be to God. Amen.