THE TIRELESS SERVANT OF GOD

(Preached on Sunday, January 20, 2008)

He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.                         -Isaiah 42:4

 

One the tiny island of Hispaniola, near the Haitian border, a team of professors waited in a grass hut by an airstrip for their airplane to be prepared for a flight to the United States.  As the passengers were about to board, a poor peasant woman approached one of the professors with a bag in her hand and a smile on her face.  Without a word she thrust the bag into his hands.  As the professor opened the bag and pushed the tissue paper tot he side, he discovered to his horror that there in the bottom of the bag was a baby!  Its stomach was bloated, its arms hung limp, and its black hair had become rust colored (all signs of advanced malnutrition.)  As the professor=s bewildered eyes met those of the desperate mother, she cried, APlease sir, take my baby!  He can=t survive here.  He=ll die here.  Please sir, take my baby.  America is his only hope.@  He knew she was right, but, how would he get the baby through customs?  What diseases might the child be carrying?  What medical attention did the child need?  After a moment of silence, the professor replied, AI=m so sorry.  I can=t take your baby.@  With that he handed the bag back to the screaming mother and boarded the plane.  She tried to give the baby to other professors, but, alas, she found no one who would take her baby.  When the plane took off from the tiny airstrip, the passengers and crew did not notice the blue water, the vegetation or even the runway.  All they noticed was one hopeless woman alone, holding a baby, malnourished and probably doomed to die.

 

The needs of the world are great and they can be overwhelming for us to think about.  What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in such a world?  As those who have heard the voice of God in our lives proclaiming us God=s beloved children; who have received the Spirit of God at our baptism; who know ourselves accepted into God=s family as Jesus was at his baptism what are we to do?  What are we to do in a world where mothers feel forced to try to give their babies away to strangers as their only hope for the survival of their child?

 

Five-hundred years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah described the servant of God.  AHere is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.@  That sounds great!  God is going to establish justice C that is, God is going to set things right, repair the creation, make humanity and creation the way God intended them to be at the beginning.  Wonderful!  But 2,500 years later we wonder, where is it?  Where is God=s justice?  When is God going to get to it?

Tomorrow we celebrate as a nation the life of one who was truly a servant of God, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King knew well the struggle for justice.  He understood that Athe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.@  The night before his death he spoke words which now seem so prophetic.  AWell, I don=t know what will happen now.  We=ve got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn=t matter with me now.  Because I=ve been to the mountaintop.  And I don=t mind.  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.  Longevity has its place.  But I=m not concerned about that now.  I just want to do God=s will.  And he=s allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I=ve looked over.  And I=ve seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.  And I=m happy, tonight.  I=m not worried about anything.  I=m not fearing any [man].  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.@

 

Whether Dr. King had a premonition of his own death or not, he was primarily offering people a vision of hope.  He fully understood how difficult it was to bend the world toward justice.  But he also had witnessed enough of that movement in his lifetime to know that he had Aseen the promised land@ as had Moses before his death, even though he did not enter it.  Just like Moses, Dr. King understood that justice would not be fully realized in his lifetime, but it was coming.

 

The arc of justice is long indeed.  The wheels of change grind slowly.  Some problems don=t seem any closer to being solved now than they ever were.  Even when the changes are for the good, there is resistance and opposition from those who are making a huge profit from things being the way they are now.  It is a sad but true fact that not everybody wants people healed and families strengthened and communities restored.  Not everybody wants racial harmony and economic equality and matching opportunities.  And equally true is the fact that even the majority of us who do want justice, only want it as long as it doesn=t change our lives dramatically.

 

Justice is not the same as charity.  Charity is about the distribution of care for those who need it.  It assumes that the basic system is fair and that the primary problem is weak or unfortunate individuals.  Charity deals with the symptoms of life.  Justice acknowledges that there is a basic structural problem that exists in the social organization when some get rich while others remain poor C especially when the inequity between rich and poor builds up over time.  Charity seeks to help ease some of the suffering in the world while justice seeks to get at the underlying causes of that suffering and change the system for the better, to help all people succeed.

 

That sounds good until we realize how much we have invested in the way things are now instead of the way God intended them to be, in creation.  Which begins to help us understand why God=s justice is so long in coming.  As Isaiah described, God is not bringing about God=s justice by strength of arm, through mighty armies forcing change.  We look for that answer because we tend to think that it is Athem@ who need to change: those big bad corporations, or those corrupt governments, or those greedy people.  So, when we call down God=s justice on the world, we assume that it is justice for others and punishment for others. 

 

The truth is that we all contribute to the underlying causes of injustice in our world C we are all Abruised reeds@ and Adimly burning wicks.@  That is exactly why God=s justice does not come about by force of arms.  If God=s justice rained down on us through wrath, then no one would be left standing to enjoy its fruit.  God already tried that approach with Noah and the Flood.  God realizes a different approach is necessary.  So now God is working like a gentle gardener.  Now God is working to bring justice about through God=s gentle, suffering love.

 

My theology professor from Seminary, Dr. Shirley Guthrie puts it like this: AAll cheap and easy talk about a God of sovereign power who is in control of a world in which there is so much poverty, suffering, and injustice is obscene.  All self-confident talk about a powerful church that has the mandate and ability to transform society with this or that conservative or liberal social-political agenda or with this or that evangelistic program is increasingly absurd in a disintegrating church that cannot solve its own problems, much less the problems of the world.  The only gospel that makes sense and can help in what Moltmann calls our >godless and godforsaken= world is the good news of a God who loves enough to suffer with and for a suffering humanity.  And the only believable church is one that is willing to bear witness to such a God by its willingness to do the same thing.@