Shaping Prayer
a sermon based on Isaiah 64:1-9
by Rev. Thomas Hall

 

Our first family of darkness-the Adam’s Family-would love our Advent lessons. Isaiah 64 comes from someone who feels that God has abandoned them and our gospel lesson has Jesus speaking about the end of the world. Uncle Fester gleefully rubs his hands and Morticia beheads a few more roses; the rest of us sit in bewilderment at such lessons.

Ever felt like you were going it alone in this religious life? That if faith is a give and take kind of thing, it seemed you were doing all the giving and the church was doing all the taking and God was nowhere to be found? Maybe you feel that God isn’t at all interested in your life? That you’ve been left alone to sift through the complexities of child-rearing and job-hunting all alone? Not that you haven’t tried to locate this absentee God. You’ve peered behind the drawn shades after the internment, wondered about it all as you faced an uncertain outcome, mused about where God is as you packed the suitcases to walk away forever a long-standing relationship. But your search has come up empty. God is nowhere to be found.

The one who prays in Isaiah 64 has done similar things, I think. They’ve looked high and low for God. And now this person is frustrated and angry. Angry that God hasn’t "proved" true in the rock solid, empirical world. Angry that when they needed God most and knocked on the divine door, the sign said, "Gone fishing." Historically, it must have seemed that God was no where to be found. This pray-er’s entire country has been ransacked and plundered. How can the pray-er forget that as a child they had stood by and watched the hoards of soldiers stream in from every direction? She/he can still hear the screams from neighbors and the violence that followed. They have never forgotten the humiliating six hundred mile ordered march from their home town to a very distant and strange land. For sixty years God has seemed quite aloof and absent. So the person who prays in Isaiah 64, decides one day that they’re not going to pray the "Our Father who art in heaven" kind of prayer; no, they are going to pray like it is-honest and gut-wrenching.

This pray-er begins with pathetic syllables: "God, rip the heavens apart limb by limb and come down and help me!" The imagery is violent-tear, slash the heavens, rupture them open, explode them apart, snap and shatter the clouds. Given the resources, this person would take a crowbar and force the door to heaven open and then to drag God down to help them.

Notice the images that this pray-er paints-she/he wants God to make such a dramatic entry that the mountains will begin to whimper and quiver like a lower lip. Wants God to be as noticeable as fire licking up kindling wood or like water that belches out blistering steam.

Wouldn’t it be generous of God to do this sort of thing for us every once in awhile? To have a kind of back up resource; to let our adversaries know that we have heavenly clout. This prophet instructs God as to why this is such a great idea. "Because if you come on the scene in such violent force everyone will know it’s you and will do what you say." All the kids will be talking about it come Monday morning homeroom announcements.

"Hey, did you see what happened at my place on Friday night?"

"No, what?"

"Well, God came down and really kicked _____!"

Such a prayer triggers the memory of the pray-er about the good old days. Remember when? When God was top billing in this faith community. When the ten commandments still lined the walls of our schools? When we prayed "If it be thy will" and really meant it because there was no other possible way to pray-no medical breakthroughs, no dialysis machines, no bypass surgery, no liver or heart transplants? When everyone believed in God, Guns, and Guts because that’s what made America great?

Remember when the odds were against us? When nobody thought that this little church could pull together and raise needed funds to do ministry? That we could even survive another pastoral change, another repair, heating oil, or another bazaar? Yet we trusted, we believed that behind the paint brushes, the pastoral changes, and the hoagies, there you were God working with us with your apron tied up around your waist and sleeves rolled up. When we felt we couldn’t go any further, when we felt that nothing was left to live for; then at that last minute you came on the scene with great comfort and non-anxious presence and we knew at that precise moment that you were right there with us and that we could go on and make something of our life.

Those were the days, my friend. But here we are now. God has been on maternity leave for quite some time. So the pray-er shifts to his smoking gun theory. "God," he says, "you’re the reason things are as they are-you got upset about something and you just up and left us." Sounds like the oldest excuse in the book-whining that because God had left the room, what else could anyone do but mess up. Or act up. "Don’t blame us for this mess, God, we didn’t do it!" The prophet draws a picture of God and then the circles around it to form the target practice.

Eventually, however, the prophet takes personal responsibility:

WE have sinned

WE have transgressed

WE have all become like one who is unclean

all OUR righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth

WE all fade like a leaf / OUR iniquities carry us away.

"Fact is, God," says the prophet, "we really need you bad. We’ve not done too hot while you’ve been absent. Do you even love us anymore-or have you found some other group who behave better than we have during absence?"

The dust has settled. The images have changed from violent demands to yearnings of the heart. When the pray-er has exhausted every strategy from blaming to the good old days to tantrums, the prayer concludes with a final request. "God, I guess the most important thing is that no matter what, you are my parent, my mom and dad. I am like this lump of unshaped clay; left to myself I am only a glob, a dot on the horizon. But in your hands I am a masterpiece. So whatever I am and wherever I go in life, I now know that you are the sculptor of my life-if I come to you with my life."

The following email anecdote may help us to appreciate how God wants to shapes us all of the time . . .

The man whispered, God, speak to me and a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear.

So the man yelled, God, speak to me! and the thunder and lightning rolled across the sky. But the man did not listen.

The man looked around and said, God, let me see you! and a star shined brightly. But the man did not see.

And, the man shouted, God, show me a miracle! and a life was born. But the man did not notice.

So, the man cried out in despair, Touch me, God, and let me know you are here! and God reached down and touched the man. But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.

The man cried God, I need your help! and an e-mail arrived reaching out with good news and encouragement. But the man deleted it and continued crying . . .

In the end, Isaiah’s prayer requests becomes our own Advent yearning-a journey toward honesty, responsibility, and confession, repentance that leads to hope and renewal. The real fact is that God has been among us all the time. We sometimes forgot to check upstairs. God has tapped us on the shoulder many times as someone’s interruption. All the time we’ve complained and doubted God’s presence, the absent God who has entered our lives has intruded into our world and loves us as very God’s own children. Amen.