No Limits

Isaiah 49: 1-7 & John 1: 35-42

Roger Lynn 

August 27, 2017

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Isaiah speaks of being called by God for a grand and glorious purpose. The “servant” he writes about is not a single individual, but rather all people. Specifically he speaks of the people of Israel, but I do not believe it is too much of a stretch to hear in his words a bold proclamation for all of us. He writes at a time when the Hebrew people were living in exile in Babylon – far from home, far from the place where their faith found expression, far from all that was familiar and comforting. And into these bleak circumstances Isaiah speaks a powerful word of hope – that God is calling them to a life of meaning and purpose beyond anything they can possibly imagine. He challenges them to begin thinking in truly grand, global terms – to lift their eyes beyond their own perceived limitations and recognize the ways in which they can impact the world. “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) Their purpose in life is far beyond merely taking care of themselves. They are called to be the bearers of God’s light into the whole world.

This is such a dramatic vision because it seems to fly in the face of all the evidence. The people to whom Isaiah writes do not even have control of their own destiny. They look back with longing to the glory days of King David, now long past and not likely to return. Isaiah gives voice to their apparent hopelessness when he writes, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity...” (Isaiah 49:4) How in the world are they supposed to be a light for others? They can’t even find their light, let alone let it shine on anyone else. (Sometimes we know how that feels.) But none of that seems to phase Isaiah. It’s not that he is blind to the circumstances. He simply understands that present realities pale in comparison to the blazing light of God’s presence and God’s power and God’s vision. He chooses to believe that God is calling us to live into the fullness of who we are created to be – beacons of God’s light in the midst of the shadows of fear and despair that so often plague the people of this world.

Martha Beck is the mother of a son with Down’s Syndrome. She wrote a book, “Expecting Adam,” in which she reflects on the extraordinary lessons she has learned as a result of being Adam’s mother. Near the end of the book she writes, “Living with Adam, loving Adam, has taught me a lot about the truth. He has taught me to look at things in themselves, not at the value a brutal and often senseless world assigns to them. As Adam’s mother I have been able to see quite clearly that he is no less beautiful for being called ugly, no less wise for appearing dull, no less precious for being seen as worthless. And neither am I. Neither are you. Neither is any of us.” She has come to understand the same lesson which Isaiah seems to have learned – there is more to us than meets the eye. If we believe what the world so often tells us about ourselves then we will very quickly find ourselves cowering in a corner with our eyes closed. But that would not do honor to our true nature. We are made by God, called by God, empowered by God to shine forth in the world! 

We begin living into this reality when we remember that we are not alone. We are not on our own. God is always and forever with us – as close to us as our breathing. Fear enters our experience when we lose sight of this important truth. Despair plagues us when we forget to pay attention to the larger reality of God’s presence. In the opening verses of John’s Gospel we find a description of Christ as a tangible experience of God. At one point in that description we find this phrase, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us...” (John 1:14) The phrase “lived among us” can actually be translated as “pitched a tent in the midst of us...” God has set up camp with us and isn’t going anywhere, or, perhaps more accurately, is going everywhere we go, sojourning with us on the journey of life. In the passage from John’s Gospel which we read this morning, the disciples of John the Baptist who follow Jesus ask the question, “Where are you staying?” It is a clear allusion to the reference a few verses earlier about the Word living among us. As John tells this story it becomes clear that “Where is God?” is one of the great questions with which we grapple.  All too often we do not have a sense of God’s presence. We think we are alone. And so we ask, “Where are you staying? Where have you pitched your tent?” And Jesus’ answer is perfect. He doesn’t simply tell them. They likely wouldn’t listen. And even if they did they wouldn’t understand. It isn’t the sort of thing we can be told. Instead he invites them to experience it for themselves. “Come and see,” Jesus says to them. Come and see! Come spend some time in the company of someone who is in touch with God’s presence. Come spend some time exploring what it might mean in your life if you too were really, fully, expansively open to God’s presence. Come and see!

And when we begin to get in touch with this reality, when we begin to open ourselves to that which is all around us all of the time, then it becomes possible to believe the vision of Isaiah. Then it becomes possible to live as bearers of God’s light to the world. Indeed when we get in touch with it in our own experience, we won’t be able to hide it even if we try. In the words of the Irish poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil . . .” Let God’s light shine!