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God Comforts Us!

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“God Comforts Us!”

Isaiah 66:12-14 – July 16, 2023

            Many people I’ve talked with are interested when I talk about puppies. Or, kittens. Or young bunnies, or chicks or ducklings. When we see them at a pet store, or at the zoo, or on television or documentaries, a common reaction is, “Awww!” and “How darling!” Can you imagine watching a mama cat or dog, washing her little ones, or making sure that they are safe and warm, cuddled up and safe next to their mama.

            So similar to what the prophet says about the nation of Israel, here in Isaiah 66! Listen again to these verses: “12 For this is what the Lord says: “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. 13 As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”

            The prophet Isaiah wrote at a time of great upheaval in both the kingdom of Israel and the sister kingdom of Judah. The kingdom of Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians a few decades before, in 722 BCE. Isaiah was a prophet in and around the city of Jerusalem, in Judah. I am certain that the political situation was precarious for many years following the conquering of the northern kingdom, the domination of that part of Palestine by the Assyrian army.

            Sure, Isaiah was a prophet of the Lord, and as such had many words of warning and judgment for the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Yet, Isaiah is also one of the most hopeful and positive of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures.

            Here in chapter 66, the last chapter of the book, the prophet writes about the future. Coming attractions, for the Jewish people. “Rejoice with Jerusalem! Be glad! Rejoice!” Such calls are common in this section of the book of Isaiah following chapter 40, where hearers are called to rejoice, take joy, exult, sing and shout out.” [1] The commentator Kristin Wendland makes special note of the personification – the metaphor of the nursing mother, here in Isaiah 66! In these verses we see the future, restored Jewish community made whole again. We see children and toddlers born, nurtured, nursing at the breast and dandled on the knees.

            What is more, the prophet is hearkening back to a time two or three generations before, when the city of Jerusalem was under siege for an extended period of time. There was great starvation within the city, and mothers could not feed their babies and children. Many today can remember times of recent want and deprivation in their families and loved ones’ histories, just within the past century. I am sure this reference struck a chord with the prophet’s readers!

            Can you imagine our almighty, all-powerful Lord, who made heaven and earth, extending comfort, care and nurture, just like this image of the nursing mother? That is exactly the point! Here we have the highly respected prophet Isaiah saying exactly that.  

            Again, I come back to what the Rev. April Yamasaki has to say about differing views of God. She has preached on Scripture using “masculine, gender-neutral, and feminine imagery to talk about God. God is the father waiting for his prodigal son. God is the mother who comforts us. God is the Rock that never changes.” And, April hits the nail exactly on the head. She continues, “Like it or not, all of these and more are in the Bible.  Humanly speaking, there is enough in Scripture to challenge all of us.” [2]

            You and I might be anxious or downright afraid of a different kind of image or picture of God. You or I may be totally unused to maternal or nurturing Godly images. “But instead of mentally crossing out anything that disturbs us, we need to allow the different images of God in Scripture to challenge us, to correct us, to shape and expand our relationship with God,” says Kristina LaCelle-Peterson. [3]

God’s Divine nature is too immense to be captured by only one image. Moreover, our disparate, all-over-the-board life situations are definitely too varied – too multi-colored! – to be considered by only one Divine reference or metaphor.

            I am re-reading a marvelous book on prayer by the equally marvelous Christian and devotional writer Richard Foster. He suggests that we access this kind of Divine metaphor with our imaginations. Using the prayer mode of Ignatian prayer, we can see these mothering, nurturing aspects of God with our mind’s eye, to see, to hear, to touch what is right here in the biblical narrative.

            Richard Foster tells us “We must not despise this simpler, more humble route into God’s presence. Jesus himself taught in this manner, making constant appeals to the imagination in his parables. Many of the [Christian] devotional masters encourage us in this way.” [4] In this simple, straight-forward way, we are urged to enter into a close, intimate relationship with our Lord. What a way to come home to God!

Who doesn’t want to have a fresh relationship with God? Who doesn’t desire close communication with our Lord? Right here, right now, we are invited and urged to use these vivid mothering metaphors and climb into God’s lap ourselves. Can you decide to welcome such a caring and loving God into your Daily Prayer?  

            God is surely a source of comfort and nurture, for all! Not only for those in Isaiah’s time, but for all of us, all those under God’s loving protection and care. What a promise! What a Divine presence that spells “home” and comfort for us all. Alleluia, amen.          

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-14-3/commentary-on-isaiah-6610-14-4

[2] https://aprilyamasaki.com/2015/05/11/mothers-day-revisited-and-how-god-is-like-your-mom/

[3] Ibid.

[4] Foster, Richard, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (HarperCollins: New York NY, 1992), 147.

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Whiter Than Snow

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“Whiter Than Snow”

Psa 51-7 whiter than snow

Psalm 51:1-3, 7 – February 10, 2016

Have you ever made a mistake? I mean, not just like an ordinary mistake, like in addition or subtraction. I know we all made those while we were in grade school. That’s what erasers on pencils are for! I mean, a whopper! A mistake that is so bad, so huge, you wanted the earth to open up and swallow you? The kind that when you remember and look back on it, you want it to be permanently erased off the face of the planet? A mistake that big. That horrible.

Maybe you and I have never made that huge of a mistake. Maybe we have. But, I suspect all of us can relate to that kind of negative feeling. That horrible, gut-wrenching, sinking feeling. That “I wish I had never, ever been born!” feeling.

The psalm we consider tonight is all about this kind of negative, sinking, yucky feeling. This psalm is written by King David after his affair with an attractive married woman, Bathsheba, and his subsequent murder of Bathsheba’s husband (David’s general), Uriah.

Adultery! Attempted cover-up! Plotting and murder! And, another cover-up! Sounds like it’s right out of a soap opera script. Except, it really happened. And, it happened to a man after God’s own heart. A man with a close, personal, even intimate relationship with God. This all happened to King David, some years into his reign over Israel.

So, David has sinned. I mean, really sinned! I can see people shaking their heads, even now. David had a close relationship with God. God called him “a man after God’s own heart.” And some people might say, “David should’ve known better!”

Looking at us, today, we sin, too. We are often in a similar situation. We say we have a close relationship with God. We know the commandments, God’s rules, we have Jesus Christ and His example for us. Some people might say of us, “they should’ve known better!”

And what is David’s response? Verse 3, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” He does not pull punches. David comes right out and says it. He sinned. He knows it. He knows very well that God knows it, too.

We know we make mistakes, too. We know we mess up. We say mean things. We don’t tell the truth. We cut off people in traffic. We slam doors in anger. Who hasn’t bitten their tongue the second after saying something unfeeling? Or nasty? Or stupid? And, there are larger mistakes, too. Mistakes like, breaking the law. Theft. Embezzlement. Various felonies. Or like King David, with adultery, cover-ups and murder.

The psalm writer freely acknowledges his sins. Not even using euphemistic phrases like “wrong was done,” or “mistakes were made.” David is amazingly clear in stating “my transgressions,” “all my iniquity” and “my sin.”

Listen again to the verbs David uses – “wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,” “cleanse me from my sin,” purge me with hyssop.” To “wash” in verses 2 and 7 could better be translated “scrub,” as one scrubs dirty clothes. (I wonder whether David was remembering his mother, scrubbing the family’s dirty clothes when he wrote that verse?) “Cleanse” in verse 2 and “be clean” in verse 7 is the same word used for washing clothes in a river (Leviticus 13:6, 34, 58). (Perhaps when David was a shepherd for his family’s sheep, he would go by the river and watch the women from his village washing—cleaning or cleansing—their families’ clothes.)

One commentary I read mentions “sin as a kind of figurative stain on her life and conscience that she needs God to scrub away. After all, [we] beg God to ‘blot out,’ ‘wash away’ and ‘cleanse me.’ It’s the image of ancient people washing dishes or clothing and modern people using various detergents and stain removers on stubborn stains.”[1]

In other words, my sins are washed away, and though I may still be in the (figurative) spin cycle, yet shall I dry. I can freely confess my sins, too. Here, tonight, we all can acknowledge the wrongs we do.

At the beginning of each regular service, we gather together and have a corporate time of confession. This Ash Wednesday service is a special time to gather together, confess our sins to each other, and to understand we are sinners. This understanding of our sin—of the mistakes we have made and are continuing to make—prepares us to receive the forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ. And the cross of ashes on each forehead is a reminder of that forgiveness in each one of our lives.

Yes, there IS good news! We can ask God to take away our iniquity. God’s abundant mercy will forgive. We can be sure of God’s unfailing love towards all of us.

Believe the Good News of the Gospel. In Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, our sins are forgiven. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/lent-5b-2/?type=the_lectionary_psalms

@chaplaineliza

Suggestion: visit me at my sometimes-blog: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers– where I am doing a Lenten journey. Pursuing PEACE. And my other blog,  A Year of Being Kind -Thanks!