Sunday Sermon Manuscript, July 12

The Door Already Opened

Isaiah 55:10-13

When Comfort Cannot Be Heard

1. There are moments in life when words of comfort simply cannot reach our ears. When trials come crashing in and suffering presses down on us, the comfort someone offers can sound hollow. To a person whose heart has collapsed, being told, "Try to see it this way, try to turn your heart around," is not welcome. No — it does not even enter the ear.

2. In such moments, the person we are most grateful for is not the one who tries to change our minds with this word or that. It is the one who, without a word, simply stands on our side — the one who, before weighing right and wrong, first stands beside us.

3. When I look back on my own hardest moments, they seem to be the times when my sincerity and faithfulness were twisted by someone's deliberate attempt to do harm. When I remember those seasons, my heart was full of resentment and anger, of hatred, and of the thought: How can I get revenge?

4. In a situation like that, advice to "look to something higher" cannot possibly enter the ear. Perhaps, once time has passed and I have come back to myself — having endured and come to understand who I was in that season — there may come a moment when such advice returns to me. But honestly, the comfort I heard in that very moment was of no help at all.

5. It seems the same is true of the way God works — of the astonishing things that happen because God is with us. In the very midst of trial and suffering, to long for God to fix this particular moment is an especially painful thing. In our hardest moments, God can feel most deeply silent. And so, when a personal tsunami comes crashing into our lives and we are trapped in its whirlpool, the words that offer comfort and confirm God's presence do not easily reach our ears.

The Invitation That Comes Nonetheless

6. The passage we read today, Isaiah 55, is about exactly this: it tells us that even in such a situation, God is still with us. As with last week, today's text from Isaiah was a message to those carried off as captives to Babylon. To the people of Israel in exile at that time, Isaiah's prophecy would not have been entirely welcome.

7. That God is still with them, that God would restore them — such words would not have landed easily on people who had already lost everything. And yet Isaiah, without growing weary, keeps speaking of the God who is with us nonetheless.

8. In verse 1 we read, "All you who are thirsty, come and drink. Even you who have no money, come, buy, and eat." (Isaiah 55:1) The thirsty, those with no money — by the world's standards, these are people who could never take a seat at the banquet. Yet these are exactly the ones God calls. Isaiah lowers the bar for who is invited to the feast, for who is welcomed within the fence of God's grace. No — he erases the bar altogether.

9. Here we can see Isaiah's prophetic imagination at work. The way God reveals himself is nearer than we imagine, and God has thrown his heart wide open to save us — actively.

10. The message that God is still with us in the midst of suffering can sound like a tired, familiar story. In the same way, telling people, "In time, this will have been bearable," offers little strength to those struggling through the moment itself. Yet Isaiah is telling us that even in a moment when no word can comfort, God is near — not confined within the boundaries we imagine, but loving us with a love greater and more astonishing than anything we can conceive.

A Salvation Already Prepared

11. The concept of salvation Isaiah speaks of here is truly astonishing. It is that if we simply desire it, we can be saved. This means God has already prepared salvation. We need only choose what has already been made ready.

12. Salvation is not something we obtain only after reaching some high standard. God has already prepared it, and we need only reach out our hand toward it. This is radical indeed.

13. There was a man named Henri Nouwen. He was a Dutch Catholic priest who taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, until one day he resigned his Harvard professorship and entered L'Arche, a community for people with disabilities, spending a year with disabled children.

14. Then one day he saw Rembrandt's painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, and out of the emotion he felt in that moment, Henri took a further step. Convinced that God was calling him to spend his whole life with people with disabilities, he entered the Daybreak community in Ontario, Canada, and lived out the rest of his life alongside them.

15. Henri Nouwen wrote a book about what he felt upon seeing Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son. Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son is his final work, and it is unfinished. In the painting, we see a son in rags, kneeling, and an old father with both hands laid upon the son's back.

16. Nouwen says that within the painting he sensed that one of God's hands was strong and firm, while the other was soft and warm. In his book he writes that we are the prodigal — the ones searching for unconditional love in the very place it cannot be found. When we are weary and worn, when we have lost our way, when we are discouraged and defeated, all of us are prodigals in need of God's encouragement and comfort.

17. This is exactly the heart of God that Isaiah proclaims. God waits for us to return — but not for us to become perfect. The moment we turn around — or, to put it another way, the moment we choose — God spreads a banquet for us.

18. This declaration of Isaiah's touches directly on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many people fix their eyes on the cross of Jesus, on its sheer weight. As a result, they often miss what that event points to — the meaning of the gospel. When we fix our eyes only on the suffering, we come to think that we too must undergo similar suffering in order to reach salvation. But through the event of the cross, God has shown us a salvation he had already prepared.

19. The good news — the gospel — is a banquet already set for us. And yet we treat it as something we cannot take hold of. That is the sorrowful thing.

With All Our Might

20. Last week I attended the West Coast pastors' family retreat. The long drive down to San Diego might have seemed tedious, but the good memories from the years when the children were small filled the time richly. It is a retreat I attend every year, and every year I've been busy serving as an officer — but this year, for the first time, I think I spent the time at ease.

21. Because the children have come along every year, they've grown up together, so one reason to attend the retreat is simply that they get to see one another after a long while. But year by year, the seats of the retired pastors have visibly thinned.

22. There may be many reasons, but I found myself wondering whether the younger pastors make them feel unwelcome. This time two retired pastors came. One was Rev. Lee Chang-soon, who turned ninety this year. He planted Wilshire Church and retired from that church; born in Pyongyang, he always labored for the mission to North Korea.

23. He came to America in 1971 — almost a first-generation immigrant — and you could call him a living witness to the history of immigration and of the Korean church. He is a man of few words, yet simply being with him brings respect and comfort, and he greets his juniors with the same unchanging warmth every time.

24. The other was Rev. Kim Woong-min. He is a man who prays every dawn for the Korean churches of the West Coast. He is currently battling cancer, and yet at dawn he prays especially for the Korean church. He grieved that when he began there were sixty-one Korean churches across the West Coast — California, Oregon, Seattle, Denver, Arizona — and now they have dwindled to forty-three. He urged us pastors not to worry about how we will live once we retire, but to recognize that this is a time to minister with all our might.

25. Coming from anyone else, these words might not have reached my ears. But from a man who prays every dawn for the Korean church, his passion, his heart, and his sorrow came through completely. Behind his words — that this is a time to minister with all our might — seemed to lie this meaning: that pastors who would build the church with all their might have become rare, and that members who would help build the church together with all their might have become rare as well.

26. Whether pastor or layperson, it means we go looking for a church that is, as much as possible, undemanding — comfortable, fully equipped, asking nothing of us. Right now, near where Rev. Kim's wife lives, a church that until recently gathered three hundred people has splintered, and in the church of fifteen that remains there is no accompanist — so, well past seventy years of age, she serves as the accompanist herself.

27. These accounts of their lives were surely just stories, but to me they felt like a whip coming down hard. For quite a long time, I have wrestled with the reason I do ministry — with the confession that led me to become a pastor, and with the heart with which I ought to build the church — and I have tried to set that direction.

28. "When I do ministry, this is how I'll do it!" — I suppose I had thoughts like that. What I placed first was this: to share with the congregation, in the conviction that the people ought to know God's word as much as the pastor does. Perhaps that is why, when we do Bible study, some find it difficult — my heart runs ahead, and I explain in brief what really deserves to be told at length.

29. Second: that my preaching should always be centered on Scripture. The Methodist church teaches that we grow in faith rooted in these four — Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience. So I resolved to see the world through Scripture and to prepare my messages centered on the word of Scripture.

30. Last: that I would strive to let the proclaimed word actually be lived out in life. It is not easy for the word to come alive and carry over into our living. We ought to live as those who believe in Jesus, yet there are times we are content to live merely as those who attend church. To live a life that believes in Jesus is to live — truly and fiercely — set apart as holy in this world; yet so often we try to live as inconspicuously as possible, as though we were just like everyone else.

31. Perhaps that is why, when it came to living out faith in daily life, I held a rather passive and vague attitude — a sense that someday it would come together on its own.

32. But at this retreat, as I listened to these senior pastors, an unspeakable shame and, at the same time, a welling-up too great to put into words came over me. Consider it. Someone is praying every dawn for our church. It is hard enough to manage my own prayers, and yet to pray for others — for a distant church one has never even visited. This is no easy thing. And yet he does it, out of love for the church. And when you look at his life, it rings true — because you know well that he has never once wasted his life carelessly.

A Door Opened in the Midst of Despair

33. The prophecy Isaiah proclaimed is that even in an utterly hopeless moment, God is still with us and is preparing salvation ahead of us. This shows us once again, and clearly, that God's love is greater than we imagine.

34. We often confess God like this: God is great — the all-knowing, all-powerful One who does not err by even the smallest stroke! But this confession does not come only from gazing at the great works of a God we cannot approach, a God we dare not draw near. Rather, it comes through the love of a God who, in the most painful and darkest moment, throws open the door of salvation ahead of us. It means confessing the God who is beside us at this very moment.

35. Because of the suffering we face, there are times we fail to notice this door that stands wide open for us. As Isaiah confesses, God is preparing salvation for us at this very moment. And yet only when we choose it can we experience that grace of salvation. To put it another way, when we turn around — when we repent — we can dwell with the Lord within that grace.

36. Then, at last, we will come to realize this: not despairing in the face of suffering; not resenting someone when we fall under hardship; not hating someone out of a frustrated heart; not tormenting ourselves out of disappointment; and, beyond all of that, looking to the God who has thrown open the door of salvation. This is the good news, the gospel, given to us.

The Word That Does Not Return Empty

37. In today's text, God speaks like this: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it sprout and bear fruit, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater — so also the word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me until it has accomplished what I intend and achieved the purpose for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:10-11)

38. Rain and snow that fall from heaven never simply return without watering the earth. They return only after they have made the seed sprout and borne fruit. God's word, he says, is just like that. God is not one who speaks hollow, empty words. He speaks words full of purpose — words of life. His word returns only after it has accomplished its intent.

39. And so God promises this: "Surely you will leave Babylon rejoicing, and be led out in peace. The mountains and the hills will break into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Where the thornbush grew, the cypress will grow; where the brier grew, the myrtle will grow. This will stand forever, a witness to what the Lord has done." (Isaiah 55:12-13)

40. Where the thornbush grew, the cypress grows; where the brier grew, the myrtle grows. This is not merely a story about the scenery changing. Thornbushes and briers grow in dense thickets and, in no time, blanket an entire area with themselves.

41. The mark of the thornbush and the brier is that they cannot coexist with other life; they survive only for their own sake. This year too, without exception, the fire department warned us of fire danger on the hillside behind the church and issued an order to cut back the brush. Last Monday I contacted the man who has done this work for the past three years, and when I showed him the fire department's guidelines, he pointed out that the church garden has a great deal of thornbush and brier — that over time they not only ruin the garden but, if a fire breaks out, become kindling that lets the flames leap to the building in an instant.

42. These beings that cannot coexist — that cannot live together with others — God turns into cypress and myrtle: useful, bearing fruit that can be picked and eaten. To put it another way, God transforms the situation of the thornbush and brier — a hopeless situation with no change, nothing new, destined to burn together — into living beings of fruit and life that flourish together with others.

43. If we believe in Jesus, if we come to church, then in the end this is what ought to happen: life being raised up, living together with others, leaving something behind, turning a place of death into a place that is alive.

44. This promise that Isaiah proclaimed was fully accomplished through the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The ministry of Jesus Christ seemed to end at the event of the cross, yet that cross is remembered — and will go on being remembered — as a promise of salvation that raises up new life. What we must do here is to choose to place our lives within the love of God, already made ready and thrown wide open. Let us not hesitate, but respond to that call and strive to walk always with the Lord.

The Children Have Chosen

45. Today our children gave a special song after returning from their retreat. Watching them practice since last week, this thought came to me: though right now it may look as if they went to the retreat only because they enjoy their friends, because retreats are fun, this too is something they have chosen for themselves, in another form. Through the retreat, the children themselves have taken a step toward the door of salvation God has prepared.

46. Isn't that a wonderful thing? A time will come when, through the church community, it becomes even clearer to them that the life they have chosen is the love and salvation God has prepared.

47. It is the same for us. When we think back, there were times we had experiences like the children's. If we cannot remember them now, or if we have no such assurance now, my hope is that you and I would choose — would resolve — to walk through the door of salvation that already stands wide open.

48. "The word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me until it has accomplished what I intend and achieved the purpose for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11)

49. Though it was proclaimed long ago, this word remains a great comfort to us today. May you remember that we too will become holy ones who, at the banquet of salvation God has prepared, live the life that is worthy of it.