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The God Who Leads Us Home
by Margaret Guenther
May 25, 2008
[Isaiah 49:8-16a and Matthew 6:24-34]
The story of the people of Israel, our spiritual ancestors, is the story of a people on the move, a story of journey and homecoming. In the reading we have just heard from the 49th chapter of Isaiah, they had been in exile for more than a generation Just as the suffering of slavery under the Egyptians was at least predictable—remember how the fleeing Israelites angrily compared the tedium of manna with the recollection of delightful Mediterranean cuisine of Egypt!—so too the years of exile in Babylon had become endurable in their predictability. And now the children of Israel found themselves on a new threshold. It was time to go home; time to undertake a journey to a place that was both known and unknown, that many of them had never seen. They had to wonder: Will this be a homecoming or a journey to oblivion? Has YHWH forgotten us?
We know that Isaiah was writing for a particular people at a particular time, a people whose exile was literal as well as spiritual, whose homecoming involved an arduous trek through a difficult landscape. Yet his tone is personal, and we can find in his words a personal message for us in the here and now.
“Has the Lord forgotten his people?” we ask. Even if we manage to create a cozy cocoon just for us, an hour spent watching the evening news or a cursory reading of the Post will remind us that we are far from Eden. That we seem to have everything, yet an important something is lacking, and we are uneasy and wanting.
For in this affluent and stable country, we are nevertheless prisoners of violence—even if we manage to forget that we are caught in a seemingly unwinnable war. (But that, of course, is a long way away, and if we are lucky, we have no loved ones living in harm’s way.) Nor can we pretend that all the woundedness is somehow “out there,” the special province of the “criminal element” or at least of people “not like us,” when poverty, child abuse, domestic violence, and crippling addiction are part of everyday life in this gracious and abundant corner of God’s world. We are indeed a wounded people—in our families and in the loving circle of our church.
We struggle to keep our cities viable. We wring our hands at school systems where children do not or cannot learn. We wonder if the air that we breathe or the water that we drink or the food that we eat contains toxins that will sicken and kill us. We have so much—and yet we always reach for more, seeking security in possessions and status. We tell ourselves that we are free and safe—and yet often we feel markedly unfree and unsafe.
We ache, we want, we yearn—for what we do not know. I suggest that we are homesick, homesick for that place of God’s abundance, tenderness and freedom.
Put yourself in their place in the place of the children of Israel as they set out on their return from exile empowered by the Lord God’s promise of his faithful covenant. And think with me for a few minutes about the words of reassurance and comfort to a people yearning for home.
We are promised liberation. The God who wishes his people to be free says to the prisoners “Come out” and to those in darkness “Show yourselves.” It’s hard to hear these words without remembering Lazarus, bound in the darkness of the tomb. It’s hard to hear these words of promise without hearing Jesus’ command: “Lazarus, come out!” And then his command to those standing by, “Unbind him and let him go.”
There are many kinds of prisons besides the grim structures built to house or warehouse those who, justly or unjustly, have been consigned to physical unfreedom. And there are many kinds of prisoners besides recognized, convicted felons or martyred prisoners of conscience. There are prisoners of fear and addiction, prisoners of despair and debilitating illness. There are prisoners living so without hope that they lack the energy and spirit to look up and to see that the prison door already stands open.
Sometimes it’s hard to hear the invitation (or the command): “Come out of the darkness and show yourself.” In other words, let go of your burdens and impediments and know yourself, yourself loved and accepted despite your limitation and shortcomings. Show yourselves: let go of shame, do not afraid to be nakedly yourself. This is, after all, the promise of the loving God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid. It is safe to show ourselves, assured that we are “good enough” just as we are.
Then too we are promised nurture and shelter and compassion. The returning exiles are assured that they will not be hungry or thirsty, neither buffeted by winds or scorched by the sun. More reassuring, they—and we—are promised that we will not get lost, even when we are not sure of the way, “for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.” The path toward home will be made smooth—the mountains will be turned into a road, and God’s highways will be raised up.
I wonder how the children of Israel heard these words, especially those who were poor or sick or deeply troubled. Those who doubted that they could get through another day, those who were just getting by. Those to whom the journey homeward seemed an impossible dream, an undertaking beyond their strength and capabilities. Those who had known so much disappointment that they no longer believed in promises, even divine promises of restoration and wholeness.
I wonder how we feel. By our presence here today , we have said “yes” to God’s promise, perhaps a qualified “yes,” to be sure, but at least a willingness to let ourselves be convinced.
But this is a dialogue; we are hearing more than one voice, a voice of protest and doubt. “But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me, my LORD has forgotten me.’” Zion... Who is Zion? Most obviously, the exiled and disheartened children of Israel, those to whom the prospect of a journey was more than they wanted to undertake. For those who remembered the hard journey into exile: could they trust the assurance that they would be fed and sheltered and guided on their return? Maybe the Lord wasn’t entirely trustworthy—well-meaning perhaps, but promising more than he could deliver. We are also Zion. It all sounds too good, too easy, perhaps not trustworthy. We can feel that we are forgotten and forsaken and wonder: “Can we trust promises even God’s promises?” We have all experienced the hurt, the devastating betrayal of promises made to us and broken. More painfully, we live with the guilt and shame of our own broken promises. “It is better,” we tell ourselves, “to expect nothing, and then we won’t be disappointed.” And how can we be so naive as to trust anyone, even God, when we ourselves are so untrustworthy. Perhaps better not to get carried away with a foolish trust in reassuring words. Even God’s.
God’s response is startling: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”
Speaking of our creator-God, I have said “God-he” throughout these reflections. Such traditional language is reassuring to those who feel that the Church is already changing too fast and that the preoccupation with gender inclusivity in the use of pronouns has gone too far. Well, here the Lord God –that patriarchal God of the Hebrew Scriptures–shakes us all up. This is startlingly maternal imagery. He—yes, indeed “he”—likens himself to this mother of a nursing infant, the generous and faithful bestower of life-giving nourishment and the reliable source of safety and security. This is a symbiotic relationship, bringing satisfaction and pleasure to the mother as well as the child, but pain and suffering to both if it is broken. It is physically impossible to forget the child–this is not a matter of sentiment but of actual pain. We are bound and bonded to each other. So the answer to God’s hypothetical question must be a resounding “No!” No, he cannot, will not forget us. No, he—father, mother, creator God—has inscribed us on the palms of his hands and cannot, will not abandon us. He will lead us safely home.