Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
January 16, 2011
Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

Isaiah 49:1-7 • Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.”

And now the LORD says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the LORD, and my God has become my strength— he says, “It is too light 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.”

Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, “Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

I. BEGINNING

So. What’s new?  Anything interesting happen lately?

Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock, or decided to get a head start on your senior capstone and lock yourself in the library this week, you know that our campus was visited by protestors from Westboro Baptist Church.  They have made a rather infamous name for themselves protesting celebrity or military funerals with hateful messages.  The kind of messages that make you think that if you are the slightest bit different from a very limited and narrow norm, that Westboro might not be the church for you.

They represent the lunatic fringe of a very restrictive, narrow Christian faith.  It would be so much easier, by the way, if we could write them off as non-Christian, but whatever we might think of their hateful theology, the fact remains that we share a common baptism and a common name.

Of course, we in our community commit to a very different model of Christian faith.  One that we’ve been cultivating for quite some time.

II. A PLACE OF REFUGE

One of the things that we can take enormous pride in for this community is that we are a place of welcome for everyone.  We have an exceptionally strong hospitality ministry here that works hard to help us to create and maintain that culture of welcome for all.  That hospitality was on display on Friday in typical Methodist fashion as we served over 500 cups of hot chocolate to the participants of the rally.  We see it when we have fellowship dinners available to all, or at the movie nights.  We recommit to being intentionally welcoming to all people every year at the Reconciling service.  These actions are incredibly important and very meaningful.

Have you ever been driving late at night on a long trip in the middle of nowhere?  Perhaps driving along a little traveled highway or even along an interstate in one of those vast stretches of the country with little in it.  For the longest time the only lights are the headlights and taillights of the other cars, and the occasional reflection from your own headlights as you pass those highway marker signs along the side of the roadway.

Then suddenly, you round a corner or you crest a hill and there is light in the distance ahead of you.  A rest stop. A small town. Something. Evidence that you are not alone.  It slows your heart rate, makes you relax a bit.  There is an oasis ahead.  That light that confronts you is a place of refuge, a place of safety.

When we are committed to hospitality, we’re like that light in the middle of the dark night, that place of safety.  There are so many people who are not welcome to worship, or to be a part of a community.  It is an important part of our ministry to be just such a place.  To be that light.

III. THE SUFFERING SERVANT

Light is a popular theological theme this time of year, of course.  It starts with the light of Christmas, a holiday that reminds us well of lights in the darkness.  And it is a theme in the reading for today from the book of Isaiah. A text, by the way, that just happens to be our lectionary text for this week. Providence works in strange ways.

This passage of scripture is one of four “Servant Songs” found in chapters 40-55 of that book.  In the servant songs, we read of God’s chosen servant, who suffers for the sake of God’s kingdom. A slightly better known verse from these Servant Songs would be from chapter 53: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5 NRSV).  Here, too, in chapter 49, we have another well known passage:

“It is too light 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.”

Here the servant is charged not only with the salvation of Israel, but with being a “light to the nations”.  One who will bring God’s salvation to the “ends of the earth”.

From early on, these passages identifying the suffering servant have been identified as referring to Jesus.  Mark’s gospel, the earliest one written, builds its entire theology on Jesus as the suffering servant of God, the messiah who is known through his faithful obedience.  All four gospels are replete with literary allusion or even outright reference to the servant songs.  Isaiah is quoted in Paul’s writings, in the Epistles of Peter, and in Acts.  The early church clearly saw Jesus as the suffering servant, the wounded healer, the light to the nations.

But it might interest you to know, that Christian theological piety aside, the identity of the suffering servant in the book of Isaiah is not clear.  In fact, sometimes the servant seems to be one who will save Israel, as in verse 6 of our text tonight.  Other times, even in the same text—the identity of the servant seems to be Israel itself.  As in verse 3: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”  Some have argued that the servant is the prophet, or prophets in general, who suffer for the sake of proclaiming God’s message.

These passages of the book of Isaiah were written during the midst of the Babylonian Exile, a time when the Jewish people were at a very low point: removed from their land, their kingdom destroyed.  The oracles of chapters 40-55 are some of the most amazing oracles of hope in the Bible. And in the midst of it all are these oracles about the suffering servant.

Most scholars agree that the identity of the suffering servant is likely the people of Israel themselves.  That the community is God’s servant.  Christians do nothing wrong in applying these verses to Jesus, but it’s important to remember that the text initially spoke to the people themselves.

IV. A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS

That’s a really important reminder for us Christians.  We get that Jesus is God’s chosen servant.  We understand that he is the deliverer of the whole world, the light to the nations.  But we sometimes need reminding that we, too, have a role to play.  We, too, can be a light to the nations.

For even were Isaiah not written to the community as a whole, we are the church, the Body of Christ, and just as Christ is the light to the nations, so, too, are we.

It’s important to be that place of refuge.  There are few sights more comforting than that light in the darkness, that place of rest and respite in the middle of a long and dark night.

But light is more than just an indicator of where the places that are open are.  Light helps people to see.  Light brings clarity, understanding.  Light helps people to see the way forward.  We have that responsibility, too.

One of the problems with a group like Westboro Baptist, is that the perfect response to them is no response.  Crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing by are the ideal conditions.  But given that on a campus of 11,000 people, that was not going to happen, then there was another important task: to present another model of Christianity.  This community did that in a number of different ways, by helping Tara to promote her God Loves Poetry project and by offering hot chocolate to everyone there. That included Westboro, by the way. One of the journalists covering the event passed along our offer for some hot chocolate to them.  (They declined.)  But this community had also had a long history of doing things like that.  And so, it was important for us to be there.  It was important for us to make that witness.  Because that is what we are called to do.

It bears noting that Israel, the one told to be a “light to the nations” was tasked with this responsibility, too.  The Sinai Covenant, the whole body of law in the Torah was designed to require Israel to model an alternative community to the communities around them.  Where those communities were overrun with idolatry and injustice, Israel was called to be faithful and just. Where those communities did not value human life or serve the needy, Israel was called to live out a life of righteousness and justice for the weakest members of society.  Where other nations had autocratic kings, Israel was intended to have only God.

It is also important to note, that Israel was not brought out of Egypt and then led to some remote island away from everyone else where it could live out this alternative community in peace. No, Israel was placed at the crossroads of civilizations and continents.  Smack dab in the middle of the world.  Israel’s task to model alternative community would take place in and among the nations.

And so that is our task as well.  We, like Israel before us and the Christ we serve, are called to be a light to the nations.  We are called to model an alternative community that shines the way forward.  That gives hope not only to those who seek refuge, but that helps to be a part of the transformation of the world itself.  If intolerance, violence, bigotry, and hate are the ways of the world, then we are to model acceptance, peace, inclusiveness, and love.  We are to stand proudly and demonstrate another way.

V. END

That sounds like a daunting task.  And you might legitimately wonder what our chances of effectiveness might be.  If you should doubt whether any meaningful message could get put out by a small community like ours, consider that there are only 70 members of Westboro Baptist Church.  There are at least 40 of us here tonight.  And a few hundred on the mailing list.  Imagine what good we could do.

Imagine the effect shining that light in the darkness has on people who have only known darkness.  Even an intermittent flash, now and again, can help people to see features of a hidden landscape, the way that lightning flashes do in the midst of a storm.  It can give people hope that there is more to this world than might be thought under an angry, hateful God.

Even in our small ways, when we shine light into the darkness, that light can reach far.  The effects of even the smallest action for love and grace can have far reaching implications.  Those first steps by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the beginning of the civil rights era may also have seemed small, but were part of the transformation of the world itself.

For, we engage not in our own work, but God’s.  God is the source of the light, we are the lampstand that helps to share this light.  God has promised that our witness will bear fruit:

“Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

The world is full of darkness, but when we commit to love and grace, to welcome for all, to advocacy for the marginalized, we commit to reflect the light, and we shall see that “light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it”.

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