Sermon - May 25, 2008 - Ordinary Time: Sunday 8

Pastor Heisley

There on the steep north slope of our mountain in the Appalachians, there surrounded by moss covered boulders, there with branches of hemlock and trunks of white birch and needles of pine acting as sentinels, there the earth gently spills forth life. Life in the continuing flowing spring that has formed its own small pool over the years, life that cools watermelons and refreshes thirsty, sweaty boys and life that washes away the heat of the day. 

The earth spills forth and music wafts through the branches, the music of gurgles and splashes, the music of sips and drips. Earth music. Grace abounds. 

“In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you; I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people.” You shall not hunger or thirst. By springs of water I will guide you. God’s promises spill from the mouth of Isaiah to Israel, music sung into their lives, God’s promises that their exile will end, the stain of their separateness from their sacred land will be washed away, God’s promise that exiles will once again be full citizens, God’s people doing God’s will. 

Their exile in Babylon was long and seemingly endless. It was a wasteland in their lives. It was a sign of the brokenness of earth’s kingdoms and it was an opportunity for God’s love to become newly known, newly felt. 

Isaiah sang music to them: “You will go home to life. For you, God will do this.” 

Exile tears life apart. Fears of living in proximity to those we do not understand separates us into exiled camps, and anger at the way things are makes us exiles in our own homes. Families consign their own members to exile. Exile brought on by bad behavior or unwise choices. The music of God’s grace is not heard. 

And sometimes exile caused by an unwillingness to accept God’s gift of life. Gay and lesbian children are exiled from the family, are exiled from the church, all in the name of life. And the music of God’s grace is not heard. Greed and avarice and complicity with the forces of evil that tear communities apart give us our own personal exile in the midst of a land of plenty. 

Chris Smith is a young man whose father taught him two things. First: making money is what men do. If you don’t continually make more, you are a failure. Second, there is a fine, fragile line between the legal and the illegal. Money is to be made walking along that line, just over on the legal side. 

Chris Smith learned his lessons well. Greed and avarice. Exile. He learned to use his computer genius, his God-given intelligence, to sell legal drugs illegally and he made millions of dollars and he bought a stable of Rolls Royces and Maybachs and Porshces and he built the biggest house in Burnsville and he put on weekly fireworks exhibits, and he was arrested and now, barely 30 years old, will spend many years in a new kind of exile: maximum security prison. 

Chris Smith lived in exile from humanity, in exile from God’s purposes for us, in an exile so harsh that he was unable to care about the damage he was inflicting on millions of people, including you and me who paid for the elaborate web that finally caught him. 

Exile comes in many forms. Somali people are exiled from Somalia and live in peace here, with us, because of the terrible war that continually rages in their homeland. Chris Smith and others like him live in exile from the love of God, live for themselves, not for anything or anyone else. Themselves. 

We live in our own exiles of misplaced passions and misguided desires and misdirected fears and we long for the music of the gurgle, the music that will release us from our bondage to –us. Free us. Wash us. Refresh us for the continuation of our journey through life. Returning from exile every step of the way. 

Jesus was in Galilee, teaching, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, and curing every disease and every sickness. Jesus was in the business of ending exile. And a great, a vast crowd gathered from the Decapolis, from far off places like Judea, even from beyond the Jordan. And there were even people like us, city slickers from Jerusalem. Right there in the heart of provincial Galilee. 

Jesus stood by the Sea of Galilee with a vast crowd of people from all over that part of the world and taught them. Taught them that God loved them here and now. Taught them to pray, “Our Father in heaven…” 

Taught them that their exiles could end. “You cannot serve God and wealth.” The music of the earth spills forth. 

“Consider the lilies of the field…even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field…will he not much more clothe you?... therefore do not worry.” A spring of water spilling forth grace. 

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” The gurgle of music that is the outpouring of life itself. 

Poor Chris Smith. Poor you. Poor me. We do not need to live in exile. We only need to hear the music that the voice of God speaks through the mouth of Isaiah, the music that is the life of Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of the universe, his life, grace walking on the mountainside, just near the place where the earth spills forth life. Music that sings an end to exile. Amen.

TOP OF PAGE