Breaking Yokes & Sharing Bread

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Faith and Works – Battle or No Battle

In the Reformation, leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin saw how the Medieval church often used pious, sacramental works to control people and missed the entire message of justification by faith and God’s grace. They insisted on Faith alone as the basis of salvation. Faith and Works (good deeds) stood in opposition, based on Paul. James was “straw” (Luther).

Different meanings for “Works.” (1) Works of law as group boundaries for a pure community (circumcision, food laws). (2) Works as actions of generosity, service, and reconciliation embodying God’s self-giving love. Paul reflects on both as he builds communities of both Jews and non-Jews. “Works of law” – protective, defining markers for Jewish communities. But they excluded non-Jews. Debates about circumcision were about including all nations. Paul always insists on (2): Life transformed by Christ’s love, actively serving others.

Faith Works to Define Life, Shape Life, Give Life

"Come, Everyone Who is Thirsty!"

Isaiah 55:1-13

True Grace, Costly Grace

This text concludes Isaiah of the Exile, 40-55, in a playful, powerful way. A water-seller’s cry! But no sale, no cost. Wine, milk, bread provided free! The people have so missed real life that they labor to eat the dust and tree bark of their self-made powers. If they could listen to another story, God’s story, everything would be gourmet! Their broken life could become really alive.

Behind this lies a complex story of brokenness and exile. God’s promise of renewal seen through God’s self-giving love embodied in the Suffering Servant. God is king renewing through a servant.

If people are going to really hear this, they must listen carefully, to grasp a new kind of Grace! We’re sure there must be a catch: God is wanting to snatch life away, fill us with guilt. True, we are guilty, but God’s aim is to share the living water, rich food of his own life with his creatures.

Israel’s Covenant and Story Extended to All People

Isaiah stresses that the God Israel knows is the only God. All other gods are human constructions. But the only God must be the God of all the world, all nations and peoples, even Persians, etc.

God’s promises extend out from Israel/David to all. A strange dance of new knowledge will come. Israel will impact peoples they don’t know and those strangers will run to a God of such grace.

A Greatness so Vast, We Struggle to See It

"He Has Carried Our Sorrows"

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A Vision Planted in the Heart of God’s Story

This text in Isaiah is one of the most important in history. But it is filled with mysteries. The Ethiopian in Acts 8 shows the challenge. Great scholars like W. Brueggemann point to its difficulty. As Christians with help of Acts we hear it as a direct prediction/description of Jesus.

A text nearly 600 yrs old when Jesus lives. People puzzled. Who are the people in the poem?

God, “Arm of Yahweh,” the “many,” “nations,” “kings.” “The Servant” – is that Israel as in

Is 49:3? Or a person turning Israel back to God as in 49:5? Then “we!” Who are “we”? Israel? Those who have seen the Servant but misperceived him and now have realized a greater reality about him? Us today, now reading this text? We recognize ourselves in the “sheep gone astray”!

The Servant is in the midst of this swirl. As we see him, he is with the sinful many, bearing their sorrows and sins. He embodies God’s will and delight; he is the “Arm of Yahweh.” He is the one whom people see but do not see, hear but do not hear. Till he astonishes us by transforming us! He is God’s people but also the appalling/exalted sign for all nations. Israel and humanity. The vision uses both future verbs and past tense verbs. Is it describing past or predicting future?

"Your God Reigns!"

Isaiah 52:1-12

The Kingdom of God and a Captive People

When Isaiah of the Exile writes in about 545 b.c. nothing has yet really happened to change Israel’s situation. Yes, Cyrus the Persian is advancing, but Babylon’s empire still reigns. Even when Isaiah’s prophecies are fulfilled and Persia allows some of the exiles to return to Jerusalem, it’s not as an independent kingdom but only as a small sub-province within the Persian empire.

God pushed Israel to deal with the paradox of human power. As a kingdom, Israel had failed. Even David was not great on policies, but on knowing God as God. Corruption, injustice, idolatry became so ingrained that God abandoned Jerusalem. Now God awakens Jerusalem to beauty and captivity. Isaiah announces a new Exodus: Knowing God. God reigns as king. God intervenes.

God is king over all nations! Yes, but Israel wanted that to mean Israel is a powerful, independent empire of its own. How can God be king if He and his people don’t rule over surrounding powers.

The Lord’s Servant and Light for the World

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Isaiah 42:1-10, 49:1-6, 50:4-9

Isaiah, Exile, and a New Vision for Israel and the World

We’re focusing on Isa 40-55, but in scripture it is part of a large book spanning centuries. Israel as independent kingdom protected by God. Jeremiah, that’s past, God’s judgment by Babylon. Now a people in exile, looking forward to Cyrus of Persia, God’s chosen agent for this moment.

Who are we? What is happening, coming? Son of David bearing God’s Spirit (Is 11:1-2, 61:1-2). Son of Man = saints of the Most High receive kingdom but suffer defeat (Dan 7:13-14, 18-22)

Servant of Yahweh in Isa becomes a central focus for revelation, reflection, anticipation of the new. The Servant is Israel as a whole (Is 41), object of God’s pleasure, receives God’s Spirit. How? No longer a warring nation but healing, caring servant, uncrushed, bringing justice to nations. How?

Vision of God: Creator of earth and all people. Servant is God’s agent for covenant, new creation: Light to the nations. Healing blindness, prisoners in darkness. This is God’s glory, true God, not idols. New Event brings a New Song from ends of the earth. All peoples are called to the One God.

The Servant Sings to the World: Is 49:1-6; 50:4-9

A Guide in the Way of Peace

Isaiah 52:7-10, Luke 1:68,70, 76-79

What Would a Prince of Peace Look Like?
In the context of Advent, the vision of a Prince of Peace may seem obvious. But in Jesus’ time, Augustus Caesar was the great prince of Peace, conquering all: peace under Rome.
Jews chafed under his appointed rulers over the land. God, not Herod or Pilate should rule. Where was Isaiah’s promise: “Your God is King”? When would “the coming one” come?
Jesus’ whole story is that coming (Advent): Birth, ministry, passion, resurrection, all of it. People thought they knew what they were looking for – their own holy, good Augustus. After all, who is a more absolute king than God? They were ready to join the revolution. Jesus comes calling followers to “the Kingdom of God.” What else could it mean?

Longing for a Prince of Peace

Isaiah 9:1-7

Longing for Peace in a Fear-filled World
We focused our Retreat on the call to be Fearless. This Advent season we are centering on one of its most basic, comforting, challenging ideas: Peace. The two interact together. We start from Isaiah’s celebration of the birth of a child (Handel’s Messiah, Isa 9:6). In the NT this passage echoes in Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ birth, in Matthew’s description of the start of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is this “Prince of Peace.” But what does it mean?
Isaiah began prophesying in a time of powers pressing in on Judah (Israel, Syria, Assyria). Peace was a dream. A son is born in the Davidic royal family, possibly Hezekiah born to Ahaz. That child is a symbol of hope in a time of disaster. The prophet gives him the long prophetic name: Pele-yoets El-gibor Aviad Shar-shalom. Like the famous prophecy of a virgin conceiving (Isa 7:14; Mt 1:23), these words had an impact in their own time.

Living Expectantly: Expecting Tomorrow

Isaiah 40:1-11

Expecting the Unexpected Future
We’re looking into a new year that, as always, is full of unknowns. Politics, war, revolution, science, medicine, culture, economy, creativity, racial tensions, justice, decline, renewal.
A basic challenge of life is dealing with time. Our faith is very present-oriented. We are called to love and serve here and now. “I was hungry and you fed me...” (Mt 25:35) “Do not be anxious about tomorrow...” (Mt 6:34). I want to live this moment as a child of God, a follower of Jesus, and trust God for the future. Leave it in his capable hands.

Living Expectantly: Christ’s Birth & Grown-ups

Isaiah 11:1-9

A Branch from a Stump
We’re reflecting on some important passages in Isaiah’s prophecies that resonate powerfully in the birth and life of Jesus. We began with the sign of the birth of a child: “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (7:14); “to us a child is born, to us a son is given (9:6). God’s unique creative power breaking in to begin new life: Sarah & Isaac...Mary & Jesus. 
But in Isaiah’s day, with faithless king Ahaz, it wasn’t enough. He wanted military help now, not God’s promises with whatever signs. It was the superpower Assyria who could bring in the god of war. Ahaz sold his nation and religion to Assyria for immediate war help.

Learning Expectation: Christ's Birth & Children

Isaiah 9:1-7

Did you grow up as a kid looking forward to Christmas?
Different cultures have different expectations. I did. Not too much religious stuff. But the tree and the gifts? Yes! We like to give and receive gifts. It's easily distorted, commercialized, but a good instinct. (Think about giving: Google "Advent Conspiracy" for a wider vision of giving gifts.)
Part of what we love in the holiday as children is the thrill of expectation. Part of what we love as parents is watching and fostering our children's expectation. Yes, it's a rather artificial ritual, but it can point to a deep truth, rich and complex: learning to live life expectantly -- in hope. Helping a child to live expectantly, creatively, in hope is a great gift. The gifts the Wise Men bring symbolize the hope and expectation that they believe are embodied in that unknown child, without status, but marked by signs for the future.

Retreat Series Week 4: The Disciplines of Rest and Delight

Isaiah 58:6-14

Bringing God's Reality into Everyday Life
It may seem strange to use Isaiah 58 as a text leading up to our retreat: "In God's Presence-Seeking Rest and Delight in Everyday Life." It's a great text about the union of faith and justice. But notice how Isaian moves to a call for Sabbath. He mentions yokes 3 times, all negative. Jesus calls us to take his yoke and find rest for our souls (Mt. 11:29-30). Jesus challenges us to release our grip of anxiety and learn to trust God and seek his kingdom.

Sing, O Barren One

Isaiah 54:1-10

Amy preaches on Mother's Day.