All Generations
Isaiah 58; Mark 1: 9-15
February 26, 2012
Did you see the blurb in the news last week about Anne Frank? It seems that a Mormon church is baptizing her … again. Apparently this is not the first time Anne has been “proxy baptized” by a Mormon congregation.
All faith traditions, including the Reformed tradition of which we are a part, have their quirks, and I don’t mention proxy baptism to make light of Mormonism. Actually, I bring it up because it adds to my general curiosity about why the Mormon church is growing while across the United States most religions are in decline.
A Facebook post from a friend in Oakland popped up on the same morning that I ran across the Anne Frank nugget, and it put my curiosity in some context. Nichola is a young woman I met a half dozen years or so ago while she was working for Rabbi Michael Lerner at Tikkun while he was trying to get the Network of Spiritual Progressives off the ground.
Nichola was really taken with my reports on our efforts at Clarendon to start the CALL discernment program. In fact, she was so taken with it that she took it – all the way home to Oakland where she launched a nonprofit organization called the Seminary of the Streets. Over the past six months or so she has been taking the Seminary of the Streets more fully into the streets with the Occupy Oakland movement, and they led a small Ash Wednesday service last week.
Thursday morning Nichola posted this:
So, at last night's Occupied Ash Wednesday gathering, the one person present who had no substantial connection to Christianity was blown away by Isaiah 58, and at the end, said something like, "Oh my God, this is so beautiful! If your book says this about 'raising your voice like a trumpet,' and 'shouting out loud about the rebellion of the people,' and 'feeding the hungry,' why isn't this plaza packed with church people?" Those of us who are Christian just looked at each other sheepishly.
Why, indeed, is the public square not packed, not mention the church house?
We can look all we want at growing faith communities, and ask all kinds of questions about what they offer, what they believe, what they provide, what they practice. And we should do so because there are things to learn. But if we don’t actually believe the words of Isaiah – the call and the prophetic vision of Isaiah – then we have nothing. These words inspired a person of no apparent faith on the streets of Oakland. What do they do for you?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
If we do not believe that – and I don’t mean give assent to the argument, I mean give your life to the God whose story is told in the prophet’s words – if we do not believe that, then we have no ground on which to stand. Our foundations will crumble, and our dreams of vibrancy will return to dust.
I have found, over many, many years of searching, that the best way to discover faith is by living into it day by day. Come, these 40 days of Lent, and live deeply into the faith and vision of Isaiah.
It is the faith into which Jesus was baptized. It is the faith into which you were baptized. It is the faith sealed in the sign of the bow that God hung in the sky with the promise to Noah and to us: to be with us always, to be God with us, Emmanuel.
Come, live these 40 days into that faith, and we shall be called repairers of the breach, restorers of the city’s streets. Amen.
February 26, 2012
Did you see the blurb in the news last week about Anne Frank? It seems that a Mormon church is baptizing her … again. Apparently this is not the first time Anne has been “proxy baptized” by a Mormon congregation.
All faith traditions, including the Reformed tradition of which we are a part, have their quirks, and I don’t mention proxy baptism to make light of Mormonism. Actually, I bring it up because it adds to my general curiosity about why the Mormon church is growing while across the United States most religions are in decline.
A Facebook post from a friend in Oakland popped up on the same morning that I ran across the Anne Frank nugget, and it put my curiosity in some context. Nichola is a young woman I met a half dozen years or so ago while she was working for Rabbi Michael Lerner at Tikkun while he was trying to get the Network of Spiritual Progressives off the ground.
Nichola was really taken with my reports on our efforts at Clarendon to start the CALL discernment program. In fact, she was so taken with it that she took it – all the way home to Oakland where she launched a nonprofit organization called the Seminary of the Streets. Over the past six months or so she has been taking the Seminary of the Streets more fully into the streets with the Occupy Oakland movement, and they led a small Ash Wednesday service last week.
Thursday morning Nichola posted this:
So, at last night's Occupied Ash Wednesday gathering, the one person present who had no substantial connection to Christianity was blown away by Isaiah 58, and at the end, said something like, "Oh my God, this is so beautiful! If your book says this about 'raising your voice like a trumpet,' and 'shouting out loud about the rebellion of the people,' and 'feeding the hungry,' why isn't this plaza packed with church people?" Those of us who are Christian just looked at each other sheepishly.
Why, indeed, is the public square not packed, not mention the church house?
We can look all we want at growing faith communities, and ask all kinds of questions about what they offer, what they believe, what they provide, what they practice. And we should do so because there are things to learn. But if we don’t actually believe the words of Isaiah – the call and the prophetic vision of Isaiah – then we have nothing. These words inspired a person of no apparent faith on the streets of Oakland. What do they do for you?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
If we do not believe that – and I don’t mean give assent to the argument, I mean give your life to the God whose story is told in the prophet’s words – if we do not believe that, then we have no ground on which to stand. Our foundations will crumble, and our dreams of vibrancy will return to dust.
I have found, over many, many years of searching, that the best way to discover faith is by living into it day by day. Come, these 40 days of Lent, and live deeply into the faith and vision of Isaiah.
It is the faith into which Jesus was baptized. It is the faith into which you were baptized. It is the faith sealed in the sign of the bow that God hung in the sky with the promise to Noah and to us: to be with us always, to be God with us, Emmanuel.
Come, live these 40 days into that faith, and we shall be called repairers of the breach, restorers of the city’s streets. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
12:33 PM
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