Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
11 December 2016
Isaiah 2.1-5
Matthew 5.14-16
You can listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/simon-woodman-keeping-the-rumour-of-god-alive
Today’s service is structured around a series
of stories of hope,
and
our hope is that, as we draw nearer to Christmas,
these
stories will speak to us and through us
of
the hope that comes into the world in Jesus,
and
which shines through us to lighten the darkness
of
a world that so often seems bleak and depressing.
When I was a child, I remember being told the
little rhyme:
‘Sticks
and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’.
And whilst I think we all know what it’s trying
to say,
to
children facing teasing and verbal bullying,
I also think it seriously underestimates the
power of words.
The writer of the Psalms knows something of the
capacity of words to hurt a person:
and
says in Psalm 42:10
‘As
with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me’.
And words continue to have a power to destroy
and break down,
which
we experience in many ways in our own lives.
From the devastation of ‘I don’t love you
anymore’,
to
the heartbreak brought by the bearer of tragic news,
words have an enduring capacity to change the
world for the worse.
In one memorable scene in a Dr Who Christmas
episode a few years ago,
the
Doctor is speaking to the Prime Minister,
played
by the wonderful Penelope Wilton,
and
he tells her that he can bring her down with just six words.
She
dares him to do his worst,
so he leans in to one of her aides,
and whispers in his ear:
‘Don't you think she looks tired?’
By the end of the episode, the previously
strong Prime Minister
is
seen to be battling rumours of ill-health,
and
is facing a vote of no confidence in the House.
The similarities with some of the personal
attacks launched at Hillary Clinton
in
the recent US presidential election are striking.
Words can indeed destroy worlds.
But
they can also create them.
The power of words can construct hope in the
face of hopelessness,
they
can bring comfort where there is distress,
and
faith where there is doubt.
It’s one of the reasons I still stand up here
on Sundays
to
present my words for the congregation…
Hoping that in some way the dreams, ideas, and
faith that underlies them
will
come into being in the lives of those who hear them.
One of the former ministers of this church,
Brian Haymes,
speaks
of the role of the minister
as
being that of ‘keeping the rumour of God alive’.
And I want to offer this idea to all of us this
morning.
Because
maybe this is not just the mission of the minister, or the preacher.
Maybe the task before each of us
is
that of ‘keeping the rumour of God alive’.
Here, the power of words is used to keep alive
the story of faith,
to
keep telling the tales of grace,
to
keep spinning narratives of hope into being.
This was certainly the understanding of Isaiah,
in
the story of a new world
found
near the beginning of the book that bears his name.
The setting of these words, spoken to the
ancient Israelites,
was
one of impending disaster.
The Babylonians were soon to march into the
land,
destroy
the temple, and carry the people of God into exile.
Their understanding of themselves as God’s
chosen and loved people
was
about to be tested to the limits,
as
they faced war and deportation
And with them into the darkness of the decades
to come,
they
took, preserved, and treasured,
the oracle of Isaiah,
that
one day, one day…, things would be different.
Isaiah’s vision offered people hope, that a
time was coming
when
the law of the Lord would be pre-eminent,
over
the laws of all other lordships.
And whilst these verses are developed,
within
the Jewish and Christian tradition,
to
become a hope for a distant future, or an afterlife,
where
wrongs will be righted, and sins forgiven,
in Isaiah’s own time and context
it
is likely that what he meant when he spoke of ‘the days to come’
was
not some distant future,
but
a particular time of the year,
probably
one of the festivals linked to harvest-time,
when
people could celebrate the annual move from a time of patient waiting
to
a time of fruitfulness and harvest,
before
the world turned again
and
the season moved inexorably to winter.
In Isaiah’s context,
the
security of the Temple and the Land
was
about to be disrupted by a season of bitterness and displacement
at
the hands of the Babylonians,
and
he offered those facing the darkness of the future
a
vision of hope that one day, as surely as the seasons turn,
so
their future would also turn once again to hope.
As we hear the words of Isaiah’s vision in the
run-up to Christmas,
our
own annual festival of hope in the depth of cold and darkness,
when
we remember the coming of Jesus into this world of sin,
we
can hear this story of hope
inviting
us too to resist the stories of defeat, darkness, and despair,
and
instead to live and breathe into life
our
own stories of hope, faith, and love.
Words, you see, don’t just describe the world,
they
have the capacity to create the world.
Have you ever noticed that in the Genesis
creation story,
God
speaks the world into being.
The truth of this story is that words create
worlds,
and
can do so for good or for evil.
We all love to hear stories, and we all tell
stories;
with
our voices we tell them,
but
also by our lives,
the
things we say and the things we do.
And I wonder, this morning,
what
kind of a story are we telling with our lives?
What
kind of a story am I telling?
We hear stories in the news,
stories
of war, pessimism, hurt, pain, and despair.
And sometimes it can seem too much to bear.
Sometimes
I just have to turn it off
because
I can’t bear to hear those stories any more.
But then these stories of darkness enter into
us, and shape us,
and
not always in helpful ways.
We end up repeating in our own lives the
despair we have heard,
and
if we are not careful we magnify them,
and
glorify in the retelling of them.
And whilst certainly I would not want to
advocate a Pollyanna approach to life,
where
we close our ears to stories of tragedy,
and
adopt a forced optimism,
neither should we aim for a Chicken Licken
approach,
forever
retelling the story that the sky is falling.
Rather, Isaiah invites us to rewrite the story
of our lives,
according
to God’s perspective.
Just as he encouraged the ancient Jews
to
take a realistic approach to the disaster that lay before them,
but
also to not lose their hope in the future,
so we should not seek to minimize bad news,
but
also we should learn to not let go of the story of hope
that
our faith in a God of love revealed in Christ Jesus gives us.
Despite what Peter our train-driver-deacon may
like to tell us sometimes,
the
light at the end of the tunnel is not always a train coming towards you.
It was Martin Luther King Jr. who said
that
‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it tends towards justice’.
And the prophet Isaiah tell us that
In days to come the mountain of the LORD's house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above
the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
3 Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up
to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may
teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion
shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the
nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords
into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 5 O house of Jacob, come, let us
walk in the light of the LORD!
This is our story of hope,
and
if we tell it faithfully, we create a world in which it becomes true.
So let’s commit ourselves again, today,
to
keeping the rumour of God alive.
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