The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
The reading from Isaiah the prophet is all about our own society, now, in the 21st century. Isaiah is told by the Lord to say to the people, You have made a treaty with death, and you have reached an agreement with the world of the dead. Isn't that exactly what our culture has done? We live in a way that leads to both physical and spiritual death. We poison our bodies with too much food, and with things like alcohol, drugs and pollution. Our treaty with death tells us: what we enjoy doing is fine, don't worry about anything else, nothing matters except pleasure. Take what you want and forget the consequences.
Those things, of course, lead to physical death. But they also lead to spiritual death, because we damage other peoples' lives by urging them to join in these death-dealing activities. Look at our advertisements, listen to the way we talk with our friends: Oh, it won't hurt you to do this just once! Everyone is doing it! Any time we do things that lead to harm or damage to others, we are opening ourselves to spiritual death. We know that God is love. When we dis-love people by encouraging them to damage themselves, or the world in which we all live, we are turning our backs on the God of love and substituting a god of hate, and, in fact, opening ourselves to spiritual death.
But, do not despair. God has placed in the midst of his people a foundation stone, firm and strong. On that foundation stone is engraved a statement from God: Faith that is firm is also patient. That foundation stone is God's love and care for us, and we have the Bible, and even more than that, we have Jesus to help us understand and realize God's love for us. We have God's promise that he will care for us, and we have Jesus' saving death on the cross that forgives us for all the lack of love we show to our own selves, to the people around us, and to God's creation.
God's promise of help is not an empty promise. It is rock solid, like that foundation stone he has placed in our midst. God is, in the words of the old hymn, working his purpose out, as the year follows the year. We have to be patient. That is the test of our faith, patience ... patience to trust that God will bring about a cure for all the evil and lack of love in the world. Patience that God will bring new life to those whose bodies and souls have been grievously hurt. Patience that God will bring about, again, the new, perfect world that he once made, and that we people have messed up through our lack of love. Patience that everyone and everything will be judged, evil imprisoned forever and eventually destroyed completely, and that faith and obedience will be rewarded.
And so: we are challenged to held strongly to our faith, and to be patient while God works his mysterious works. We are also challenged NOT to laugh at God's promises, because that would be fatal for us...not for him, but for us. There will be suffering along the way, and sometimes we will be tempted to give up hope and give up faith and turn back to the voices of the world that tell us to indulge ourselves, with no thought for the future. If our faith is strong enough, and our patience is long enough, we will celebrate with God that new world and new life, where evil has no power and all is radiant with God's love and our joy. Amen.
