|
February 2, 2003
The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower At the end of our service this morning I'm going to teach you a
song that I wrote. You have the
words on a bulletin insert. The
song is titled "In the Storm." It's
a song that I wrote toward the end of a period of great difficulty in my life.
It was a few years ago--in fact, it was the year 1994.
I had a heart attack which (yes, you're right--I'm way too young to have
had a heart attack then and would be way too young to have one now, but I had
one). And I'll let you know that my
cardiologist has told me since that my heart has completely reconditioned
itself. But nevertheless, those
were very, very dark days for me. I want us to look together at the Bible. You may want to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 40.
We're going to look just at the last verse of Isaiah chapter 40 as we ask
the question, "What kind of people do we need to be given that life brings
tragedies our way?" Sometimes
surprise tragedies, and other times not surprise.
That life brings us periods of difficulty, that life brings us under
stresses and strains. What kind of
people do we need to be in order to greet those and to move through them
victoriously? That's our question
this hour and I'm going to try to counter two false-answers to that question. One really stems more--if you want to just sort of locate it
like this--from the secular media of our day.
But the other false-answer, the other misguided answer, really comes from
religious organizations at the present time. I want us to say, "What kind of people do we need to
be?" and "What are the answers that we need to reject as we try to
understand what the true and appropriate answer would be?" Now, Isaiah chapter 40--a very familiar chapter--ends with a very
familiar verse, verse 31: but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their
strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. And I'm just going to ask us to focus in on the phrase "those
who wait on the Lord." What
does it mean to be among those who wait on the Lord? What does it take to be among those? I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but the Hebrew word that is
translated "wait" there is "kvah," and "kvah"
originally meant "to bind together."
If you go back far enough with the Hebrew language, it meant "to
bind together." And then at
the time of Isaiah it came to mean more, as it's translated here, "to
wait," "to delay expectantly," "to anticipate."
We need to understand that what is being referred to here is an ability
to sort of bind yourself, to hold yourself in check.
Not necessarily to behave as your first impulse would ask you to, but
instead to wait on the Lord. And that's crucial. It's
very, very important that we're not told here, "wait for your own best
instincts to kick in," "wait until your head has cleared,"
"wait until you're in a better position." No. What is said
is, "wait on the Lord." And
the kind of people who are going to be best suited to work through a tragedy or
a period of difficulty are the people who know that there is a source of
strength and wisdom and mercy and that source is not in us. That source lies outside of us.
Wait on the Lord. Those who
wait on the Lord discover what? Well,
they shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. Those who look to a source of wisdom, and strength, and power
outside of themselves discover that there is a source of strength that sort of
carries us through, that puts us in a better position to respond.
I said there are two false-answers, two misleading and misguided answers.
The first one is--and I thought of this yesterday as we were all being so
very impacted (and I was, and Nancy and I were as we were watching the
television news for information about the space shuttle Columbia tragedy and
listening to the radio broadcasts as we were driving around). And what I noticed is that very, very quickly, right in the
middle of trying to pass along facts (and it's the facts of the matter that we
wanted to know). You know, at first
all we were learning is that NASA had lost communication with the space shuttle.
And we wanted to know more. Then
we began to, you know, learn about rumors of debris strewn across Texas.
We wanted to know what the facts were.
And the (God bless them--I mean, you know that they do the best
that they can) but the media on-air personalities couldn't stop themselves from
raising questions about the big picture in the midst of communicating to us the
facts. Like for instance,
"Well" (and they'd be interviewing a talking head who would be an
expert in something or other and they'd say) "Well, what do you think this
is going to mean about the future of space travel in the world for the next
hundred years?" You know what
I mean? Asking questions of that
nature when no one could possibly know. We
still don't even really know yet (this is the point that this was yesterday
morning) we still don't know for a fact that the shuttle was actually destroyed
and lost and they're already asking very, very grand and large-scale questions
at times when no one could possibly know. And that's when I thought of this verse--that it's important to
know what are those times when you might as well not ask those questions about
"What is this going to mean regarding the future of space travel for our
world for generations to come?" We
might as well not ask that question right now because no one could possibly
know. But the restraint not to . .
. and, I mean, if I were on camera yesterday morning, I'm sure I would be
behaving in exactly the same way because you have to extemporize and do the best
that you can and unfortunately, we have electronic news media organizations that
are on 24/7 and can't simply in the middle of something like this, they can't
simply say, "Well, as I told you a minute ago, we have rumors that debris
is spread over Texas" and then the next minute simply repeat the latest
rumor and then repeat the latest rumor. I
mean, granted, our electronic media are sort of forced by their assignment to do
what is inappropriate and to ask the unanswerable questions.
But if we are influenced by them, if we are growing up at a time when
this seems to be the standard way to respond to a crisis--in the middle of
communicating facts, to also act as if we were in a position to know what the
bigger picture really was--we would be very, very poorly served by that. And similarly, from that very same side of things, very, very
poorly served if we accepted and now I'm--forgive me, I'm really just taking
this from this morning's newspaper. You
know, we had the text of President Bush's speech, the very brief one that he
delivered yesterday on the tragedy and then comments in the paper about
"And President Bush did refer to the words from the prophet Isaiah and
that's in keeping with his religious views . . ."
It seemed the editors were saying it really doesn't matter whether you
have something religious to say at a time like this.
What is important is (and they were sort of critiquing Bush),
"Sometimes he's done a poor job in the past, but he did a good job this
time of striking the right balance between comfort and determination and that's
what we want. We know we need comfort and we need determination.
Now, whether you draw your comfort and determination from religious
sources or whether you just find it within yourself, it makes no
difference." I don't think I'm
reading very much into what all of the media outlets (nearly all of the media
outlets) would say--which is, we have sort of a standard, we have a constant,
and the constant is in times of difficulty we need our leaders to bring us words
of comfort and determination. And
now how they do that, it really doesn't matter whether they draw from religious
sources or from secular sources. It
completely does not matter. And this morning I'm asking us to confront that and say,
"Actually, it makes all the difference in the world and in more than the
world! It makes all the difference
in the world and more than the world, and, no, it is not the case that the
constant really ought to be comfort and determination and you can be religious
or not in how you come to that." No.
Because there actually is a source of wisdom and insight greater
than ours who will help us know what to say in times of great tragedy.
And that source of wisdom and insight is not inside you.
And if you think it is, then I'm glad you're here this morning for me to
tell you, "No, it is not." There
is a source of wisdom smarter than you. And
if you limit yourself to what only you could know, you will not have enough when
life gets really, really tough. (Oooh! That was pretty good! Let's
do that again!) If you limit
yourself to only what is inside you, you will not have enough for when life gets
really, really tough. Do you
understand? Now, I'm criticizing
secular America. Let me turn around and criticize religious America just to be
even-handed. Don't you think that
would be fair this morning? The
false answer on the one hand would be the one that says, "We know what we
as an American people need from our leaders and wherever they get it
from--Isaiah, fine. It doesn't
matter because actually we know that the resources to find that strength are
actually--the strength that we're looking for is actually in us. And we need our leaders to help us locate that strength
inside ourselves." You know,
that's not very helpful when things get seriously bad because we do encounter
those things where we have to bear up under more than we can bear.
However, within the Christian church we have from time to time
spokespersons who really hurt the cause of Christ far more than they help the
cause of Christ, and I'm thinking (and perhaps you are, too) of just immediately
after the previous national--well, we call it a tragedy or a disaster--of 9/11,
the attack on America. And some of
our conservative, media-savvy preachers went on-camera and were saying about the
attack on America (and I know you remember this):
"This is God's judgment. You
know, God is bringing judgment on America because of the liberals, and the
commies, and the pinkos . . ." and just sort of went down the laundry list
of all of the bad influences in American life and said, "yes, this is God
judging us." Now immediately everyone knew that this scolding was inappropriate,
was terribly, terribly wrong. That
this was basically kicking the nation when it was down.
And so we need to say that there is an answer that says, "Oh, the
kind of person that we need to be to meet tragedy is one that knows the right
answer first, and the camera light goes on, and there you are and you've got
something to say. And you've been saying the commies are ruining this country,
and the liberals, and the pinkos and now there's a tragedy and you just blast
away with that same message that you've been delivering on-air Sunday after
Sunday for years. The problem is
that it's not just your Jerry Falwell faithful that are listening to you now.
The entire nation hears and lots and lots of Christians are going,
"Wow. He's not speaking for
me. And he's not saying something
that advances the cause of Christ at this time."
And I will say I'm not against scolding people.
I'm not against issuing a word of wrath, and condemnation, and judgment
if you've really got the anointing of the Lord on you.
If it's really from God, then hey, we want you to tell it like it is.
But if it's just you in a bad mood, then please, spare us!
And there is a difference. There
is a difference. We want to say
this to secularists, to unbelievers. We
want to say there's a difference between finding strength outside of
yourself and trying to find strength inside yourself.
We want to say to religious spokespersons there's a difference between
delivering a word from God and just delivering a bad mood word that just comes
out of your own bad mood, amen? Do
you understand? Now, it is not the case that conservative Christians are the only
ones that have ever done that. It
is a perennial human tendency to pretend that you are speaking on behalf of
something larger than yourself when you are not. And I think that's what Jerry Falwell did and, yes, he
apologized afterwards and so I grant him that.
But we're using that as an example of a wrong way to handle encountering
a tragedy. Christians can be as
wrong in this as anyone else. But
it's not the case that Christians are the only ones that can be as wrong.
If you remember when President Kennedy--President John F. Kennedy--was
assassinated, Malcolm X immediately found reporters and told them, "Aha!
See? The chickens have come
home to roost." What Malcolm X
said about the Kennedy assassination was pretty much the same thing from his
completely different orientation, but pretty much the same word of condemnation
and judgment that we heard from Christian leaders after 9/11.
It's not that Christians are the only ones who can speak that way.
But I am trying to say that there's more than one false answer to the
question, "How do we need to respond?"
"What's the best response that can be made to tragedy, difficulty,
harsh circumstances?" And if unbelievers have mistakes that they typically sort of make,
I'm alerting us to the fact that believers have mistakes that we typically make.
And if you and I are tempted more on one side or the other, I would say a
lot of us need to recognize that our temptation is to think that we can speak
for God at a particular moment when actually what we should say is, "You
know what? I'm just as shocked as everybody else and I really don't know
what this means right now." I
wished yesterday that Dan Rather was interviewing me so that I could say,
"Well, Dan, I'll tell you I don't think we know yet what this is going to
mean for the next hundred years of space travel."
And sometimes the most Christian thing that a person can say is the most
humble thing that a person could say, which is, "I don't think any of us
knows right now." Now, in Isaiah, that's a big piece of being prepared to wait on the
Lord. Admitting that you don't know
right now and that an answer from someplace else is going to need to sort of
befall you. And that answer from a
source outside yourself is going to take some time to get to.
That if there are insights that I don't have and you don't have at the
present time, but that God has, that we need to be prepared for God to decide
when we're going to get those. And
it may not be what just first pops into my head just within the seconds, or
minutes, or hours after whatever it is. The people who are best able to move through a time of difficulty
are not the ones who say, "It doesn't matter where . . . You can be
religious, or not. You're going to
have to find the strength inside yourself."
No. Nor is it the people who
would say, "Because I'm a Christian and because I've got Jesus in my heart,
I can tell you what I feel like you should know right now is ba-ba-ba-boom"
and I tell you the first thing that pops into my head and it turns out to just
strike everyone the wrong way because I was not speaking out of faith.
I was speaking out of presumption. There is more centered, there is a more balanced, there is a more
faithful way to respond to difficulty and Isaiah calls it "waiting on the
Lord." It requires that we be
able to bind ourselves, that we be able to hold ourselves in check, it requires
that we not necessarily jump with our first instincts. It requires patience as we confess to ourselves and to
others, "You know what? I know
that there is a wisdom that is going to get us through this, but I don't know
what that wisdom wants us to know just yet."
It will make you a better person if you can be someone who waits on the
Lord. Now, I have one last illustration for us with this message, and
this is something of a change of pace, but it does illustrate the point that I'm
making. It's a change of pace
because this is from a recent issue of GQ Magazine. And in GQ Magazine (if you're familiar with GQ) you know that
one of the regular columns that they have in GQ is called "Style
Guide." You know that one?
The "Style Guide" is where readers of GQ write in and ask men's
fashion questions of the style guide and the style guide gives sort of the
official GQ answer. So I have a
letter for you and a response. The letter goes like this: Dear Style Guide, I am getting married soon and I am not sure what
style timepiece I should put on my wrist. I'll
be wearing a very traditional one-button black tuxedo, a white shirt, a vest,
and a white Windsor tie. My
cufflinks are sterling silver. The
wedding is on a Saturday morning. Would
it be appropriate for me to wear a Cartier rectangular face with Roman numerals
and a black leather band or a Rolex with a stainless steel band?
I'm concerned that the Rolex might be too flashy.
I'm leaning toward the Cartier with the leather band. Sincerely yours. Now, here's the answer from the Style Guide.
The answer is: You're lucky!
You must have very few other problems to be so concerned about this.
If I were you, I wouldn't worry about what's appropriate.
Since you are planning to wear evening clothes in the morning,
appropriateness is no longer a consideration.
But given your choices, I do think you're better off with a dress
watch--the Cartier--than with a Rolex. Unless
of course, the wedding will take place under water, in which case the Rolex will
function down to 300 meters . . . Now, what do we know about the man that wrote this letter?
We know that he's not ready to get married!
He's not ready to get married and he is in denial.
He's not admitting to himself that he's not ready to get married and so
he's focusing--he's obsessing--over what he's going to wear on the wedding day
and obsessing all the way down to what's going to be on the wrist on the wedding
day. And we can just go ahead and
say, "You know what? You can't
guarantee the success of a life-long marriage by obsessing about what you're
going to wear on the day of your wedding."
But that's how we all behave unless we've got something that will
buoy us up and carry us through. And
the question this morning is, now do we have to find that inside ourselves?
Unbelievers would say, "Yes."
And, sad to say, some Christians go ahead and act as if their first
impulses are the Lord when they're not. But
do we have to trust first impulses and whatever is inside us, or is there
really, really something greater than us that requires that we hold still for a
minute, that we hold ourselves in check, and that we wait on that better wisdom,
that surer strength, to carry us through? And
my suggestion to us is that if the answer to that were to turn out to be
"no" ("I'm
sorry--there is no greater strength than us"), then sooner or later this is
where we're all going to be. Because
sooner or later every one of us is going to get into something where your
strength, where your wisdom, is not enough.
Thank God that there is a wisdom greater than us.
And thank God that He has told us that the way we get it is to wait. Let's pray. Dear
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would cause us to be people willing to look
away from ourselves, willing to wait on you.
And it's in the strong name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen. I'm going to teach you a song that I wrote that I think illustrates
what God would have us as a nation come to, that we might be able to encounter
tragedies and move through them victoriously.
I'll sing through the chorus and then I'll ask us to sing it together. Chorus: In the storm, I was lost and all alone 'Til You found me again-- Came around me again--in Your love. In the night, I was wounded and afraid, 'Til you found me again-- Came around me again--in Your love. In Your love, I have joy, In Your love, I have peace, In Your love, I have everything I need. Chorus In Your love, tears are dried, In Your love, wounds are healed, In Your love, I have everything I need. Chorus Receive the benediction: There
is a Source of wisdom and strength outside ourselves, greater than ourselves,
and available to carry us through. Go
in peace. Amen. The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the
worship service on February 2, 2003.] |
|
|