This is the Word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Did you hear those marvelous images of the waters and wine and milk and bread and rain and still waters and snow and snowy peaks and all without cost; all very enticing marvelous vivid images that are included in this passage? Now I for one have become suspicious of travel brochures, probably going back to a certain experience I had almost 20 years ago. I had decided that by golly the Fiedler family was going to take a really good vacation and I was going to insure that that would be the case because I was going to design the vacation myself. I went out and bought a Michelin guide. I had already pretty well determined that we would go to the Northeast. We would fly into Boston and rent a car and go see my uncle and aunt that live in Providence Rhode Island, and then we would go to the beach. I wanted to find that wonderful place that would result in driving up to it and we’d get out of the car and we’d stand as if before a holy shrine of sorts and my two little girls and my wife Sydney would look at me with adoring eyes and I’d have that elusive Clark Griswold, Wally World moment, you know.

My Texas instincts told me to choose a splashy brand new resort type of place. And then I said no, let’s go with a place that’s more established than that. As I got all of the brochures back from all of these places there was one that stood out. On the front cover the brochure had this picture of a beautiful wave of Atlantic water with white foam just curling perfectly. And it didn’t take a lot of imagination from me to see the Fiedler family body surfing in on this wave. You know it’s just idealic. And so I went ahead and that’s the place I chose. I made reservations at this little inn on Cape Cod. And in retrospect when I saw that the location, if Cape Cod is a arm that’s flexing a muscle, I should have gotten nervous when I saw the location was where the flab would be located on the bottom of the arm. But anyway, we fly into Boston, we rent a car, we visit my aunt and uncle and then we’re moving onto Cape Cod over that bridge. Yes, it’s a little bit of a wait, but we didn’t mind because we were headed to the wonderful place. We pulled up and immediately there was this since of disappointment because it was rustic… and rustic is a nice word for ‘run down’. But Sydney and the girls didn’t give up on me yet. We checked in and we went to the room. We opened the door and yes…it was rustic. And rustic is a nice word for moldy and worn. Well, we got our second wind and then we had this marvelous realization, it’s not about the place and even though we are from Texas and it doesn’t have air conditioners, it has swamp coolers and yes they were rustic, that really didn’t matter because we were there for the beach, we were there for that perfect wave.

So we put our suits on and we went sprinting around past the moldy swimming pool out down past the broken stairs out to the beach, all 50 feet of it. And lying before us was the gray lifeless mass of the Nantucket sound, not a wave to be seen and standing at our feet was a dead sail fish decorated with seaweed. I was not a happy camper. Embracing my Clark Griswold, Wally World rage I grabbed the brochure and I went running to the office. I went in and the poor desk clerk in retrospect was moving backwards upon my arrival. And I pointed to the wave on the brochure and I said “Where is that wave? Where is that water? Where was that picture taken??!” And I will never forget the response, “Well, just 50 miles down the road at Marconi National Beach.” So the disparity between what I expected and what was advertised and what I got made me very angry and I was very disappointed.

Now why do you need to know that on a Sunday morning in a response to Isaiah’s rhetorical travel brochure? Well here’s the deal, first of all Isaiah has got a tough audience. The chosen people, the Israelites are in exile, they are in Babylonian captivity. Now, when the Babylonians conquer Jerusalem they didn’t execute all of the people. They were smart enough to know it was about advancing the empire and so many of the elite within Jerusalem had so many gifts and so many leadership qualities that they brought those people back to Babylon and they put them to work and they were very capable. They did a good job and over the decades the people began to get acclimated. The Israelites were acclimated, sure they were strangers in a strange land but they were very resourceful and there was work to be done and they did know the law even though they were separated from the temple. And so they maintained to a certain extent and you could even argue that they were prospering and doing well in this foreign land. The young children born in Babylon they didn’t even know a thing about Jerusalem. And this is the audience that Isaiah had to inspire and encourage and say the time has come to go back. And to the extent that you believe God punished us for having us leave Jerusalem, God has now forgiven us and God wants us to return. But it’s a tough audience. They’re very comfortable. What in the world would cause them to leave this place? And here’s the kicker. Once they get there, if they do buy into it and make the reservations and make the trip and they pull up, what’s waiting for them there? A very broken down run down Jerusalem that’s overrun by Moabites, Edomites, and probably termites. So there is a disparity going on between what Isaiah is promising and what awaits them. Why in the world would they want to go and what is Isaiah about here? Well he’s not being dishonest. First of all, what he’s telling them is that they are thirsting. Everyone who thirsts comes to the waters, the only problem is they don’t know they’re thirsting, they don’t know that yet. If you have ever been on the hiking trails in the Grand Canyon you can go down and see a sign posted periodically along the trail that says drink lots of water, you are thirsty even if you don’t realize it. The way that the human body acclimates to the altitude and to that climate is that our bodies really don’t know that we are thirsty, and so left on our own, we won’t do the right thing. Isaiah is reminding the people of God’s covenant with David. Isaiah is reminding them of the blessings and the abundance that was given to them in Jerusalem. Reminding them of the blessings of the temple and telling them it’s time to go. It’s time to get back. You have been in exile. We are a people in exile from their true destiny and from what God intends for them. So Isaiah first and for most is trying to tell them that they are thirsty and that waiting for them in Jerusalem are the waters that will make them not thirst. More importantly than that, Isaiah is telling them, “You might be comfortable. You may be fine with where you are, but God’s will for you is that you return to Jerusalem and that’s important”. Isaiah points out that God’s will is not always synonymous with our will. Remember back in the 60’s when the secular society coined the phrase, “If it feels good, do it.” Now if ever there was a formula for license that’s it. Hey if it feels good, if that’s what you want to do go ahead and do it, no boundaries, and no rules. And the tragic thing is is that the church has absorbed that and the message became you’re driving in the discount parking lot, you want a parking space for your car preferably close to the entrance. Good news, that’s what God wants for you also. Just petition God for that and God will provide. You want to be wealthy? Have I got some good news for you. It just so happens that’s God wants that for you also. Yeah! Really! Absolutely!

If your sense of what God is tugging on you to do is not a little bit different than what left of your own you want to do, take another look at that. Walter Brueggemann talks about the abrasion that naturally exists between what we want and what God wants for us. There is always some friction there and isn’t it a tragedy and a shame when we corrupt and contaminate and distort the Gospel message to make it seem as if God is just a cosmic waiter who’s only role is to bring us what we want. No, rather God does have a purpose and God does have a word and a will for us and it’s our task to seek that out. In fact there are no amount of creature comforts that can compensate us for denying God’s purpose. For denying God’s pull on our hearts, even though we might be comfortable even though we might have all of these luxuries, there will still be that sense of ‘dis-ease’. That sense of nagging despair… a nagging sense that we are not where God intends us to be. This Lenten Season I lift up the possibility to you that you may be in exile from your true nature that you might be located in the wrong place and I implore you to listen to God’s word and will for you. Is that any easy thing, NO! We are studying Dr. Frederick Schmidt’s book about God’s will for you and it would be nice if we could just go to a place and have it written out and handed to us. This is God’s will for you. Unfortunately, nothing can absolve you of the responsibility and the struggle of listening and wrestling with God’s Word and listening to what God wants from you and we do that by trial and error. It’s not easily done, but the first step is to be receptive and be willing to pack up and get out of your rut and move forward. You know when we break out of our exile and we finally make the journey and we find ourselves looking at a broken down Jerusalem, yes maybe we are not wowed but neither are we discouraged, because we have the sense that we will re-build the holy city and that this is indeed, God’s way for us, Amen.