Sunday, October 9th: "Held By God"

Watch the sermon here

First United Presbyterian Church

“Held By God”

Rev. Amy Morgan

October 9, 2022

Isaiah 40:28-31  

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

   the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

   his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

   and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

   and the young will fall exhausted;

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.

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” wrote William Butler Yeats. That is how it felt for the Israelites at the time this section of Isaiah’s prophesy was written. Living in exile in Babylon, stripped of their cultural, religious, and national identity, the Book of Lamentations describes them this way:

Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. 

The Israelites’ center – the temple in Jerusalem – had been destroyed. There was nothing to hold them together, to hold their religious practice and connection to the sacred, to ground them as a people. Living among people who worshiped a pantheon of gods with very different values and rituals, they were weary of drifting in the chaos of upheaval and displacement. 

Isaiah 40 speaks into this chaos a word of unfathomable hope. God is going to deliver them and restore order to the whole cosmos. All that is now wrong will be set right. The Israelites can endure this present suffering because God will give them strength and grace to do more than they thought they were capable of. 

But this is a tough message to believe, given their current circumstances. It feels as though their lives are out of control, subject to powerful empires and forces greater even than the God they worship. How will God overcome the might of their Babylonian captors and the gods they worship? How will they endure waiting for help from God to arrive?

These are the questions that are argued out in this section of Isaiah. Each worry and doubt about God’s power and providence, God’s goodness and faithfulness is addressed head-on. As biblical scholar Paul Hanson writes, “the prophet honors the integrity of their questions and meets the people where they are, inviting them to enter into the shared struggle to grasp the central mystery that unites all of life under one supernatural hope and joy.”

The assurance that comes through the prophet’s rhetorical argument reaches a climax in the assertion that the God of Israel is the everlasting Creator of the ends of the earth who will strengthen and empower them. Israel has suffered loss and destruction, they are exiled and adrift. But, Isaiah promises, their center still holds. Even when things fall apart. they are held in power of God’s love.

Things fall apart, friends. We all know that. Jobs fall apart. Families fall apart. Our bodies fall apart. Last week, one of my friends discovered her car was falling apart – literally. My goodness, what a falling apart we’ve had as a nation. This past year, we’ve dealt with our building falling apart. Many of us have struggled with our faith falling apart. 

Things fall apart, and it feels like the center will not hold. All those things we’ve held onto and trusted it have crumbled to dust in our hands. We are unmoored from those routines, institutions, people, and values we trusted in. It has been a hard few years. And even as we tentatively try to return to some semblance of normalcy, nothing feels normal. We feel like the Israelites, trying to sing in a foreign land, weeping when they remembered their old life in Zion. 

It feels as though our lives are out of control, subject to powerful forces greater even than the God we worship. How will God overcome the might of governments, corporations, media empires and the gods of greed they worship? How will we endure waiting for help from God to arrive?

These are real questions that deserve real answers. Not platitudes about “all things in God’s timing” or “God is just testing us to make us stronger.” A God who wants to sit around and watch us sweat it out or push us past our breaking point to try to toughen us up is not a great God. That’s not "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust." 

Isaiah’s answer is, first, that God is God and we are not. “All the people are grass,” Isaiah says. God, on the other hand, is the one who “has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance.” God “sits above the circle of the earth,” and the inhabitants of the earth are like grasshoppers. 

But God’s greatness and humanity’s insignificance do not result in indifference. In fact, just the opposite. Isaiah says that God will “feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.” God will “renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” God’s power is poured out in compassionate steadfast love and faithfulness. Our fragility and vulnerability are held in the most powerful hands in the cosmos. 

On our first anniversary, Jason and I decided, very much on a whim, to adopt a pair of baby ducks from a roadside farm. When I held those tiny ducks in my hand for the first time, they were terrified. They peeped and peeked over the edge of my hands, afraid to be held by this giant stranger but more afraid to plummet to the ground. But within a few days, they got used to me, and would willingly hop into my hands and snuggle into the pockets of my apron. The greatness that was once terrifying to them became a comfort once they knew that power was on their side. 

This is how it is with God, too. We have questions and doubts. The very idea of something as great and powerful as the God who made heaven and earth is terrifying. Sometimes we’re not sure what is more frightening – knowing that God is real or believing that there is no God. 

Either way, like those little ducks – but increased by a magnitude of infinity – we are held in God’s hands. Sometimes we don’t know if we want to stay there in the hands of an unknown mystery or risk the fall into the unknown abyss. But God continues reaching out to us, lifting us up, helping us soar like eagles and rest snugly like a lamb in God’s arms. And, over time, we willingly move toward God, and the greatness that was once terrifying becomes a comfort because we know that power is on our side. 

And with that power on our side, we can do more than we thought we were capable of.

Beloved, God has held this church, and all of us, in God’s hands. Through 147 years of world wars, wildfires, and winter storms. Through 147 years of growth and decline and renewal. Through 147 years of fear and grief, joy and celebration. Through 147 years of song and lament, community and commitment. 

A lot of churches, a lot of pastors, a lot of people are worn out right now, folks. It’s been a rough few years, and people are tapped. They’re “quiet quitting” and retiring and just don’t have the energy to do the things they did before the pandemic.  Church trends around the country are dismal right now, with declining membership and shrinking budgets. 

But 1^st on 4^th has been bucking all those trends. God has held us and renewed our strength. We are full of life and vibrancy. In the past year, we’ve improved our online ministry and welcomed new members and visitors. Our giving and legacy funds have been growing. Our congregation honors our faithful elders and welcomes the little children. Our choir has grown so large they have to squish together up there in the chancel as they lift our souls in prayerful and glorious song. Our website, emails, social media and other communications are effectively spreading the word about God’s ministry here at 1^st on 4^th, and almost every visitor tells me they found us online. Our nursery is open again, and soon we’ll be starting Sunday school again. Our building is hosting community groups all week long, and we have a reputation in Loveland as being that church that cares for those who are unhoused, especially for youth in our school district. 

All of this, friends, is because God is holding us, carrying us toward an even more hopeful future than we can imagine. This may be a tough message to believe at times, given some of the challenges we are facing, as individuals and as a community. Our building needs a lot of care, our church ministries need more support so they can grow, inflation and other economic uncertainties worry us and impact all our budgets. In the chaos of the world around us, it is easy to forget that we are held by the most powerful and loving hands in the cosmos. 

But 1^st on 4^th is a community that, like the prophet Isaiah, honors the integrity of our questions and meets us where we are, inviting us to enter into the shared struggle to grasp the central mystery that unites all of life under one supernatural hope and joy. We proclaim the assurance that God is the everlasting Creator of the ends of the earth who will strengthen and empower us. We have suffered loss and destruction, we feel adrift. But here we experience the reality of the promise of Isaiah: our center still holds. Even when things fall apart. we are held in power of God’s love.

It is in gratitude for that love, in the confidence of that power, that we are invited to give to support the ministry of this church. Because this place is where the center holds. In all the chaos and upheaval, fear and grief, this is where we are reminded that we are held by God. This is where we can bring others who need to be held by God. This is where God’s strength can empower us to do more than we think we are capable of. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.