Rising Light

Isaiah 58:6-10

August 21, 2016 • Mount Pleasant UMC

What is Mount Pleasant known for? If you were to ask someone out in the community, someone who is not connected with this church directly, to describe this congregation in one word, what word do you think they would use? Go ahead and tell someone near you what word you chose and why. [SHARING] I’ve been privileged to work with our Conference’s Church Development Team in doing some consultations with churches, and one of the things I learned in that work is this: how churches perceive themselves is often not the same as the way the community perceives them. Sometimes, amazingly, people right down the road don’t even know the church exists. So what is Mount Pleasant known for in Terre Haute and Vigo County? Or maybe the better question is this: what do we want to be known for? If we think of the church as living organism, what legacy do we want this church to leave in this community?

Last Sunday, Pastor Rick reminded us of the critical importance of prayer for our community and for our community leaders, and I hope—actually, I know—that Mount Pleasant is known as a praying community. I’m thankful for that, and I know we’ve seen answers to prayer not only in our own congregation but also in the larger community. Prayer is the foundation of any great work or great move of God, which is why we began this sermon series with that. But once we’ve prayed, as we continue to move forward in our work of “Facing a Task Unfinished,” there are also some concrete steps we need to take. When our Worship Design Team was working on this series, one of our members asked me, as she should have, “What do you hope to accomplish with this series?” That wasn’t a criticism, or at least I didn’t take it that way. It’s a great question, so let me tell you up front what I hope to accomplish this week and next. I want to move you from the pews to the public, from these seats out into places of service. As the kids reminded us two weeks ago, our faith is one in which we are called to LOL—live out loud. So this week and next, we’re going to look at the Scriptures and see what God calls us to do right here in our community. What legacy should God’s people leave behind us?

First, though, we need to spend just a moment remembering what the unfinished task is. Each of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection ends with a slightly different emphasis, but Matthew in particular reminds followers of Jesus that there is something for us to do after we trust him. As Pastor Rick reminded us last week, what we do is not what saves us; what we do is in response to Jesus for saving us, for loving us. He’s asked us to tell others, to share the good news and “make disciples” (something, by the way, we’ll be talking about at the “Back to Basics” conference this coming Saturday!). In Matthew, this is the way he put it: “Go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19). Earlier in that same Gospel, Jesus said this: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (24:14). I get so frustrated by authors and preachers who are always looking for “signs of the times,” trying to match up current events with their particular beliefs about how the end will come, when Jesus has told us first that no one knows when the end will come, not even him, and second that the main “sign of the times” will be when the Gospel is preached to all nations. That has not happened yet. The best estimate today is that there is still, after 2,000 years of Christian faith, 42.3% of the world that has not yet been reached (cf. Joshua Project, https://joshuaproject.net/global_statistics). 42.3% of the world has no significant Christian witness. That’s astounding. That’s an unfinished task. And, folks, Terre Haute and Vigo County is above average is this respect. Do you remember what Ginger shared with us a couple of weeks ago? 67% of our community is unchurched. Not only is there an unfinished task in the world; there is a huge unfinished task right here in our own community.

In the 1930’s, an Anglican bishop and missionary to China, Frank Houghton, wrote a hymn, and out of the singing of that hymn across England and elsewhere, 200 new missionaries to China were commissioned in a short time. Since that time, despite the best efforts of the Communist government, the church in China has continued to grow—from fewer than 750,000 Christians in the 1930’s to more than 80 million Christians today. It’s estimated that by 2030, China will have the largest population of Christians of any country in the world, exceeding 200 million believers. And much of that growth can be traced back to a little song, one we are singing for this series. The hymn was called “Facing a Task Unfinished,” and this year, songwriters Keith & Kristyn Getty have updated that hymn with the prayer that this generation will feel the same urgency felt nearly a century ago. Do we believe that this unfinished task matters? Are we compelled to reach this community and the world with the good news of Jesus Christ? That’s the question we’re tackling during these weeks.

It may seem odd, as we’re talking about the spread of the Gospel, to turn to the Old Testament, to a prophet/preacher named Isaiah, but as my Old Testament professor at Asbury liked to remind us, Isaiah is really the Bible in miniature. In its 66 chapters, you can find every doctrine that is also elsewhere in the Bible, including glimpses and images of Jesus and the salvation he would bring. We find those images and glimpses most vividly in what are called the “Servant Songs,” but you can see hints and glances in nearly every passage. In the passage we read this morning, for instance, we have a description of the spiritual state of the people in Isaiah’s time, which mirrored the spiritual state of the people in Jesus’ time, and which oddly enough, also mirrors much of the spiritual state of our own time. Maybe people, through the centuries, often drift into this behavior. Let me give you an idea of what was happening and see if you don’t agree with me.

While there is not agreement among the scholars as to what the setting is for Isaiah 58, generally it seems aimed at those who would return from the exile, that time when the people were conquered and taken away from their homeland. After many years, some folks would return, determined to make sure such a thing never happened again, and their focus became a rigid obedience to the law of God. If God told them to pray one hour, they were going to pray two. If God had told them to offer three sacrifices, they would offer six, just to be sure they were doing the right thing. And if God told them to fast for an hour, they would fast four. They were determined to obey to the letter of the law (and maybe beyond) just to make sure God didn’t have a reason to punish them again. So you end up with a people who are fasting, who are attending worship every Sabbath, who are praying faithfully—they’re doing all the “right” things. To an outsider, they would seem very pious, very holy. Isaiah says they “seem eager for God to come near them” (58:2). But things were still not going their way. “Why have we fasted,” they ask, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?” (58:3). In other words—why is this fasting thing not working? Why do we do all these things, practice all these disciplines, and God still doesn’t pay attention? Like a spoiled two-year-old, they’re saying, “Why aren’t we getting our way? Why isn’t all this religion-stuff doing us any good?”

The same mindset had continued into the first century, so that Jesus took the Pharisees (the really religious folks) to task. In a scathing rebuke that covers most of Matthew 23, Jesus says things to them like: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are” (23:15). Then he says, “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law” (23:23). “You clean the inside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (23:25). Wow, Jesus needs a better campaign manager! Can you imagine what the news media today would do with statements like that? Social media would light up instantly! But Jesus is done mincing words by this point. He wants them to see that the disciplines they practice are not what will save them. The disciplines they practice are not meant to be done to manipulate God. God cannot and will not be bossed around.

We read passages like that and think, “Boy, I’m glad we’re not like that anymore!” We don’t act like that toward God! Sometimes, to see ourselves, we need a cartoon. I love this one from Calvin and Hobbes that I read this week. Calvin asks for a bedtime story, and when his dad says he’s too busy, Calvin shouts, “If you don’t read me a story, I won’t go to bed!” Do we ever act like that with God—maybe not that blatantly, but do we ever say, “If you do this for me God, I’ll go to church every Sunday?” Do we slip into a mindset of “God do this and I’ll do that”? Or, “If you don’t do this, I won’t do that”? I love the way Calvin’s dad responds with this story: “Once upon a time there was a boy named Calvin, who always wanted things his way. One day his dad got sick of it and locked him in the basement for the rest of his life. Everyone else lived happily ever after. The end.” To which Calvin responds, “I don’t like these stories with morals.”

Neither do we. I scan the bestsellers of Christian books today and find a lot of books with rather self-centered titles like, “How to become a winner” or “Getting the answer you want” or “Fasting for spiritual breakthrough” and teaching on any number of other ways we can “use” spiritual practices for our own benefit. I’ve had people tell me if they could just get a certain number of people to pray for whatever they want that God would have to give it to them; I even heard someone pray that out loud to God about a presidential candidate during a past race! “God, there are enough of us here believing that X should be president, that you have to answer us” was the exact prayer. I’ve even had people tell me that someone nearly died because I, personally, didn’t pray enough for that person. And I’ve known people who have held firmly onto the belief that if they fasted in this way or that, God would have to pay better attention to them. Follow this fasting plan, or that one, or the newest one (especially if it’s somehow based on a Biblical character), and God will give you what you want. Maybe we’re not all that different from the people in Jerusalem, after all. There is still something within us that has trouble believing in grace, that God actually does love us and wants to be with us, and that there is nothing we can do that will make God love us less nor is there anything we can do that will make God love us more. Or pay attention to us more.

Through the prophet, God says that very thing to the people there in Jerusalem: “You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high” (58:4). Fasting was known Biblically as “the affliction of the soul.” It’s an act of self-denial in which the worshipper cries out to God, but here God says that if the worshipper wants to practice real self-denial, God would rather they pour themselves out in service to those whose souls are really afflicted by the crushing forces of life (cf. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40-66, pg. 506). The kind of fast God calls us to, the prophet says, is this: to fast from injustice, to fast from food and share what we have with someone who is hungry, to share what we have with the naked, the homeless, the oppressed. The reason fasting wasn’t “working,” Isaiah says, is because there was a mismatch between the people’s spiritual practice and the rest of their lives. By their actions, they were showing they didn’t really understand who God was (cf. Goldingay, Isaiah for Everyone, pg. 223-224). After all, there are only two places in the Old Testament where God commands his people to fast. Compare that to the hundreds of places where God commands his people to treat others with respect, justice and kindness—commands Jesus will later sum up with these words: “Do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). It’s not that there’s anything wrong with fasting per se; it’s just that we don’t often “use” fasting for the right reasons. Isaiah says if we’re going to deny ourselves, it ought to be so that we can bless other people, especially those in need. Dr. John Oswalt puts it this way: “God calls for behavior that is self-forgetful and outward-looking. Let acts of self-denial be for the sake of others and not for one’s own sake” (NIV Application Commentary: Isaiah, pg. 625).

That’s when, Isaiah says, your light will rise. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression,” the prophet tells Israel, “with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday” (58:9-10). But, let’s be careful here. The “light” that shines is not supposed to be our own. It’s not simply because we do good things that the “light” shines. We have to hear the whole context in this passage. Isaiah says the light shines when we do what God has called us to do so then it’s not our light that is all-important. As we do the things God has called us to, it’s his light that will shine through us. It’s his light others will ultimately rise. It’s his light the people living in darkness (cf. Isaiah 9:2) will see.

Is it any mistake that, near the end of his earthly life, Jesus told a parable about the final judgment in which he used these same images? It’s a parable many of you might know as the sheep and the goats, and if you follow the daily readings, you’ll become acquainted with it this week. Basically, Jesus says the final judge will divide people based on what they did and didn’t do. Did they feed the hungry? Did they give drink to the thirsty? Did they welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, look after the sick and visit the prisoners (cf. Matthew 25:31-46)? Jesus does not say the good works save anyone, but he does indicate that when we are truly transformed by the love and grace of God, we will respond in ways that the Father wants us to. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,” Jesus says, “you did for me” (25:40). Are there still hungry people in our world, in our community? Are there still thirsty people, naked people? Are there still unvisited prisoners, unwelcomed strangers, uncared-for sick people? Then our task is unfinished and the Gospel is not being fully proclaimed. Warren Cole Smith of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview put it this way: “We’ve been in a time of this great evangelical movement where we have declared the gospel, but now we’ve got to relearn the skills of demonstrating the gospel” (BreakPoint This Week, August 12, 2016).

So, we heard last week that theory without an action step frustrates Pastor Rick. I agree with that, by the way, and thankfully there are any number of ways for us to live out this Scripture, this calling in our community. You and me by ourselves may not be able to finish the task all alone, but together, with Christians of all kinds from across our community and our world—can you imagine what might happen if we all set our hearts on finishing the task, on allowing God’s rising light to shine through us in very practical ways? Well, you don’t have to work very hard to imagine it because, for one, there are some folks here who are already doing that. Just a few weeks ago, fifty-five volunteers from this church and the community around us took to heart a passage from John 8:12, where Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” That verse became the basis of the 812 mission project that took place all over Terre Haute, and that image of being the light, letting Jesus’ light shine through us, was what motivated them to go to places like Next Steps and the Wabash Activity Center and rehab centers and other nonprofit organizations. In the lower level here, some of the group hosted a special needs Bible school camp. They took part in the city-wide clean-up. And on Thursday evening, everyone who took part and every organization involved was invited to a free cookout and party at Deming Park. Fifty-five people who were willing to serve Jesus by serving others made a huge difference in our community. But rather than me talking (more) about it, let’s take a look at what happened during that week in July.

VIDEO: 812 Recap

Did you know that “light of the world” is the only descriptor Jesus used of both himself and of his followers? In Matthew 5:14, Jesus tells his disciples, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.” When his light shines through us, others see it. In today’s world, when we live the Gospel, that gives us credibility to share about Jesus, to talk about our faith. There will be another opportunity to participate in an 812 project near the end of March, over Spring Break. You’ll be getting information soon about that—but here’s a secret a lot of people don’t seem to know: you don’t have to wait for a special project or set-aside week to do mercy and show kindness to those around us. You don’t have to have a structure to be able to shine Christ’s light in the community. You can do it every day, just by being aware and available to those around you and by becoming aware of what’s going on in our very community. Rick quotes Henry Blackaby often and for good reason. Blackaby puts it quite clearly: find out where God is working and go there!

One of those places where Jesus is working, and one that is near and dear to the heart of this congregation is the 14th & Chestnut Community Center. Many of you know that the building itself was once First Methodist Church and for a while it housed the Terre Haute District Office. When the church itself ceased being a congregation, a decision was made to use the building to serve those in the community, to try to make a difference in the name of Jesus. And today, that’s exactly what they are doing. I could tell you about it, but instead I had the chance to sit down with Pastor Bill Felts, the executive director of 14th and Chestnut, so I’m going to let him do the talking.

VIDEO: 14th and Chestnut

So there is a lot of success at 14th and Chestnut, and that’s due in part to you and this congregation. Many of you either currently or in the past have volunteered there, serving lunch, working as tutors, serving in the food pantry—can I see a show of hands of those who have, at some point, worked there? Our own Vonda Otey was volunteer of the year this past year because of her work with the clothes closet that the center hosts. But there’s still a great deal of need, a lot of opportunity, still many more people the center can reach if they had the help. Today is one of our food collection days, and I hope you brought a donation for the food pantry. Truth is, even though we have specific days for collection, you can bring in food any time. These big blue barrels are always in the lobby, always ready to receive your donation. Pastor Felts told me when we chatted and walked through the food pantry that our donations of lots of different things help fill in the gaps for families who are just trying to make it to the next month. But even more than sending food or writing a check, you can volunteer there. I hope to do that myself in the next few weeks. As great a need as there is for financial support and food stuffs, these children, youth and families often just need to know that someone cares about them, someone loves them. They need to see, in a tangible way, that Jesus loves them. And Jesus shows that, most often, though the loving touch and encouraging words of his people. When you set the oppressed free, when you share your food with the hungry, when you provide the “poor wanderer” with shelter, then your light—Christ’s light shining through you—will shine like the dawn. The light will shine, then, in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (cf. John 1:14).

One of my favorite stories comes from a group that was on a cave exploration tour, much like many of you did at Blue Springs Cavern a few weeks ago. When they got to the lowest point in the tour, as usually happens, the tour guide turned off the lights to show how truly dark it gets in the cave, and no one had on a glow-in-the-dark “Cave Crew” shirt this particular time. Anyway, after a few seconds of total darkness, a small girl could be heard sobbing. She was afraid of the dark. But very quickly after that, the little girl’s brother said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Don’t worry, sis. Someone here knows how to turn on the lights!” Friends, we live in a world that seems very dark. It seems Isaiah was describing our world when he wrote of a people who walked in a great darkness (cf. Isaiah 9:2). Political fights on the left and the right, with Christians on both sides of the aisle, natural disasters happening around the world, terrorism that threatens at every turn, an economy that always seems to be one bad decision from turning sour, friends who betray friends, marriages that face challenges and sometimes crumble…the world can seem very dark and difficult at times. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, abuse, racism, ageism, classism and all the rest of the “isms”—the world can seem a very dark place. Now, perhaps more than ever, we need the light of Christ to shine out from Christ’s people, right where we live. That is, after all, the hope that the prophet promised: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (9:2). Or, as we read this morning, when we loose the chains of injustice and do what God has called us to do, “then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear” (58:8). The hope for healing the deep wounds in our community comes when the light of Christ shines forth from his people.

Next Sunday, we’ll be providing some very concrete opportunities for you to serve within your church and your community. As I said at the beginning this morning, my goal over these two weeks is to move us from the pew to the public eye, not so that we can be seen but so that Christ can be seen. It’s his light that must rise. It’s his hope people most need. So I ask you this week as your very specific action step to be praying. Where is God calling you to shine your light? What one step can you take to better help Terre Haute, Vigo County and the world to see the light of Jesus? Don’t make this a quick prayer; spend some time this week asking God what direction he will have you go. And let’s just see what God might do through this congregation as we shine more fully the light of Christ. Let’s pray.