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The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost September 13, 2015

This Weekend's Readings (click each reading to view the passage)

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 116:1-9; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38

Pr. Christine's Sermon - Country Music Jesus

Children's Sermon - Blessing of Quilts

Choir Anthem - It Is Well with My Soul

Eric Church - Country Music Jesus

Sermon Notes from Pastor Christine...

I have a dark secret to confess, and I intend no offense to Danielle (or to anyone else), but I really don't care for organ music. I know, I know.... believe me, it's practically a sacrilegious statement for a pastor to make. I truly do appreciate hymnody, liturgy, and all the various and sundry sounds and nuances that an organ can produce, but it really just doesn't 'do it' for me. I prefer something with a bit more rhythm, twang and grit.

I'm more of a country music girl.
Now... before you all start moaning and groaning about how every single country song is thematically the same: A guy with a truck (probably an F150) which is stuck in a ditch and he desperately needs two things: a beer and God namely because his girlfriend just broke up with him...

Let me just say, that I'm pretty sure that Jesus is down with country music too. Isaiah also, so I'm in relatively good company. There's this song by Eric Church called 'Country Music Jesus' that pretty much sums up my image of Jesus with his long hair swishing back and forth as he rocks out on his steel guitar, but you'll have to look it up on iTunes or something, because I am NOT going to be singing it for you.

But one of the reasons I think Jesus (and Isaiah) would jam out to a little Zac Brown or Kenny Chesney is because of today's reading from Isaiah. Now technically, this portion from Isaiah isn't classified as a 'reading'. This is the third of four poems in Isaiah which are called the 'servant songs'.

These four "servant songs" are centered on an unnamed servant of the LORD. Each song recounts the heart of the Old Testament through an enchanting melody of heartbreak, longing, loss, shame, and desperation. But also of love, life, justice, and redemption.

And it seems to me that's what country music often sings of, so with a little help from Eric Church and Toby Keith, here's Isaiah's song rewritten with a country flare. You'll just have to imagine the guitar and drums:

I had a revelation last night
Divine inspiration from the other side
Of what it's gonna take to right all this wrong.

He woke me up this morning
Took the bottle from my hand and said:
Son, you've got some teaching and reaching to do

He gave me a message that would stand the test
So, I drove my truck [Come on! I had to put a truck in my rendition] down to the county line
And told them about living right, 'bout God, and being the light.
Well, I got in a tight spot with a couple of redneck boys
and a screaming preacher man
Who thought I was makin' it all up

They wanted to fight and pull out my hair
And I really couldn't hold my own.
But, GOD said, "I've got your back. Stay right there.
Cause, I've been round here a time or two."

See, this is why I'm drawn to country music. Sure, I had to take a few liberties to make it sync up and I know Isaiah didn't drive a truck, but the truth is, the servant songs in Isaiah and country music both seek to confront the age old problem of human suffering.

Why is that? Why is it that the songs to which we are most drawn are the ones which sing of fear, pain, and suffering? I think it's because they ring true within our souls.

God showed the prophet that the people of Israel didn't have a smidgen of hope left and so Isaiah sang the servant song to give them hope! He sang this song out into the universe pondering, 'Why we suffer?' And not just why do we suffer, but why do we suffer when God is by our side, and with us, and for us?"

These melodies remind us that in some inexplicable way our wrestling with suffering conjures up hope - that the two are mysteriously intertwined.

But, it's not an easy thing to look upon the painful realities of life and feel small, inconsequential, and powerless as evil and suffering seems to run rampant, getting its way over and over again. Isaiah, the apostle Peter, Eric Church, you and I - we all know this universal truth in an all too intimate way.

You know one of the hard things about being a pastor? On any given day it's hard to know what suffering to talk about, which is a terrible realization. There is so much suffering in the world, both individually and collectively, that I don't even know where to start.

The daunting feeling of being torn between speaking to the pains that I know we each carry or drawing our consciousness towards the communal violence and despair which seethes about us, stripping peace and justice from the forgotten.

How can I stand before you and not say something about the Syrian refugee crisis? It's one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history and has forced more than 4 million people, more than half of whom are children, to flee their homes in search of safety. Not to mention the widespread human rights violations which have been perpetuated upon them by ISIS. This is human suffering and persecution at its worst.

And how in the name of Jesus Christ and all that is holy and good, do I not spend a month of Sundays calling us into the suffering and injustices of racism? How do I not say over and over again that this is a real, systemic, horrific problem and we must set our faces like flint and stand firm against those who seek to degrade and divide people by color, identity, religion, or economic status? Is this not what Isaiah's servant faces and pleads for God's help?

But also, how can I stand before you and not speak to the truth that each of us has something from which we are suffering or deathly afraid of: disease, depression, divorce, job dissatisfaction, addiction, and trauma? 2000 years after Jesus' death, our own suffering may not be at the hand of the Roman government, but fear and suffering are timeless.

Although Peter doesn't sing a song, what underlies his rebuke of Jesus is his realization that his greatest fear - death - is upon him. Peter loses it (!) out of his great love of Jesus. Who can blame him?

We can do everything right and still get hurt; still suffer. Goodness, prayer, and God are no protection from pain. Life teaches us that over and over again, and our faith confirms it.

Jesus was as good as it gets, and still he suffered pain - all kinds of pain - not only physical pain, but also spiritual and emotional pain.

I point this out only because it's a reality, but NOT to promote some type of holy righteous in suffering so we just 'take it' under the guise of 'it's all for Jesus;' and not to excuse the stripping of human dignity by stating that Jesus suffered therefore so must we or they.

No. That is dangerous. I do not believe we have to get ourselves killed in order to join the song of the servant or to follow Jesus. Some people have and we call them saints, but that is not what it means to 'take up your cross.'

Too often 'take up your cross' has become a doormat for passiveness, resignation, and surrender.

The smiters and the spitters they seem to promote suffering, which begets more suffering, as if suffering is what we were made for and to inflict. It is not.

Jesus goes another way; Isaiah goes another way; Country music goes another way! They all proclaim that from suffering hope can arise.

And here is where I can confidently proclaim - (and believe me this was a great relief to me this week as I contemplated the magnitude of suffering both in the world and in our very lives) - that all the suffering in the world needs one thing:

Courage.
The courage of Jesus and the servant, which is different than the courage of the world.

When I was in seminary we called this type of courage, the 'way of the cross;' it is also the 'way of the servant'.

See, we cannot choose whether or not we will suffer; we will. But we can choose how...

What the servant, Jesus, and Peter all have in common is they don't receive their suffering passively. They all actively choose to face it instead of running away from it, and in doing so they realize a stunning new way to live.

The way of the servant has never offered us freedom from pain; but it does offer us freedom from fear. The way of the cross has never promised safety, but it has always promised life. The way of Jesus has never been without suffering; however it will never be without hope.

This new way proclaims that suffering does NOT kill us, fear and avoidance does.

What would've killed Jesus and the hope of the cosmos was if He had not suffered.

Not suffered as He looked upon the racism of that age and spoken out against it;
Not suffered as He traveled into refugee lands and looked upon the discarded and then fed and cared for them;
Not suffered as He laid His hands upon the sick and lonely and cried with them;
Not suffered at the hands of religious intolerance and still opened His arms wide and said all are welcome.

Yes, then He would've died, because the ways of God would've been murdered.
But, Jesus is alive and well!

Too often we have claimed, almost as a safety net, "Jesus paid it all." No, he did not. He gave it all and He modeled for us the way of the servant, and then He said, "Go and do likewise...".

It is not finished. You are my servants called to the bearers of HOPE into all those crucified times.

Morning by morning, may He awaken us to the servant song and may we join our voices with His. Amen.