ST. ANTHONY PARK LUTHERAN
CHURCH,
TEXT: ISAIAH 40:25-31
PREACHER: FREDERICK J. GAISER
WHO IS MY EQUAL?
Three weeks ago, memorializing the Columbia astronauts, President Bush quoted Isa 40, reminding us that God is Lord even of the stars: “Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.” My ears perked up, because I was even then reading student papers on this text. And then, two weeks ago, that same text turned up here as our Old Testament reading, appointed long before, but shocking many of us back to the memorial service. So, I have been haunted these couple of weeks by this text, wondering what else it might it want to say to us these days? [READ TEXT: ISA 40:25-31]
“Who is my equal?” asks God, in our text. It’s kind of a macho question. Picture Clint Eastwood challenging any and all comers to “make my day.” “Who is my equal?” A big God on his high horse staking his claim, drawing the line in the sand, daring any to cross over it. “To whom will you compare me?” Well, nobody, I suppose, now that you put it that way.
But is that the right tone of voice to put in the mouth of the God of this text, the God of the Bible? One of the most surprising things in this part of the book of Isaiah is that God invites the comparison at all, lets himself be put on trial, in fact. Who is God? Have at the question. God not only allows it, God invites it.
It’s a surprising and dangerous move, because then and now there are real and obvious alternative answers. Safely seated in Sunday school, we may have no trouble naming God as God, but outside in the real world, the answers are not so clear. Then or now.
When
our text was written over 2500 years ago, Israel sat in captivity in Babylon
(which is, of course, Iraq—another reason the text haunts me), having been
sorely defeated by that superpower of its day, and every observer would have
said not only that Nebuchadnezzar (the Iraqi king) had won, but also that Marduk (the Iraqi god) had won. Who is my equal? Well, Marduk! Ipso facto. QED!
No question. Who won? Not only your equal, but your
better.
And now? Who is God’s equal? Well, I don’t know: according to the latest statistics that I could find [http://www.wfn.org/1996/03/msg00067.html], in 1996 the total giving of the top twenty Christian churches in the United States combined, both Protestant and Catholic, was about 154 million dollars—less than half of what either the first Lord of the Rings film ($320 million) or the first Harry Potter film ($318 million) took in last year on its own [http://movieweb.com/movie/alltime.html]; and about one-twelfth of last season’s combined payrolls of the NFL ($1,983,000,000) [http://espn.go.com/nfl/columns/pasquarelli_len/1460741.html]. If you’re talking about what seems to be the standard in American culture—money—then lots of things are equal to God, and then some! If we’re going to have a trial before an unbiased jury to determine who’s the actual god of this culture, God is going to need an awfully good attorney.
In
the text at this point, God makes a bold move.
Here is where he says, Look up, look at the stars: “Lift up your eyes on
high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host
and numbers them, calling them all by name.” The move is bold because in
The ancient Babylonians, or ancient Iraqis, wouldn’t have liked this at all. “I am,” said Babylon, according to Isaiah, “and there is no one besides me” (47:8); but Isaiah knows that that line can be said only by one who is, in fact, God, so Babylon will have to pay for its arrogance. Not so much—and this is important—not so much because God will smash them in a fit of jealous anger, but because by making false gods, they cut themselves off from access to the real one. They “keep on praying,” mourns Isaiah, “to a god that cannot save” (45:20).
If
President Bush had realized that his memorial text was, in its original form,
an open challenge to the arrogance of ancient
Trouble
is, the text was intended to challenge the powerful,
so if we’re going to bring it into the present, then we’re going to have to
recognize that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. “These are your gods, O Israel” (Exod 32:4), said Aaron, holding up the golden calf—but
those gods, too, couldn’t save. And
neither can ours.
It will be important for us, if we are to live, to name our own gods,
and to repent. Throughout history,
nobody but gods get the kind of offerings we make today to our
celebrities. Our neon culture of
triviality seduces us into paying whatever it takes to maintain itself, but
though it can entertain us and divert us and make us overweight, it can’t save
us. And, though I certainly don’t want
to draw a moral equivalence between the corrupt regime in Bagdad
and the present regime in Washington, there is a kind of Clint Eastwood
arrogance on both sides that tends to take itself and its own claims so
seriously it cannot hear other voices, and those just may include the still
small voice of God, pointing to a better way.
I don’t mean to make partisan claims here in the name of God, for I have
no clearer word of the Lord on present political issues than do you, but if we
are to pray “God bless America”—as we no doubt should—we need to recognize
that, in the Bible, God’s way of blessing almost always looks quite different
from what people expected. “My thoughts
are not your thoughts,” God reminds us, also in this section of Isaiah, “nor
are your ways my ways” (55:8)—and the prophet clearly thinks this is remarkably
good news. If this prophet wants to say
anything to us from God, it is this: “I’m God, and you’re not!”—no matter who you are or when you are.
That we are not God is a challenge to any human culture, for we would
all like to think otherwise. “I am, and
there is no one beside me,” is a statement found not only in the mouth of
ancient
But then what? The tone of voice in which God makes his claim still matters. If it is just an on-your-knees-sucker demand, I might have to do it, but there is not going to be real help here for my problems. But what if it is more of plea—I am God, and you’re not, so come to me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest? In the Bible, it is clearly the latter. “[God] gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless,” says our text. “[T]hose 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.”
It’s
true that, since God is God and we are not, we cannot play in God’s court. But then, how shall we get in the game? The surprise, from the God of the Bible, is
that he chooses to play in ours. “Who is
my equal?” asks God, and the answer has to be no one. But, says God, I can make myself equal to
you, I can come to you, and I can show you a better way. The point God had to make in those ancient
trials, when it looked like Babylon had won, was that Godness,
divinity, was no longer measured by force.
Battlefield victory was no longer the sure sign that God was on our
side, which means it’s a whole new theological ball game. “Do not fear,” said God, “for I am with you”
(41:10)—but what will that look like? It
is in these same chapters of Isaiah that God introduces the notion that God’s
presence comes in the form of a servant, and that
What
if God calls the people who know him best to be a light to attract the nations
so that together we can beat our swords into ploughshares, as Isaiah
claims? What if God comes in the form of
a servant named Jesus who is obedient even unto death, as Paul claims? What if the Christian faith is not a call to
choose the winning side but a call to cease the competition? What if God comes to assure us that, in the
death and resurrection of Jesus, everything we need has been given us, so we
are free to give ourselves to others?
What will all this mean?
I don’t mean to be naive here. Isaiah’s pictures of the peaceable kingdom are not foreign policy, and they will be fully realized only in the world to come—though, of course, they do show us the world God wants and means to have, so we have every reason to practice them in the present whenever and wherever we can. Still, there will be legitimate disagreement among people of faith about what one has to do in the real world. There are real bad guys out there, and self-defense is a justifiable response. But the Bible reminds us that there is a bad guy in here as well [pointing to self], for all of us, so arrogant self-righteousness will never do. There is a time and place for protecting what we have been given. But the Bible reminds us that there is never full protection for the things of this world, only for those whom God calls to be his own—and God wants to offer that protection to all people of every race and every tribe. So, spread that word, God says; let them know, tell the story, and see what the Holy Spirit can make of it all. That might be an offer we can’t refuse. AMEN
Frederick J. Gaiser, ©2003