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PRESSING ON
(A sermon preached March 25, 2007 at University United Methodist Church, East
Lansing, by John Ross Thompson)
Scripture Texts - Philippians 3:4b-14, Isaiah 43:16-21
On our Lenten journey toward Easter, we realize that next week when we gather it
will be the beginning of Holy Week. It is time to begin getting a glimpse of
what will be at the end of the road.
Marguerite Higgins was a correspondent during the Korean conflict. One bitter
winter's day, she began interviewing a muddy Marine who had just returned from a
lost battle. As he opened a tin can of C-rations and began eating, Higgins said
to the young man, "If I could give you anything in the world you wanted, what
would you ask for?" The Marine thought for a moment and then said, "Give me
tomorrow."
Isn’t that what we all want?
Yesterday we celebrated my mother’s 95th birthday. 95 years! She says that she
has already lived longer than anyone else in our family and “longer than I
planned”. When you are in your nineties, you inevitably wonder how many
tomorrows you have left. For my mother, there are good reasons to have more
tomorrows, including the joy and wisdom she can share with her children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
We all live in today, but look toward tomorrow. As a pastor, I’m quite aware of
some among us who wonder about tomorrow because they are undergoing medical
tests. Others have suffered the recent loss of a loved one, or a job, or hope
for the future. On a more hopeful note, there are many among us preparing for
their future through their studies. All of us hope to have many tomorrows with
good quality of life.
When you quickly read both of our scriptures for today, they seem to say we
should forget the lessons of the past. In this 50th anniversary year for our
church, we need to be sure what is meant. Both Isaiah and Paul cite the lessons
of history numerous times, but make sure their hearers are not content only with
what has been. They want us to know that the most important time in our walk of
faith is tomorrow.
If you asked me to cite my top five scripture passages, Isaiah 43 would be among
them. God says (loosely translated), “I’m doing a new thing. It’s popping up all
around you. Don’t you see it?”
These words were written to the Hebrew people while they were still in exile in
Babylon. Isaiah tells them that the same God who led them through the Red Sea
will lead them through the wilderness. The same God who fed them manna in the
wilderness will bring to them streams of water in the desert.
God not only promises us tomorrow, but promises us something new and good.
Philosopher A. N. Whitehead once remarked that it can take a thousand years for
a really new idea to make its way, given human resistance. The exodus of the
Hebrew people from Egypt—now that was truly new. For the first time a divine
being siding, not with the mighty, but the powerless, not with masters, but
slaves (Isaiah 43:16-17). But now, 800 years after the exodus, Isaiah declares,
God is about to do a new thing! It will be 600 years before that new thing is
manifest in Jesus, and then it takes millennia just to begin to be heard. What
is the "new thing" God is still trying to do in our time? Why does humanity
resist it so? The "old thing" included Israel's nonviolence at the cost of
Yahweh's violence at the Red Sea. The "new thing" involves, among other things,
a restored creation, a peaceable environment (Isaiah 43:19b-20), and a world
view that acknowledges all of God’s people. Has Yahweh become nonviolent? Is
such a vision as Isaiah's illusionary? Can human beings learn to live peaceably
and ecologically responsible? Realistically, how much dare we hope for? Isaiah
provides the corrective vision. God gives us water to revive us in the
wilderness. It wets our tongues for praise (43:21). Praise is the principle by
which humanity is kept in ecological balance with God and the universe. We
cannot praise God and devastate God's creation. We cannot worship God and
idolize our own power.
God is continuing to do a new thing.
Philippians text: Paul uses himself as an example of someone who has good
credentials as a person of faith, but that is not enough. He writes to
Christians who thought they had arrived, that their salvation was full and
complete because they had been baptized. Paul reminded them that there is always
a “not yet” element in our Christian life. What has been is good, but compared
to what can be (and will be for the person of faith), it is “loss.”
“Pressing on to the prize of the high calling in Jesus Christ.”
This high calling is becoming more of what God wants us to be
God’s call is clearer when we realize it is:
1. What keeps coming back to you.
2. Where your passion is.
3. What is confirmed by others.
National Public Radio recently had the story of a soldier who lost part of his
leg in Iraq. Three weeks after he received a prosthesis for his leg, he started
skiing. The surprise in this story is that he had never skied before. Despite
his loss, he chose to have a tomorrow filled with even more than he had in the
past.
These words by Joyce Hollyday fit this season: “The cross is looming large now.
It is good to turn again to the comforting and poetic words of the prophet
Isaiah. We may sow our tears in many places, grieving that our families, our
communities, our nation, and the world are not as we would like them to be. We
see brokenness all around, frightening times ahead. But when we water the earth
with our tears, we can expect to harvest joy in the next season. A new thing
will be upon us. Rivers will spring up in barren places and refresh the earth.
Perhaps the rivers appear when enough of us have been moved by the earth's pain
to weep, to add our ounce of compassion to what may become a mighty torrent of
loving hope.
We are pressing on – to a better tomorrow.
Our prayer hymn fits this theme. “The Hymn of Promise” is #707 in The United
Methodist Hymnal.
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