Whose Footprint is
in the Sand?
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 01/12/2014
Based on Isaiah
42:1-9
The book of Isaiah is sometimes referred to as the Fifth
Gospel, as much of its content tends to point to messianic activity and easily
can have Jesus plugged in as the person referred to as “my servant.” Scholars across the spectrum argue as to who
the author was referring to in the phrase “my servant”; was it someone who was
soon to come into power, was it Isaiah himself, or was it speaking of a person
who would be born in the distant future, possibly like Jesus of Nazareth? When Jesus first announced his ministry to
those leaders in the synagogue as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, he chose to
read out of Isaiah chapter 61, a verse that was very much similar to this
morning’s reading. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the
captives and release from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor…”
Within
the second part of Isaiah, there is the reoccurring theme of “my servant”,
which explains the reason for Isaiah being referred so often along with the
four gospels. Jesus obviously took the
understanding of “my servant” to be the primary call of his ministry and is the
building block to what we call Social ministry.
Because of this morning’s reading being the corner stone of Jesus’ understanding
of God’s desire for his creation and ultimately the meaning of “restoration”, I
would like to reflect on some specific verses and explore how this affects
those of us who strive to follow God’s intent.
So,
who is “the servant” and what does the servant do? Isaiah says that God is the one who has
chosen the servant and supports him to the point that God’s very soul delights
in him. This servant of God has been
given God’s spirit. Today is recognized
in the church year as Christ’s Baptism Sunday. We can read in all four Gospels that when
Jesus was baptized the heavens opened up and the Holy Spirit descended upon
Jesus. I was so moved by the story’s of
Jesus’ baptism, that at the age of fourteen when I was being baptized I was
sure that as I would come up out of the water (I was baptized by immersion) that
I would have a vision of the clouds of heaven opening up and I would get to see
the gates of heaven or something very special.
I was truly disappointed when all I saw was the face of my pastor, Rev
Bill.
The
servant of God will not harm a bruised reed, or extinguish a dimly burning
wick, and will faithfully bring forth justice. These are marvelous metaphors of being
wounded; so wounded that you feel as if you can no longer live, or so wounded
that “hope” no longer exists. I think
that most of us try to live our lives in a way that we would never
intentionally harm or try to cause pain to someone, yet even in an unintentional
act of being dismissive way toward someone because we feel we don’t have time to
acknowledge or listen to them – is that not breaking a bruised reed or not supporting
a dimly burning wick?
Take
just a moment to think about the kind of reaction most of us have when we stop
at a street light and a person is standing on the corner with a sign asking for
help (usually in the form of money, but it’s a request for help none the
less.) How often do we look that person
straight in the eye? Usually, we tend to
look straight ahead, maybe time to time glancing over to see that person, but
never doing anything that might encourage that individual to come over to your
car window. That is being dismissive of
someone who is a dimly flickering light.
It’s dismissive because we don’t even recognize their presence. We may justify this behavior by saying, I
don’t wish to give any money to this person because I don’t know what it will
be used for or maybe we don’t have any coin with us, but would a more probable
reason for not looking that person in the eye be because we do not want to be
confronted with the reality of what it means to be without hope? Yet when we do take that leap of courage and
look eye to eye with that person, the spirit of servant swells in us, we often
call it our humanity. Even if there is
no money exchanged, when we look eyeball to eyeball with that person, we have
given them the gift of “existence”, we have justified that they are not
invisible in a world that so easily can dispose people that are deemed
inadequate.
We
in this country are so eager to make sure that there is procedural justice (the
proper and unbiased understanding and application of legal factors in courts
and human relations.) Yet there is
another way to look at justice, which is distributive justice (the equitable
distribution and utilization of resources and responsibilities in non-legal
contexts.) Here is where the church
starts to vary in its willingness to participate or define as part of the job
description as being a “servant.” When
we see someone on a street corner with a sign for help, we are seeing a
breakdown in distributive justice. Yet
this was Jesus’ major call in ministry to make accountable those in leadership and
power for distributive justice.
Scripture
like this one in Isaiah, realizes that there are times in our lives when we are
so beaten up, so low with despair that we believe that not even God is there
with us; that living in exile in Babylon and we like the Israelites can believe
that God has abandoned us. This is
surely how it must have felt for the average Jewish person during WWII living
in Europe, as Hitler’s mandate exterminated of over 6 million lives, just
because they happened to have Jewish blood.
But the promise of God is, “I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I
have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the
eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon.” God is saying, “no matter what life is throwing at you, no matter how low you feel, or how
hopeless a situation may look, I am with you. And out of these despairs you will be able to be
the light for others.”
I
would like to share a modern day rendition of today’s scripture.
The Footprints Prayer:
One night I had a dream... I dreamed I was walking along the beach with
the Lord, and across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene I noticed two sets of
footprints in the sand; One belonged to me, and the other to the Lord. When the
last scene of my life flashed before us, I looked back at the footprints in the
sand. I noticed that many times along the path of my life, there was only one
set of footprints. I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and
saddest times in my life.
This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you would walk with me
all the way; But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my
life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why in times when
I needed you the most, you should leave me. The Lord replied, "My precious,
precious child. I love you, and I would never, never leave you during your
times of trial and suffering. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was
then that I carried you.
It is pretty easy to see Jesus as
the “my servant” in this morning’s text.
My question is: Do you see the commission or the covenant between God
and the servant as including you? Do you
see yourself called forth to bring justice, to open the eyes that are blind, to
lead out of darkness those who live in the shadows? If the church is the extension of Christ,
then this is our basic call; we too are chosen by God and have had God’s spirit
placed upon us to bring about hope and justice, not just legal, but
distributive justice as well to all nations.
We are called to help those who do not understand God’s justice to see and when we encounter darkness to be a light. This is how we remember our baptism; this is
how we become footprints in the sand for each other. Amen
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