Isaiah 58:1-12
Just a little over a year ago, I was visiting a group in
jail who had decided to form a Bible study. They were all young guys—some
white, some Native— and they all came from the streets. They started reading
parts of Isaiah until, during Holy Week, they read Isaiah 58. They were fasting
that week, looking for guidance, and I believe it came. It was one of those
holy spirit moments. That week, one of the guys leading the study came to me
during our visiting time, and said; “This is it. This is what we are called to
do. To be restorers of streets to live in!” He was thrilled, amazed by this
thought that he—who had experienced the streets and all that went with it—the
violence, the drugs, the hunger, the cold—could be part of restoring them,
restoring the community. This young man is still in prison right now, but we
write regularly and this study inspired us to use that phrase—“restoring the
streets to live in”—as part of our mission statement.
As I was reading through this and preparing for this sermon,
a few things came to mind about this text and how it relates to our own
community.
1.
Isaiah is writing to people who lived through
disaster
First, Isaiah is writing to people who lived through
disaster during the Babylonian exile. It is a text that speaks to a generation
and their children who witnessed the complete destruction of their homes and
livelihoods—and their freedom. They saw war and they lost it; they were carried
as slaves and exiles into Babylon, and there they lived and suffered until, 70
years later, a group was allowed to return.
They were a people who had experienced tremendous trauma, people
who Louis Stulman says were living pillar to post between disaster and
survival. That is, they were stuck between this loss and trauma, this
destruction of their community, and their deep need to survive and live to
rebuild their lives and dreams.
Our community also lives, in many ways, pillar to post
between disaster and survival. We haven’t seen war and destruction in the same
ways, but we have lived through our own traumas. We have been hit hard by the
economic crisis, we have lost most of our main industries. We are one of many
communities across the country with growing poverty and homelessness and a
shrinking economic base. We have, in the process, lost ways of life. I grew up
farming in this community and yet, coming back, there are so few working farms
I feel like I can count them on one hand. Logging once supported this community
and now very little of that industry is left.
In our own way, we are in between disaster—the loss of a way
of life and the loss of an economic base—and survival—our deep need to find a
future for ourselves and our children, our deep need sometimes to simply
survive.
Like Isaiah’s community, this looks like growing
homelessness, this looks like people who are hungry, this looks like people who
don’t have living wage jobs, this looks like a daily struggle to survive.
2.
Isaiah is condemning religion without action,
judgment and exclusion without mercy
And, Isaiah’s community faced a choice. They could close
their doors and hearts, double down on their religious practice, and ignore the
struggles of those around them. They could fast and they could judge everyone
around them and point fingers.
Because that is the first impulse, I think, of people who
are between disaster and survival. “Batten down the hatches.” “Close the
doors.” “Protect yourselves.” These are human instincts. Let’s hole up in our
new temple and fast and keep those doors shut.
Or, they could follow the prophet’s call. They could follow
God’s way, which is ever so much harder than human instincts.
They could see their family, their own, their community
struggling out on the streets. They could see the hunger around them. They
could turn from greed to generosity. They could undo oppression when they saw
it. They could make sure everyone was fairly and justly treated.
3.
Isaiah is calling people to restore streets to
live in
And, the prophet gives them a promise. If they chose mercy
over judgement, if they chose following God instead of empty religious
practice,
If they made sure people were taken care of and fed and
given a chance and paid fairly
If they removed oppression and injustice
Then, and only then, would they truly be able to rebuild.
Only then would they restore the streets to live in. Only then would God pour
out his blessing on them and their endeavors. Only then would they move from
survival to thriving.
I think, as always, we have the same choices in front of us
today, in our own community.
This is why I do the work that I do.
In our county today, at least 2,000 people are homeless and
couch surfing. 1 out of 16 people in Aberdeen. 46% of us our on public
assistance. Poverty and homelessness and hunger are everywhere and most of us,
at least if we are watching, see it all around us. We had a service last year
for all the people we’d lost on the streets and we had 17 pictures on the
table. The youngest was 24.
And we too are called away from the anger and the vitriol
and the hatred that too often we can see in our community. We are called
instead to this: to this fast that God chooses—
We are called to rebuild our community.
The people I know who have the deepest vision and the
deepest hope to rebuild this community—to restore the streets to live in—are
those who have lived closest to disaster and survival. I have had the honor and
privilege to know so many brave and courageous people in this place. So many
people who have lost absolutely everything and still struggle every day to dig
themselves out of a hole that keeps getting deeper, or struggle simply to
survive one more day. I have witnessed incredible resilience and hope in the
darkest places.
This year, our ministry formed Harbor Roots, a small farming
coop, leasing three acres of land out the Wynoochee. Following the vision of
those young men in that Bible study in jail, we looked for ways to offer
supportive employment and to provide wrap around services and group support.
We’ve hired three people, just getting off the streets, just
getting clean, just trying to get on their feet. I have walked with each of
them through some pretty awful things, as their pastor.
I have seen a lot of awful things, actually, in my work on
the harbor. I have seen people die in the mud. I have buried the 18 year old
brother and 45 year old father of a 7 year old girl in the same 12 month
period. I have watched moms lose their kids and I have watched young men
shrivel away to skin and bones with drugs and hunger. I have sat with women in
the aftermath of people taking bats to tents, I have sat by hospital beds with
overdoses and exposure deaths and beat downs.
And. And. I got to sit at a table last week with a bunch of
kids in recovery, including our apprentices, and talk about ways to rebuild.
Talk about what healing looks like. And when I looked at them, I saw all their
struggle and pain, but way more than that I saw their hope and their dreams and
their vision and I knew that love will always overcome hate
and I knew that healing will always overcome suffering
and I knew that they would lead us.
I knew that they would restore the streets to live in.
I knew that, if we ever heal as a community, if we ever
choose life (as the people of Israel were offered so long ago), if we ever have
hope, it would be through them.
Isaiah was not lying. We restore life to our community
through loving and protecting each other. We rebuild by lifting all of us up
together.
