Good News

Sermon Title:  Good News
Poolesville Presbyterian Church
12.11.11; Rev. David Williams


Scripture Lesson:  Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11


It’s always good to be bit wary about things that seem to be good news.   


When you get that eager call from someone representing a lottery that you didn’t enter, that may not be good news.  When that email announces to you that you’ve won a brand new iPad 2, yours the moment you go to the claims website and enter your mailing address, full name, mother’s maiden name, and the last nine digits of your social security number, that may not be good news.


Unless you do it, in which case it’s probably good news for someone who isn’t you.


Because sometimes, the thing that purports to be something wonderful is, in fact, not quite what it seems to be.


Do that mental rewind, for instance, to conversations people were having about home prices six or seven years ago.  I can recall, myself, listening to folks at social gatherings talking excitedly back in 2004 and 2005 about just how much equity they were building in their home.  I can recall, myself, as the market value of our own home soared, ten, twenty, fifty, ninety percent.  I can also remember thinking at the time that every uptick in the market meant that houses were that much farther out of reach from families like our own.   It was good news for us, sure.  But with salaries stagnant, it wasn’t so good for anyone who didn’t yet own a home.   It still isn’t good news.


Then there’s the whole excitement we hear in the voices of business newscasters if the Dow Jones Industrial Average goes up on any given day.  If the Dow rises, everything is awesome!  Here, I’m a bit uncertain.  If the Dow rises, what does that mean?  It means that the average cost to buy stock in 30 major corporations has gone up.  That’s pretty much it.  So if the Dow goes up 3% in a day, that’s great news.  If the average price of a gallon of gas goes up 3% in a day, would that also be good news?   And those Dow points really just measure the cost of a stock in United States dollars, and the value of the dollar is as much a constant in the same way that Oprah Winfrey’s weight is a constant.  It goes down.  It goes up.  Meaning if you do something like print several trillion more dollars into the economy as part of a stimulus package, stock prices will automatically go up, as will the price of everything else.


It would be tempting not to think so much sometimes, I guess.  But if you’re going to know the difference between what is good for those in need, and what is only good for those who have power, well, then you do have to pay attention to those things.


From the Book of Isaiah today we hear a message about good news, news that is actually good.   As I mentioned in last week’s sermon, there was more than just one writer of Isaiah.  Most Bible scholars worth their salt see the Book of Isaiah divided up into three clear sections, each of which has its own particular focus.   Last week we heard about sections one and two.


Today’s section comes from what is known as Third Isaiah, which was written and preached perhaps 510-515 years before Christ by a prophet who followed the tradition of Isaiah.   Unlike First Isaiah, its visions and proclamations do not describe a Hebrew people comfortably ensconced in Jerusalem and the temple, as do the first thirty-nine chapters.  Unlike Second Isaiah, they do not assume that the Jewish people are shattered in the Babylonian exile, like chapters forty through fifty-five. The context of the last ten chapters is clear: the Hebrew people are back in their land.   Yay!  Good news, right?


They’d been given the opportunity to rebuild is their whole culture, after it was almost wiped from the face of the earth in by Babylonian Empire. After Babylon was defeated by Persia, the Hebrew people were encouraged by Cyrus of Persia to return to their ancestral lands. They were filled with hope at the prospect of return.  All they’d have to do is set up shop again, and all would be well.


The people returned thinking that things were going to be easy, and things were the farthest thing from easy. Life upon their return was hardscrabble, a struggle from day to day. The bricks that had been smashed from the walls of Jerusalem did not leap up on their own and autonomously reassemble themselves into Zion Gardens Condos and Suites.


It was hard. It seemed hopeless. People began to despair.  Worse yet, they began to prey upon one another.  Those who fell out on the margins of the society...the poor, the foreign, the different, well...things did not go so well for them.


But the word from God that Isaiah proclaimed defied that despair, and challenged that oppression. It was a word of intense hope, a word that comes directly from the prophet’s sense of being anointed with the Spirit of the Living God. It’s a word of intense confidence in the power of God to work through his people to bring about restoration.


For the oppressed and the brokenhearted who had returned to the land, the prophet did not say everything was cheery.  He affirmed the devastation that they were experiencing and the ruins in which they found themselves. Yet in the face of their suffering...and in some way because of their suffering...the prophet declares that God’s love for justice and covenant presence will make his people an instrument with which he will rebuild the brokenness of their land.


It’s a word that they needed to hear, and a word without which their hearts would have been too broken to continue. It’s also a word that many of us need to hear right now, as many of us look fearfully out at the continuing chaos and confusion of our economy.


The great wave of bank failures may have ended, but we hardly live in stable or certain times.  Families are still struggling with foreclosure and job loss, and retirees are still reading their investment reports and bank statements with trembling hands, it is easy for us to fall into the same kind of despair that seems to have afflicted those Hebrews upon their return. With the media humming with hysteria, it’s easy to give in. We feel an uncertainty that can paralyze us, allowing us to turn from the task of rebuilding. We become overwhelmed. We hunker down.


In his reaffirmation of God’s essential justice and care for his people, the prophet is telling those who despaired that no matter what happens, God will show grace to a covenant people. If we’re willing to accept that grace, and to practice it, those places of ruin will be rebuilt. 


This is an important message, right here in Advent.  Why in Advent?  Well, because if Advent means arriving, or beginning, then it’s worth noting that this text has an important place in setting out the purpose of Jesus.   That place can be found in Luke’s Gospel, in chapter 4, verses 16 through 19, where Jesus begins the teaching phase of his time among us by sitting down in the synagogue and reading from this exact passage in Isaiah.


Through the prophet, and through the one whose arrival establishes the purpose for our celebration of this season, we are reminded that the purpose of our faith is to provide that assurance of God’s intent to bring about news that is actually, truly, and completely good for those who are most in need of it.


Meaning, if we’re bearing glad tidings of great joy, we need to remember first and foremost those who are in need of such tidings.   If we are in such a place, because of brokenness of body and spirit, or of relationship, or of health, or of finance, we need to hear this simple assertion:  the One who created the Universe is there for us.  The intent  for everything that is is justice, and it will come, as surely as spring follows winter.  


If we find ourself in that place in life where we can speak or act to bring about healing, or peace, or joy, then need to hear this as our call.   Like Isaiah, we are called to press through the stress and selfishness of the season.  As we give, we can remember to extend that giving to those who have deep need.   As we act, we can take moments out of our lives to be a presence, offering a hand up to those for whom this season is a time of trial.  


If the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, as surely it must be in this season, that that is the Good News we’ve been called to hear, and sent to share.  


Let it be so, for you and for me,  AMEN.