Sermon for Sunday Aug 17. 

Life is often described using the metaphor of a journey. Or it could be described by travel on roads.

This is true of our individual lives.  But it is also true of our collective lives.  It is interesting to think about travel on highways, with this in mind, and how we must observe the rules of the road.  There are signs to follow. It is polite to move over, at times, and let someone else merge. There are appropriate times to yield.    There are times when highways come together as we know on the north and south edge of the metro area where Interstate 35E and 35W come together.   This is not unlike the coming together of congregations like St Paul’s and Reformation.  One with roots back 125 years and the other back 100 years.

Last weekend Martha and I traveled down Highway 35 to our home town of Albert Lea. I had a reunion.  As we travelled south on I35 and went past Faribault and Owatonna we came to the exit for Hope.   This is a little town that is well known for its creamery that makes butter.  We had earlier passed Owatonna and just near the Bridge Street exit there is a building on the east side of the highway called, Truth Inc. It is a business that makes the hinges and cranks for combination windows. The Hope exit reminded me that ,some years ago, I had observed it would be possible to live in Hope and work for Truth.  Now, it has also come to my attention, ( and this doesn’t have anything to do with my sermon but) if you are travelling north bound on 35 and go past Hope and the Truth exit , just past Owatonna you come to  the exit for Clinton Falls!   Oh well!  It’s there.

To go on…I have been looking at the lessons these past weeks with interim periods in mind.  We’re really travelling on this interim road together.  Jon will tell us more in the temple talk, at the end of our worship.  The scripture lesson that has my attention is the one from Isaiah.  Isaiah is talking about what worship will be like and life will be like when the Israelites return to Zion.  It dawned on me a week ago that this lesson was written during the exile.  This means that the words were describing worship in a temple that had been destroyed.  It would not be rebuilt for many years. So the old was gone and the new was not built yet.   In other words, Isaiah’s vision is built on the memory of what was and the hope of what would be.   His vision was written during an interim period! The exile.

Now, in my mind I can hear the echo of the words of the prophets  Amos and Micah who had scolded the people and said that God wasn’t even interested in their worship or their offerings because there was no justice.  God didn’t want phony worship when there was no  fairness for the outcasts.   They weren’t caring for the children, widows and other outcasts. But Isaiah’s vision was that people would come with joy and there would be real worship and many more would come who had never been included before. Furthermore God would create the joy!

I also know that as this rebuilding was taking place, the conservatives and the liberals both had a voice.  They are recorded in scripture.  In the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, the conservative priest Ezra, in his book, said “divorce your foreign wives.”   In other words, let’s purify this race and blood line by getting rid of foreigners.  But on the other hand the book of Ruth tells the story of how she fell in love with a foreigner, a Moabite, named Boaz. ( I’ve often thought this would be a fun name for a child when I administered a baptism)  The story is about how Ruth travelled back to Zion with her mother-in-law Naomi.  Here we remember the beautiful words, “Your people shall be my people, your God my God.”   Boaz comes with her and this fits the vision of Isaiah.  Here people are coming to Mt Zion, who had never been there before.  And those with a vision of inclusiveness are helping make it happen.   This vision of Isaiah, of joyful worship where all people are welcome, comes at the end of this interim called the exile. But there is a new chapter to be written.  How will this flesh itself out at St Paul Reformation?  I don’t know for certain.  But I do know that God makes these journeys with us.  I know we envision the future, based on the memory of the past together with hope for things unseen.   But we’re not there yet. I think we can take a hint from I35 and know how we too, can live in hope and work for truth as we collectively travel together.  

Amen.