This is… a Möbius strip sermon. An endless loop immersed in love. Whether you are close, whether you are far away, whichever side you are on—God is there. There is hope. The shape of this sermon is one of my all-time favorite things: a Möbius strip. In part, I am somehow captivated by vowels that have an umlaut. And I am intrigued by this:
A twisted rectangle. A shape with one continuous side. An infinite loop.
This is… a sermon of refugees. The book of Isaiah is understood to have been written in 3 separate sections, over the course of hundreds of years. Today we hear from Second Isaiah, who according to Susan Ackerman “wrote nearly two hundred years after First Isaiah, ca. 540 B.C.E. The people of this time had witnessed a calamity of almost incomprehensible proportions: the fall of Judah and Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. at the hands of the Babylonian empire.”[1] These people, the Judeans from over 2,500 years ago, had been forced from their homes as a result of war. Invading forces. In exile in Babylonian. Ackerman notes that, “This audience surely had doubts concerning its status as God’s chosen people and even the existence of God within the heavenly pantheon.”[2] This was a story shared with people for whom the world was a flat surface, above which a dome arched.
And there, God sits beyond the arched circle above the earth.
But this is also a God that doesn’t leave anyone out, for “not one is missing.” This is a God who “numbers (us and) calls (us) all by name.”
In the Great Mystery of Unknowing, Second Isaiah reminds us that we have known. That we have heard. It is continuous. This Love infused through all life. Love entrusted. To. Us.
When we are faint, God energizes us.
When we are weary, God strengthens us.
When we take time to pause… when we wait… when we are still… God renews us.
Pausing and praying…and resting… “sabbathing”… is as important as the work that we do day in and day out. For in our pausing—whether sitting contemplatively, or through the moving meditation of a walk, a dance, a bike ride, we are energized. Strengthened. So that in the work of the church, the service, the advocacy, we can run—and not get tired. Walk and not faint. That Möbius strip. Love infused through all life. Love entrusted.
You might have noticed that I encounter my own struggles with resting, taking a break, making time for Sabbath. I try, I really try, to take Sabbath, a day off, each Monday. Yet this week, after “popping into the church” via social media several times on a Monday, I got busted. If I am really going to sabbath, I need to take a break from digital media too. Self-care, spiritual health, wellbeing, however you want to label it, is crucial for the work that we do in the church. Subsequently, I have edited the signature of my emails with a short note and a quote from Walter Brueggemann that says:
Please note: My sabbath day is Monday. On that day I take a “tech ministry break” and do not respond to emails. Throughout the rest of the week I do regularly read and respond to emails. In Sabbath as Resistance, Brueggemann writes that “In our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods.”[3]
It is… one… continuous loop. Our resting. Our doing. Our serving. Our teaching. Our healing. Our acting out… our acting up. Our speaking out. Our breathing, beating lives, entrusted with, and by, and through God’s love. It is a Möbius strip. A never ending loop. Moving towards, and away from, the busyness of the world around us.
It is… also a story about the journey to the cross. A story about love. Hope. Death. Resurrection. Several years ago I traveled with an ecumenical, cross-generational group to Juarez, Mexico. There, we stayed at the San Alfonso Catholic Mission. In the richness of our lives in the United States, our comfort, our emphasis on the Good News, the Living Spirit, the “Still Speaking” God, Fr. Stan Martinka noted that “You (us primarily white suburbanites from Wisconsin) are a people of the Pentecost. We (the people of Juarez) are a people of the cross.” People who are oppressed. People who know that there is a devil at play in the world. People for whom their only hope is to overcome. Overcome oppression. Overcome hopelessness. Overcome fear. Overcome death.
People of the Good News.
People of the living Spirit.
Have we not known? Have we not heard?
One of my interests in ministry is a fascination with the ways in which our spiritual lives, our spiritual health and well-being impacts, and intersects with, our call to advocacy and action. Which is why, for me, this moving along a Möbius strip resonates. Brueggemann points out “That divine rest on the seventh day of creation has made clear (a) that YHWH is not a workaholic, (b) that YHWH is not anxious about the full functioning of creation, and (c) that the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work.”[4]
Last Sunday, I asked you to be aware of a state of suspense. Anticipation. Jesus leading us into new places. For in the book of Mark, the narrative is rapidly unfolding. One Sunday, we are along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, with the fishermen enduring the economic hardships brought on by the oppressive taxes of Rome. Last week, we were in the synagogue in Capernaum being astonished by Jesus’ teaching, and shocked by who he talked to—those from whom we turn. Those people cultural norms tell us to avoid. The unclean. The broken. Those tossed aside. Joerg Rieger, in his book No Rising Tide, encourages us to redefine justice as…
“being in solidarity with those who experience injustice and as taking the sides of those who have been marginalized and excluded from the community and from relationship. This (according to Rieger) is precisely the notion of justice that is most common in the texts of both the Old and the New Testaments. In many biblical texts, justice refers not to the notion of fairness but to a covenant—that is, to a relationship between God and humanity which is dynamic and responsive. This relationship is expressed in terms of God’s faithfulness, which implies God’s special concern for those pushed to the margins of the covenant… Justice in the Judeo-Christian traditions has to do, therefore, with a particular concern for the restoration of relationship with those who are excluded from relationships and pushed to the margins of the covenant; the proverbial widows, orphans, and strangers of the Old Testament; and the fishermen, prostitutes, tax collectors, and the sick of the New Testament.”[5]
So where are we at today? Did you notice? Where has Jesus taken us? We are still be in Capernaum, in a dusty, densely packed neighborhood, not far from the synagogue, at a house with “the whole city gathered around the door.” A door. A threshold. A place of crossing over, becomes a place of healing. A place of busyness.
And then, suddenly, Jesus takes us out to a quiet place. A deserted place. A place to pray. First, a coming together, then a going out. First, a gathering and healing in the chaos. Then, a time of pausing in the desert. It is… one… continuous loop. Our resting. Our doing. Our serving. Our teaching. Our healing. Our acting out… our acting up. Our speaking out. Our breathing, beating lives, entrusted with, and by, and through God’s love. It is a Möbius strip. A never ending loop. Moving towards, and away from, the busyness of the world around us over and over.
Entrusted with this flow of Love, Jesus calls us out. Found, Jesus says, “Let’s go, for that is what I came out to do” Let us too, go. Let us too, come out.
For… People of the Good News.
People of the living Spirit.
We have known. We have heard.
Let’s go!
~ Pastor Kris
(reflection based on Isaiah 40:21-31 and Mark 1:29-39)
[1] Ackerman, Susan. Isaiah, in Women’s Bible Commentary: Expanded Edition with Apocrypha. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. 173.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Sabbath as Resistance Quotes by Walter Brueggemann.” By Walter Brueggemann. Accessed February 02, 2018. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/25947656-sabbath-as-resistance-saying-no-to-the-culture-of-now.
[4] “Sabbath as Resistance Quotes by Walter Brueggemann.” By Walter Brueggemann. Accessed February 02, 2018. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/25947656-sabbath-as-resistance-saying-no-to-the-culture-of-now.
[5] Rieger, Joerg. No rising tide: theology, economics, and the future. Place of publication not identified: Distributed by Amazon Digital Services, 2011. 136-137.