my second (and last) sermon

it's not my intent to post twice every time i get around to posting, but i wanted to share the sermon i preached two weeks ago in my divinity school homiletics class. this class has been the bane of my existence all semester. it's not that i'm that bad of a preacher, it's just very difficult to preach in front of peers, especially when you're one of the few moderates in a very liberal divinity school. i had the great privilege of preaching on the suffering servant text in isaiah 53. most of you will be surprised to see that i never claim jesus as the suffering servant, and i only mention him once or twice. i was challenged to see that this text, though likely prophesying the death of jesus, is rooted in the jewish experience and thus can be preached considering that context rather than simply jumping to jesus. i'm quite proud of this sermon, despite its lack of jesus, and hope that it will invite others to consider this very familiar and powerful text from a different perspective.


isaiah 52:13-53:12


My grandmother was a devout Christian woman. As she laid dying in a hospital room a few months ago, she apologized to her pastor for not being at church to give her tithe. She kept a list of names of family members who she prayed would receive salvation. Her blessings over holiday meals always included a subtle reminder to those wayward members of our family that they needed to have their sins forgiven. She never called out any names, but she had a way of letting you know if your name was on the list. For all the ways in which my grandmother expressed her devotion to the Christian faith and to other people, none was more profound than in her marriage. My grandmother was married to an abusive alcoholic; yet she believed deeply in her faith's condemnation of divorce and in the redemptive possibilities of a Christian wife who continued to love her husband despite his sin. I have no doubt her husband's name was scribbled on her list for many years. Strangely, my grandmother was the first person I thought of when I read our text for today. Perhaps that was because this text has likely been used as proof for encouraging people to remain in dangerous and violent situations. I imagine that my grandmother must have read this passage many times in her long life and can say with great certainty that if she were preaching this sermon, she would tell you the suffering servant is Jesus. However, I have not been able to wrestle myself away from the thought that the servant in the passage might be her. Her body was beaten and broken; she literally bore her husband's transgressions. Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that my grandmother was right to remain in an abusive marriage. Rather, I am saying that my grandmother was just one of the many people in our world who are suffering servants without even knowing it. They are the ones who bear the transgressions of us all. We all know the people I am talking about: the poor, the orphan, the immigrant, the disabled, the homeless, the ostracized, the abused. The language of the text not only illumines their faces, but also our responses to their faces. We are astonished by them because they do not look like us. "So marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals." We despise them because of their plight. "He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity." We reject them because we believe they are worthless. "As one from whom others hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him of no account." We do not hear their voices because we do not let them speak. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth ... Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth." We have neglected and forgotten them so much that they are dead to us. "For he was cut off from the land of the living." It is safe to say that the writer of this text meant for the language to be evocative. We can see the marred body of this servant -- how disorderly and chaotic is must look from the wounds of its plight, and how foreign it must be from what we consider to be "normal." We can hear the hatred and the rejection in the word "despised." The choice of that word conveys all of the ugliness and contempt associated with how the servant has been treated. We see the familiarity the servant has with suffering in the phrase "acquainted with infirmity." It is as if the writer is saying the servant has been forced to make friends with his plight, for it is all he knows. We can hear the silence of the servant's voice. This aspect of the servant's suffering is clearly important to the writer because he repeats the phrase "he did not open his mouth" twice in verse 7. And we are made aware of the impact of our sins: they wound, crush, and bruise. The language of this text is provocative because it forces us to see ourselves as the cause of the servant's suffering. Many commentators have noted the shift in voices throughout the text. Howard Wallace observes that the onlookers in the text -- those who are describing the suffering servant -- believe, at first, that the servant is responsible for his suffering. However, Wallace argues that a shift occurs in verse 4. Here, he says, the onlookers realize that their sin has caused the servant to suffer and they proclaim: "Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases ...He was wounded for our transgressions and, crushed for our iniquities." We are onlookers to the suffering of the poor, the orphan, the immigrant, the disabled, the homeless, the ostracized, the abused. We observe their plight from afar, but rarely do we become acquainted with their suffering nor do we admit our own responsibility. We talk more about the "system" that oppresses so we can avoid talking about sin. In doing so, we perpetuate the fallacy that this "system" can exist apart from our individual actions and decisions. I am weary of hearing evil and oppression relegated to the abstract, as if it does not exist in the souls of each and every one of us. Spend any time with a young child and it quickly becomes obvious that we are inherently selfish people. Decisions about how we spend our time and money are made considering ourselves first; and when things aren't right in our world, we hardly ever look inward to find the root of the problem. We idolize comfort and security; health and education; entertainment and beauty. We are privileged people who often forget that our privilege has often been at the expense of others. I dare say that we have not suffered enough. I had the privilege of traveling to New York City on an urban ministry pilgrimage a few weeks ago with several of our colleagues. One evening, we sat around together sharing stories of our experiences on the trip. One person began to speak, tears welling up in his eyes. He spoke about encountering a man on the subway. The man was laid across several seats, sleeping. He smelled of the streets, and even of his own waste. Despite the noise and the hurry of the subway, the man never awakened. It was as if he had become accustomed to being forgotten among the chaos of people going their own ways, concerning themselves with their own business. But he was not forgotten by those students who saw him that day. It seems that they had been the first people not to hide their faces from him. To hear them talk, the man's presence had disturbed them so greatly that they were moved towards action in a way they never had been. Most commentators agree the people of Israel would have understood themselves to be the suffering servant of this passage and the other three servant songs preceding it. The Israelites had once been a powerful nation, but that reality changed during their time in exile. They would no longer enjoy lordship over others; rather, they would have to learn to be servants. Their mission to share Yahweh's love for the nations would have to be accomplished through sacrificial service. The same is true for us. We have enjoyed lordship over our fellow human beings, allowing them to suffer unnecessarily and unjustly. But there is hope for our redemption and theirs. The text does not end with the death of the suffering servant. No, the text ends with the exaltation of the servant, and the proclamation that "through him the will of the Lord shall prosper." Our hope for redemption lies in our own willingness to become suffering servants, to carry the burdens of our brothers and sisters and acquaint ourselves with their sufferings. To look at the man on the subway and ask "What will it take of me to help him?" We cannot literally take on their plight, but we can come alongside of them and suffer with them, doing all we can to ease their burden. Ironically, because so many in our world suffer unfairly, many of us have eliminated the language of suffering from our vocabulary. We find ourselves in a theological crisis, wondering how more suffering is the answer to the suffering that already exists in our world. And yet I believe the language of suffering and sacrifice is something we need to reclaim. The primary reason why so much of our church talk gets chalked up to idealism is because we are too scared to do what we know we should do. So much could be accomplished in our world if we would accept the suffering and sacrifice that accompanies advancing the kingdom of God in our world. A few months ago, I sat across from a woman who shared with me the struggles she faces raising a young son with cerebral palsy. I watched as she fought tears to describe how lonely she felt in her church, how much she felt like people stared and gossiped about her family because her son was "different." I wondered how much it would have taken for one person to go out of their way to take her son in their arms, to look in his eyes and then into hers, and tell her that her son is beautiful. Similarly, I wonder why people at my own church can't go out of their way to shake my hands with my husband, who is blind. They're too scared of doing something wrong or feeling uncomfortable, and so nobody goes out of their way to welcome us or introduce themselves. Or, how much would it take for us to cut back on the things in our lives that people in developing countries would consider to be great luxuries? My husband and I realize every month that we spend too much of our money going out to eat. I'm sure many of us could admit we own more clothing and other "stuff" than we need. How much valuable time do we waste social networking? We are addicted to Facebook. We claim it's our way of "keeping in touch," but isn't it really just our very puny way of making sure all the details of our lives mean something to other people? What difference could that time make if we used it on a real person instead of one on a computer screen? I read recently that 18 million children are expected to be orphaned in Africa by next year due to AIDS, and I have to wonder why more Christians aren't adopting. The costs are high and the process is daunting, but will we continue to let so many children live without parents just because we can't make the sacrifice? Many people in my church have given up the comfort and security of living in middle to upper class neighborhoods in order to move downtown so that they are closer to the poor and homeless of our city. I cannot think of many things that come much closer than this to looking our brothers and sisters in the face and acquainting ourselves with their suffering. I wish someone had been willing to take a risk and tell my grandmother that she did not have to stay in an abusive marriage. I wonder what onlookers were present in her life, who watched as she suffered, and yet turned their faces away. Wasn't someone in her church willing to sacrifice their religious convictions about divorce to speak against violence? As we approach this holy weekend and end this season of Lent, I wonder why the Lenten way of life cannot become an everyday reality. We have sacrificed these 40 days in order to more fully appreciate the suffering of Jesus; and we must be willing to do the same for our fellow human beings. It is a full-time commitment that demands our very lives. Therefore, go from here and find the suffering servants of this world: the poor, the orphan, the immigrant, the disabled, the homeless, the ostracized, the abused. Know their suffering. Bear their burdens. Carry their sorrows. Let us be suffering servants on their behalf for the redemption of us all. Amen.