Epiphany 5B
Texts: Isaiah 40:21-31
sermon by Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
February 7, 2021
Renew Our Strength
I want you to know that I understand the part about all of this getting old, and about getting weary in these days. We get a lesson this morning from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and the people of Israel are in exile, and they are tired of it all. They’re tired of being pushed around. They remember the days of their own military might, and they’re tired of now having to live in fear. They’re tired of waiting: “How long, O Lord, until our deliverance from bondage and exile?”
I want you to know that I understand the part about losing steam, getting weary. There are lots of things about the pandemic that are getting to me, but one of them is I’m tired of being pushed around by forces, realities in this world that are just bigger than me, realities that are beyond me and I cannot control. I’m tired of having to live constantly at some level of fear. I’m tired of waiting for the turnaround, for better things to come. I want you to know that I understand the part about losing steam, just getting old, getting weary.
But it isn’t only about getting old, is it? Weariness? I understand it, I’ve told you, and you understand weariness too, no matter what your age.
You may be a young mom wrangling a couple of school-age kids around the house. Day after day it seems to be the same things: wrestling to keep up with schoolwork; sticky things on the furniture; arguments about computer games and screen time. Even at your young age, you may be weary.
You may have the kind of job where on the one hand they’re expecting of you great things, and on the other they’re setting up a bad environment in these pandemic times and they’re making decisions almost guaranteed to move you to failure. You can get tired of that.
You may have care for an ailing family member, and the illness, maybe the aging, has been a long hard road. You may be weary.
You may be carrying something in your life right now that’s not about pandemic necessarily, but something it seems you’ve been carrying for all your life. An old pattern of behavior, maybe anger issues, maybe an old addiction, and the pandemic? – well, it sure doesn’t help. You’ve got something that has always been there, something like an old and unwelcome friend, and in these days it is still there and you are sick and tired of it.
Like the ancient people of Israel, we feel that all of this is getting old, and we are weary.
But, have you not heard, church? Has it not been told you?, Isaiah asks. It is the Lord who sits enthroned over all of this world – oh, yes, it is! – and it is the Lord who stretches out the heavens like a canopy, the prophet writes. Because of God’s great power and mighty strength, not a one of us is missing in the Lord’s care. That’s the Word of the prophet: not a one is missing! Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; that’s the word this morning from the book of the prophet Isaiah. That was a word for those in bondage, in exile, in old ancient Israel, and it is certainly a word for those of us today who are weary in our Way. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
I have seen it happen. The tired young mom gets a love message from her baby, or maybe some small piece of unexpected grace from her young teenage son, and that’s all it takes, and the Lord renews her strength.
You are caring for that ailing family member, and you suddenly realize, you know what? – that you get one more day with that ailing family member – for that’s what this very day is: it is one more day that God has given you – and you realize what a blessing is that one more day with one another, and the Lord renews your strength.
Yeah, you’ve had that sick old pattern in your life, but then comes a moment of intervention and you are blessed with the very tools and the very partners that you’re going to need to effect this change and you lay your weariness aside and you trust and believe that redemption and resurrection for you, are real. The Lord renews your strength.
I started this sermon with lament, about how old this is all getting to be, and I guess about how old I am getting to be with it all, too. I want to end it now telling you about how young I am. Yeah, you heard me right. For it is the Lord who renews my strength, who brings me new life every day, who makes every morning a resurrection dawn and gives strength to the weary, yes, even in the middle of pandemic.
You know, this week I missed a meeting of the Faith Church Council. This year, 2021, marks 38 years I’ve been a pastor – there’s the *old* part again! – and I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever missed a Church Council meeting before; I don’t think I have. And this was a bad one to miss; this was the meeting for the budget to be recommended to our annual congregation meeting in a couple of weeks. A couple of the Council members joked with me: y’know, you miss the budget meeting, the first thing we do is vote to cut your salary.
But that wasn’t the first thing they did. Because the reason I suddenly had to miss the meeting was a new Covid infection in my family, and the upcoming surgery of another family member and now quarantines screwing up the shared transportation that we had arranged and now I needed to get somebody to a doctor that evening. And the church leadership told me we don’t need you at the meeting, Bob; you need to go. And so I am told that the first thing they did at the Faith Council meeting Tuesday was to convene a prayer meeting, and pray together for my several family members, and for me.
You think that is a unique or rare occurrence at Faith? Well, have you not heard, church? Has it not been told you?, as the prophet asks us. There are places and people here all the time where prayers are lifted, for one another, for specific intentions, for healing, and for our church. And then Pastor Amy Wiegert checks in, sounding like tears in her eyes, blown away by the Spiritual power of what the kids have shared in their Zoom Confirmation class. A young father stops by the church building this week just to let me know he sees God working in his life these days. And as we plan that annual congregation meeting, that traditionally oldest and dullest and weariest of things, people speak to me about doing ministries – worship ministries and learning ministries and giving ministries and service ministries – ministries untried and new in the kind of language that makes you wonder if some folks are not speaking in tongues, right here in humble old Faith Lutheran Church. That was my week, this week. As the prophet writes, it is indeed the Lord who renews us, rejuvenates us. I’m too old for a lot of things anymore, but as a pastor and as a follower of Jesus, I think I’m getting younger and younger these days. I am the Tom Brady of Lutheran ministry. It is the Lord who renews my strength, who lets me walk and not be faint.
I don’t know what weariness you carry, as you come to our video worship of God this morning. I know, I know; some days – some days! – you wonder whether any of this holy work you’ve been called to in your life is going to make a single bit of difference. But do you not know? Have you not heard? Remember, then, on these some days, that it is God who is behind this, God who made it all in the first place, God who has promised to redeem it and draw it – all of it, so that not one is missing! – draw all of it back to himself. On those some days when you are weary, then, watch for the Lord and live aware of God’s presence and work. Watch, and live aware – that’s another definition of prayer. Those who hope in the LORD, we will renew our strength. We will soar on wings like eagles; we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not be faint.