One of the most important people in any indigenous culture is the storyteller. These are the men and women who remind, preserve, and pass down vital knowledge of the community, its history, and its cultural traditions to future generations. In essence, our stories shape who we are and our identity.

 It is not uncommon for the spiritual leader, the shaman, to be the primary storyteller for the community because faith and religion are the fabric of any community’s makeup. Both the ancient Hebrews and the early Christian church were steeped in telling the stories about the patriarchs, Moses, the Judges, and the kings. The early Church kept orally sharing the stories about Jesus until they were finally begun to be written down some forty years after he died. One of my jobs as your pastor is to tell the stories of our faith but also to remind you of the stories of our faith. This morning’s scripture is a story to help us remember.

I like the word ‘remember’ because at its essence, when we remember we are literally re-membering, re-ligamenting, re-connecting to stories and events in our past. When we remember, we begin to realize where we have been and apply that knowledge to where we are now. Frankly, there’s safety and comfort in the practice of remembering. This is what Isaiah the prophet is doing in our reading this morning.

Turn to Isaiah 40. It’s helpful to realize that the large biblical book of Isaiah can be split up into three smaller sections which were written for a couple of hundred years. Chapters 1 to 39 were written to the people in the southern kingdom of Judah and warned them about the impending doom and Babylonian captivity. Chapters 55 until its conclusion are written to those Jews who were going back to Jerusalem and Palestine and were imploring them to live lives of justice and mercy as a people of God. Chapters 40 to 54 are written to the Jews who had been in captivity for a generation or more and are words that God still cares for them and is going to bring them back home. This is where today’s reading comes from.

 Written some 650-some-odd years before Jesus, the Jews who heard these words were second-generation exiles and had parents and grandparents who were the ones originally forced-marched out of Palestine. They were not treated as severely as the Hebrews were with Moses under Pharaoh’s captivity in Egypt, but a generation of Jewish people were languishing in a country far from home. Throughout this generational exile, the people began to take on some of the characteristics of their captors; they did business the way the locals did, and they began to worship the idols of this strange new world. The more they adapted to their culture in Babylon, the more they began to lose their Jewish identity as God’s chosen people. You see, they forgot what home was and looked like. Verse 21 begins our section with four rhetorical questions asked in staccato fashion and the answer to all four questions is an emphatic “yes!” Hear the Word of the Lord.

Isaiah 40:21-31

²¹ Have you not known? (YES!) Have you not heard? (YES!)
   Has it not been told you from the beginning? (YES!)
   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? (YES!)
²² It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
   and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
   and spreads them like a tent to live in;
²³ who brings princes to naught,
   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. 
²⁴ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
   scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
   and the tempest carries them off like stubble. 
²⁵ To whom then will you compare me,
   or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see:
   Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
   calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
   mighty in power,
   not one is missing. 
²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
   and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
   and my right is disregarded by my God’?
²⁸ Have you not known? (YES!) Have you not heard? (YES!)
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
   his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
   and strengthens the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will faint and be weary,
   and the young will fall exhausted;
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
   they shall walk and not faint.[1]

My momma was a 5’2” whirling Scots Irish stick of dynamite and ruled the house. She had a parental technique whereby if my brothers, sister, or I failed to get up in time to get to school, she would get a cold washcloth and slap it on our face; not only did it wake us up, but the dripping water forced us to get out of bed to dry off! Today’s text is Isaiah’s wet washcloth to the face of the exiled Jews. It’s his way of telling them, “Wake up and remember who you are! Remember Whose you are! Remember who God is!”

Methodist biblical scholar and pastor Richard Puckett reminds us that a person or community’s faith begins with memory and when memory fails, the faith community becomes threatened. He writes, “The crisis of the Babylonian exile has caused the people to forget their own story, the story of God’s attentiveness and dependability, the story of God’s love for Israel. Because they have forgotten, they are questioning the presence and power of this God. But those who remember their history and believe in the God who fulfills promises will be able to receive new strength and life from their relationship with this God.”[2]

Isaiah the prophet and storyteller is attempting to wake the people up from complacency and help them to dream again. He’s reminding them of the God who called them into a community in the first place. Isaiah is calling them out for muttering under their breath and living their lives as though their ways were hidden from the Lord and that he has forgotten them. He’s reminding them to remember the God who called them as a people – the same God who created everything around them – is the One and Only God who will renew their strength and lift them up on eagle’s wings! He’s imploring the exiles to remember who the real GOAT is!

You know what a GOAT is, don’t you? Simone Biles is a GOAT. Tom Brady is a GOAT. Michael Jordan is a GOAT. In sports nomenclature, a GOAT stands for the Greatest of All Time. There is no other gymnast better than Biles. There is no other quarterback like Brady. No basketball star can fly through the air and do what Jordan did. And, my dear exiles in Babylon, there is no other God as great as the Lord God who created the heavens and earth and understands the unsearchable wisdom of all things. God is the ultimate Greatest of All Time.

In our officer’s training, we’ve been looking at the one cornerstone belief Presbyterians cling to is that God is THE GOAT. God is sovereign. In other words, no matter what happens or fails to happen in this life, we cannot out god God. When things are going well, God’s in control. When the wheels of our lives feel like they are coming off, God is in control.

When you fail to get the promotion – God is still in control.     

When you fail the class – God is still in control.

When you hear of a diagnosis – God is still in control.

When you are given the news you have a limited time to live – God is still in control.

When the wheels of our life are coming off, they cannot out god God. A failed promotion cannot out god God. A failed exam cannot out god God. A horrible diagnosis cannot out god God. Even death cannot out god God!

Intuitively, we probably all believe that. Practically, most of us probably forget it. This is why we are called to re-member, and re-connect with who God is and what God has already done in our lives.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I want to share with you how you can have a sense of spiritual peace in the midst of any and all of life’s hardships and difficulties. I promise that the more you apply this secret in your life, the more spiritually at peace and steadfast you will become. People will look at you and marvel at the depth of your faith. So, here’s the secret.

Gratitude. Simple gratitude. The cultivation of gratitude is the key to spiritual peace and well-being. Why? There is an axiomatic relationship between gratitude and remembering. The more consistently grateful we are, the more we remember God’s sovereign Presence in our lives even when we feel like we’re exiled in Babylon. When we remember with gratitude how God has consistently been with us in the past, we shall be confident amid life’s swirling waves that God is with us in the present. It’s in this grateful remembering that the sovereign Lord gives power to the faint, increases the strength of our feeble souls, and we will be lifted up as on eagle’s wings.

Our homework today is to begin cultivating the habit of waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night offering God gratitude for the way God has shown up in your life. Beloved, I promise, that the more you do this, the more spiritually at peace and settled you will become.

In the Name of the One who is, was, and is yet to come. Amen. Let us pray…

© 2024 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the author. All rights reserved.

[1]New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org.

[2] An article by Richard A. Puckett in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) by David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor https://a.co/2GZ0yKd.