WELL, THAT WAS A WASTE OF TIME

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Isaiah 49:1-7

January 13, 2008

 

Isaiah 49

1    Listen to me, O coastlands,

       pay attention, you peoples from far away!

     The LORD called me before I was born,

       while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.

2    He made my mouth like a sharp sword,

       in the shadow of his hand he hid me;

     he made me a polished arrow,

       in his quiver he hid me away.

3    And he said to me, “You are my servant,

       Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

4    But I said, “I have labored in vain,

       I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;

     yet surely my cause is with the LORD,

       and my reward with my God.”

5    And now the LORD says,

       who formed me in the womb to be his servant,

     to bring Jacob back to him,

       and that Israel might be gathered to him,

     for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,

       and my God has become my strength—

6    he says,

     “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant

       to raise up the tribes of Jacob

       and to restore the survivors of Israel;

     I will give you as a light to the nations,

       that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

7    Thus says the LORD,

       the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,

     to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,

       the slave of rulers,

     “Kings shall see and stand up,

       princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,

     because of the LORD, who is faithful,

       the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

 

 

I am a movie buff, though I seldom get a chance to see one on the big screen of a theater.  So you can understand why I was excited some years ago when friends invited me to go and see a movie nominated for seven Academy Awards, a movie which purportedly portrayed a theme that touches our humanity—how to live a life of beauty in a brutal world.  Theatrical trailers had said that the movie would leave you spellbound, cemented to your seat afterward.  The movie was called, The Thin Red Line, referring to the thin line between sanity and insanity.  You don’t remember it?  I can see why.  The movie was 103 hours long—or at least it seemed that way.  It interspersed enigmatic poetry in voice overlays with graphic scenes of slaughter in World War II.  One moment you would be watching a scene of a graceful fawn grazing in the rain forest and then it would flash to body parts being blown off in bloody disarray.  And despite the intermittent violence the movie ran at the pace of watching grass grow.  At the end I wasn’t cemented to my seat, but my seat did feel like cement.  As the credits rolled, I turned to my friends and said, “Well, that was a waste of time.”  For those who may have loved this movie and found in it a slice of truth, I do not begrudge you your opinion.  After all, I liked Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun series, so I don’t get much credit as a movie critic.  But in this one I couldn’t see the beauty for the boredom.  I would watch The Thin Red Line a second time to catch what I may have missed on the first viewing, but it is so long that at my age I’m not sure I have time to sit through it again.  I look back at it as a waste of time, although admittedly all it cost me was $7 and 138 hours—or so.  But there are moments in life which feel like a waste of time and are powerfully bitter and troubling for us.

 

David was a minister of a church in the same town where I was serving.  In his late 30s he was just past 10 years of service in full time ministry.  He had been called to a church that needed him, his energy, his enthusiasm, his vision.  It looked to be a great match that would advance the kingdom of God in the lives of those in the church and in our community.  Then he got the diagnosis—an incurable debilitating disease which had already destroyed some functions of his body organs.  Like many who first hear of having a life-threatening disease, David was riddled with anger, sadness, and guilt.  His go-at-full-speed 24/7 lifestyle was over.  He took it as a crushing blow, a fatal blow to his career, his calling as a minister.  Instead of comforting others, he would spend the rest of his life focused on how to survive.  As he explained all this to me, I kept waiting for a word of hope from his mouth, some consolation from his faith, but what he said was, “Bill, how could God let something like this happen to me, to his servant?  I gave God my whole life, seven years of educational expense and struggle, times I spent with the church instead of playing with my kids, ten years I spent taking care of other families to the neglect of my own.  And all for what?  I feel like these years of ministry have been nothing but a waste of time.”  You know how he felt, don’t you?  Isaiah did.  Isaiah exclaimed bitterly, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity….”

 

Soldiers fought and nine million died gruesome deaths in the trenches of World War I to win what everyone was calling “the war to end all wars.”  But the survivors lived to see us embroiled in World War II, and Korea, and Vietnam.  I understand that there are still 26 remaining WWI vets and now they see us today still at war.  Did any of them think, “My labor was in vain”?  As young adults, my generation thought we could save the world, change forever the way humans interact, bring in the Age of Aquarius where love would rule all decisions.  It didn’t happen.  Peter, Paul and Mary describe it this way: “You remember when you felt each person mattered, When we all had to care or all was lost, But now you see believers turn to cynics, And you wonder was the struggle worth the cost.”  Did we spend our strength for nothing?  The couple had invested 10% of their income in their beloved small town church for decades.  But the factory in town closed and the young people left and the old people passed away and the town all but disappeared.  And on this day that couple was standing on the front steps of the church, tears in their eyes, as they locked the door for the last time and handed over the keys to a realtor who would sell the property so they could contribute the final assets to a mission overseas.  At that moment did they think, “Well, that was a waste of time”?  “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity….”  You give all your hope and energy and time and effort to start a local food bank and it fails.  You “adopt” a former felon and pour all your love into his life to help him get on the right track—and in a year he is back behind bars.  You give heart and soul to the raising of your child, nothing withheld, but when grown your child doesn’t want anything to do with you, doesn’t even call at Christmas.  Well, that was a waste of time.  “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity….”

 

But wait, read the rest of Isaiah’s sentence.  Sure, he is bitter, but he also utters words of hope, to convince himself perhaps, but words of hope nonetheless.  “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity, yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.”  This faith we have bought into with our blood and our might, this quest we have undertaken to right the souls of humankind, this goal we have of bringing everyone into the kingdom and the kingdom into everyone, all this is part and parcel of God’s work in this world.  It is not a 20 year or 80 year commitment by us; it is one page of the eternal planbook.  You can’t see it unfold in one lifetime and sometimes not even in a long view of history, but God’s love cannot ultimately be defeated.  And surely what we are doing will be used by God somehow even though it looks unfinished or worthless to us.  We can proclaim, “God didn’t bring me this far just to let my life count for nothing!”  Surely my cause is with the Lord.  After all, we didn’t pick God, God picked us!  I bought a new hammer, better grip, better nail-puller, lighter body, heavier head.  But I’m not going to throw away my old hammer.  Its scars remind me of setting up housekeeping with my young wife, showing little hands how to hit nails, and lots of Habitat house roofs.  There are too many great stories in that hammer to discard it.  There may be some new builders of the kingdom on the scene now, maybe with more effective ideas, but God is not going to toss us aside after using us as kingdom tools.  We are much too valued in the memory of God.  And so we will confidently say, in spite of earthly rejection and dejection, that our reward is with our God.

 

The bad part of that concept is that in the long run that’s all we really get.  Even the longest obituary, printed on the front page of the newspaper, is forgotten by most people in a few days.  But God’s memory is infinite.  That’s all we get.  But the good part of that concept is that’s ALL we get.  Or better said, we get ALL THAT!  The Almighty God of the Universe, the Ruler of all creation, remembers us and appreciates us and rewards servants with eternal love.  Amelia Josephine Burr has said it beautifully, “I give a share of my soul to the world where my course is run.  I know that another shall finish the task I must leave undone.  I know that no flower, no flint was in vain on the path I trod.  As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God.”  None of your efforts for God have been in vain.

 

Over Christmas I got to watch a movie that has made a mark on me--the sappy yet sage 1946 classic called, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  George Bailey has decided that his life is a failure, laboring for peanuts, living on a shoestring, sacrificing his dreams so that the people of puny Bedford Falls could realize theirs.  Facing a financial and spiritual crisis, George is thinking Isaiah’s thoughts, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity….”  But in the closing scene, appreciative townsfolk stream into George’s house with contributions to save his family business.  George’s life has been a blessing to each one of them.  In the midst of the celebration arrives Harry, George’s younger brother, a Navy pilot and hero, wealthy and famous, seemingly living the perfect American dream.  But Harry raises a glass and says, “A toast…to my big brother George, the richest man in town.”  I think Isaiah would have liked that movie.  For it says that the Lord has called us and formed to do heavenly work.  The Lord has stuffed us full of talent, potential and great deeds, though we often can’t recognize them as such.  God has loaded us up and calls us to spend ourselves for the kingdom.  And though poor by earthly standards, we will be the richest people in town.  We will be a light to those who follow.  There is no waste when we spend our time for God.  In true movie fashion I should say: The End.  Let’s roll the credits.

 

Lord God, all to your glory. Everything we do, everything we have, every breath in our bodies, every step of our journeys, all to your glory.  Our cause is with you and our reward is with you and we are satisfied with that, O Holy One and Redeemer.  Amen.