Return to the Better

There were once two churches in Ansonia and Derby, CT that came together to form a yoked parish called the Joint Ministry of Immanuel and St. James’.

This was the church in which I grew up; a church made up of two churches.

While my family and I went to both parishes on alternating weeks, others chose to stay at Immanuel and still others would only attend services held at St. James’.

There was a lot of overlap in both congregations, but still there were strangers to be met every once in a while.

One stranger was a girl whose name I’ve long since forgotten.

I do know she was part of an Immanuel only family and I had never met her before.

We met at one of those youth lock-ins.

A group of I don’t know how many kids stayed overnight at the church where we talked about Jesus and faith and all of that, discussions interrupted by pizza slices and long stale Cheeto’s by the time I got to them.

As the night wore on, some kids began to fade and the adults took their leave of us, letting a room full of pre-teens and teenager alone as they congregated in a room located next to the parish hall.

Soon, everyone was asleep.

Except me.

And except for that stranger who became my friend.

We found our way to the Narthex, just the two of us.

And we stayed up all night talking about who knows what.

I was young and now and I am not; I no longer remember our conversation.

I do know it was not romantic and no crushes were developing throughout the night, but she was a great companion.

One who listened and to whom I listened as well.

We stayed up and talked and talked and talked.

And then we noticed the sun rising so we snuck out the Narthex door and watched it rise above the Ansonia neighborhood in which Immanuel was located.

The sunrise also meant a new day had dawned and it was soon time to go home.

We, my newfound friend and I, parted ways when my grandmother came to pick me up.

It must have been 8 am or so when I got into the car with Grandma and we made our way to her house.

Once there, I went to bed and woke up at 3 pm.

I only saw her once more after that.

My family and I had just moved away from the Valley and landed in Cheshire.

When we spent that night talking, I was happy in my new town but kind of lonely.

That night I realized that loneliness wasn’t always so bad or, at least, it wasn’t permanent.

I had found a friend and for a few hours before the sun rose, we were the greatest of friends.

Now, many of you know my story, I left the church for a long while and it wasn’t too long after that youth group lock-in when I began to doubt my faith.

And, in thinking back, that night was also key to my returning to the church.

Which brings me to Isaiah…

Isaiah is prophesying to an exiled people.

He is calling on them to know, to believe, to truly have faith in the fact that their situation is only temporary though.

Isaiah urges God’s exiled people in Babylon to recall that God is the true permanence and the Babylonian exile is not.

It is God who brings earthly despots to naught; makes dictators as nothing.

God is permanent; even the greatest empires will hardly take root; planted in shallow dirt, the roots of evil will be scattered by the wind, the tempest will carry them off as if they are nothing.

Yet, when we don’t hear the word of God proclaimed, it is sometimes hard to recall that all of our hardships are temporary.

We might lead lives of busyness and exhaustion but God does not.

God is the firmament upon which we stand, if only we could realize that always.

Though we grow weary of a weariness making world, God does not.

The Israelites needed those words from Isaiah.

They needed to know that though they were victims of empire, their captive state would not last forever.

Isaiah is providing the Israelites hope that one day they would return home.

They just needed faith, the faith to know that God would soon return them home.

The Israelites needed only to wait on the Lord and those that 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.”

In their captivity, the Israelites dreamed of their homeland, they wept and they cried out in anger for God to return them home.

They had long memories of their victorious return from the Egyptian exile, of many Passovers and other high holidays celebrated in their homes and in the Temple; memories lit by candlelight and perhaps held beneath the hopefulness of a rising sun, a new day dawning.

They lamented in psalms.

Take Psalm 137, for example:

By the rivers of Babylon—

   there we sat down and there we wept

   when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

   we hung up our harps.

For there our captors

   asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

   ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

They did not know that their freedom would ever be had, and yet Cyrus did free them.

Eventually.

And the realization of this dream, this dream of freedom and of being free changed the psalms they wrote.

No longer lamenting, they sang songs of praise to the Lord, such as this morning’s Psalm in particular:

The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.

He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.

The Lord lifts up the downtrodden; he casts the wicked to the ground.

This psalm was written after the exile, after the heartache of the Israelites having been removed from their homeland.

They experienced so many unfamiliar streets in Babylon, they spent so many years away from Jerusalem.

This psalm is a psalm of rejoicing, recognizing God’s role in saving them from captivity.

So many of those psalms of lamentation written before 147 and during the exile transitioned to songs of praise and wonder; an acknowledgement that it is God who lifts up the captive and casts the wicked to the ground.

I too had memories of long ago.

Of church, of worship, and, of course, youth group lock-ins.

I had a past I recalled fondly.

And after a time, I realized that though I have a wonderful family, wonderful companionship there was still an urging to be in community with the greater whole, to return to some form of the community I knew in my youth.

I returned to church and I wonder if it was God who urged me on to rejoin this Episcopal community.

Well, not just wonder, I know it was God who led me back to a church family and a church home.

Just as the Israelites sang to God with thanksgiving and made their melody to the Lord on their Lyres, so too do I look back to and celebrate a God who drew me into community long ago.

And I now look forward, perceiving a God who draws me in even still.

All things are temporary except God.

Empires crumble.

Dynasties fade.

Just as it is with each of us: our sadnesses, our various states of loneliness, our anger, our grief, our self-constructed shadows that keep us from the sun, all of that is temporary.

Yet with the permanence of faith that recalls at once our happiest days, a faith that remembers a time across the Euphrates, and at the same time points us to a future filled with joy and all of God’s love, we can know that our down days will pass.

Not without work and not without effort, but our faith recalls better days and God promises each of us a return to being better when we shall run and not be weary.

Walk and shall not faint.

Amen.