A sermon on Isaiah 49:1-7 by Jude Waldron

It seems to me that following Jesus is often like banging your head against a brick wall. Your best equipment is repeatedly hurt and you don’t make an impact on the object you wish to move or remodel.
Perhaps it’s more like a team-building game I saw on a camp once. There was a tube that had a lot of holes drilled into it, and everyone had to put their fingers to cover the holes while water was poured in. I’ve played that game with a team that didn’t have enough fingers, and we were constantly placing a finger on one hole just to see water spurt out of another one. The requirements of the game were so huge we couldn’t win. We just didn’t have twenty fingers each.

I find that I love my enemy and they don’t change.
I give to the poor and there are still more poor.
I seek to change my behaviour, and another destructive one emerges.
I strive to make a difference and there is none.
I strive to just mind my own business as I aim for the Hippocratic oath of “doing no harm” and I can’t even do that.
I am a failure.

You can imagine the reference that God would have to give me as he terminates my employment and sends me off to some other religion:

“Judith was in my employ for twenty-eight years. She worked hard. Unfortunately she was not skilled enough nor had the stamina for the position and I have had to replace her. I wish her luck.”

In our Isaiah passage, there is a servant who is called and chosen from before birth – God forms them for the job of bringing Israel back to their creator. He gives them a mouth that is sharp and words that are pointed, like a sword, an arrow-head, or in the translation we heard today, like a scalpel. It’s funny that when we talk about someone who wounds with their words we talk about how blunt they are. Isaiah uses the imagery of being too sharp. Their words cut. The impact they made I imagine was to turn people against the servant, in indignation and stubbornness.

The result was that not only did the servant fail to make much impact on others’ behaviour, he got in big trouble – kicked around, despised, abhorred. The description of this person is classic burnout: “I’m spent, I have laboured in vain and for no purpose.”
Now, I have to ask: What on earth does God think he’s doing? In response to this poor, weary, person who has not seen any positive result of their efforts, God tells them their job was really quite small, and they now have to step up to the plate in a much bigger game. So much for Israel, lets move onto the rest of the world. Let’s go for a global approach! The task was too small, you poor, beaten, sod – lets make you do something much more difficult! What kind of God is this?

Is God cruel? Is God a task-master that takes away the straw and demands twice as many bricks?
Is God just crazy? Does God not have an accurate assessment of what is going on?
Does God just think the prophet is kidding and just a bit of a whinger who needs to be pushed to find their extra inner resources?

If you turn a blind eye to the hope in the text, yes. God could be any of those things. But that’s not the case.

The drained servant says that God is his strength, and he’ll trust God’s assessment of the situation. God is his maker, the one who wired him for the task. God knows his strengths and weaknesses, and knows the servant is at breaking point. By all worldly standards, the servant is a failure – there is no great indent to the brick wall. To God, the effort has not come to nothing – this episode was only part of the vision and all is not lost. And the beauty about the partnership between God and this servant is that it is not the servant who has to stand on their own, looking strong and brave and conquering. It is God’s glory that shines through the servant, and it is God’s strength that sustains the servant. Superheroes often do both all by themselves. Superman leaps tall buildings in a single bound, is faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than steel, and after he’s leapt the Rialto, raced a Smith and Weston and wrestled BHP, he looks as shiny and handsome as ever. He achieves everything and he’s still standing. Disappointingly, Superman is not real. However, the servant is real – gritty, human, finite.

The servant struggles to achieve, but God’s glory shines through. The servant is spent and has no strength, but God’s strength is the power that sustains. If the whole task were up to the servant alone, then we have reason to despair; but it God who is initiating this work before the servant was even born. It is God who is calling the people back, it is God who is the very Salvation for the whole world. Essentially it is God’s work and the invitation is to join in with the moving of the Spirit as we are created to do. We are not Supermen and Superwomen valiantly saving the world. We are humble servants who are strengthened and empowered by the Spirit to enter into the redeeming work of God.

I can’t help but feel that as we struggle with the task of being God’s people, it helps to know this. As we swing into a new year and gear up for what awaits us, some of us hoping it’s not half as tricky as last year…As we turn to the people that surround us, our family, our friends, and contemplate how we are to be good news to them…as we look at the disaster of the tsunami on this day of mourning and wonder how on earth these communities and countries are to be rebuilt and what can we do….As we see the directions our country takes and wonder how we can make our voices influence the decision-makers…It helps to know that it is God who restores, strengthens and forms us for the task. It is Christ who was spent, despised, and laboured for no obvious gain, until being raised to be light that shines for the Gentiles, who walks this journey with us. It is the Spirit who breathes life, fires us up and gives us visions and dreams of great things.

May God provide us with food for the journey and grace for the road as we pick up and set off again, proclaiming the truth that we know.