“Arise and Shine”

Isaiah 60:1-6

A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

January 6, 2008

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

        When I hear this scripture reading and think of the title to this sermon, I’m transported back to camp or youth group meetings.          We would gather and sing, “Rise and Sine”

            “Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory (3x) Children of the Lord.”
It goes on and on from there with God saying to Noah there’s gonna be a floody, floody and the animals going in by twosies and coming out as threesies, but I won’t bore you with that right now.   

            It’s a new year.  We have said goodbye to 2007 and are still trying to get used to writing 2008.  I can already feel the days getting a bit longer.  University folk are enjoying the change of pace that winter break brings while the rest of us are back to work.  Campaigns are in full swing and a month from now the nominees for each party will finally be all but selected.  Some of us have made resolutions.  Some of us have already broken them.  It seems a good time to talk about arising and shining. 
            The 60^th chapter of Isaiah comes from what is known as third Isaiah.  Isaiah, it is generally believed was written over a 200-year span of history by at least three people.  The first 39 chapters were written before the exile and told the people to shape up or they would be shipped out. 

The next sixteen chapters were written in the exile to give comfort and hope to the people who had lost their land.  The suffering servant prophecies which look so much like Jesus came from this part of the book.

The third book of Isaiah comes from the time of restoration, when the people returned to the Holy Land only to find it in a shambles and a shell of its former glory.  In the last 11 chapters, Isaiah gives hope and encouragement to this remnant people.  Many of us can identify with being a remnant people.  Trusted institutions have failed us.   For some of us our very families have failed us and we feel like a remnant people.  For others physical or mental health have taken their toll, leaving us feeling like a remnant of our former selves.  Then there are denominations and the job market and the looming foreclosures.  There is a lot that makes us feel like the remnant.  But Isaiah’s message is that despair does not have to be the final word.   He didn’t have the pharmaceuticals that are often helpful, nut he did have a word of encouragement for the people.  Isaiah says, “Arise and shine for your light has come, and the glory of God had risen upon you.”  Lift up your eyes and look around.  A new day has dawned.  Arise, shine.

That means wake up and smell the coffee.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t shine when I arise.  My family can attest to the fact that I am quite the grouch BC (before coffee).  It’s no coincidence that three different people gave me coffee for Christmas.  But even after a half pot of strong java, it still takes me a while to shine.  And sometimes I don’t feel like it at all.  Some days, it’s easier to be grumpy.  It’s easier to look down, to be self-absorbed, to be in a perpetual bad mood, to look at the world and see everything that is wrong with it.  It is easy and familiar to be a cynical scrooge. 

The people of Israel, we can imagine were like that.  They got up, but they only wept about how great the temple used to be, how their farms were in shambles, how there was no hope left at all for them.  They moped around and collectively bummed each other out.

And then along came Isaiah to tell them to not focus so much on what they don’t have, but what they do have.

You don’t have a temple, but look, you are in the holy land once again. 

You don’t have your farmhouses, but look, you have brothers and sisters who are willing to stand with you to get the work done. 

You may not have wealth, but look, you have God on your side.

So, don’t stay down in the dumps, people, says Isaiah.  Arise, Shine!  For your light has come and the glory of God is risen upon you.

When we were back in Cleveland this past week, people wondered how we dealt with the bitter winters up here in the tundra.  I told them the advice that Minnesotans gave us when we moved here almost seven years ago. You can’t fight the winter.  You have to embrace it.  So yesterday, I took the kids ice skating.  And they promptly told me of their Olympic aspirations as they wobbled around on the bumpy ice that covered the neighborhood baseball diamond.  The other thing we have going for us is that we have a lot less Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in our neck of the woods than they do in other places.  In Ohio, for instance, it’s about 20-30 degrees warmer throughout the winter, but it’s also cloudy and gray and slushy.  In Minnesota, we have sunny days, even in the bitter cold.  This sunshine makes all the difference in our moods, doesn’t it? 

Isaiah is very clear about the metaphors he uses to describe God as he describes this new day for the Israelite people.  Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, God’s presence comes along with lightening, earthquakes, thunder, and the obscurity of night.  God is seen as a divine warrior who will shape the destiny of the nations because of God’s wrathful anger.

But Isaiah strips away all of the war-like symbols and images of God.  All that remains is light: pure, holy, grace-filled, healing, loving light which symbolizes hope and salvation.

When I was in San Francisco, serving a church that had burned down, we had a vision of building a new building that would be a vibrant interfaith center.  But how do you decide what religious symbols to put in a building that was to house Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and Post-Christian Feminists.  About the only thing we could agree on was light.  Light was a universal symbol of the Divine spark that we all find holy on some level.

The image harkens back to the exodus where God led the people as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  Once again the people will be able to have life and have it abundantly.  The people will be freed from all that binds them.  And the reflection of the light of God in them will cause other nations to be attracted to them.

So, Isaiah says to this forlorn people looking for hope, “arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of God has risen upon you.”

But arising and shining is not all there is to the work of God’s reign.  They are only the beginning of the journey. 

If we really want to live and to live abundantly, we must lift up our eyes beyond the mirror of ourselves. 

We can’t only walk around looking at our own path.

We must look about us. 

We must recognize wonder. 

We must see our sister or our brother as the beautiful and needy people that they are.

Verse 4 says we are to lift up our eyes, look around and see.  Look around. 

Look beyond the confines of your safe despair-filled world.

Look at the new opportunities which are awaiting you around the next bend in the road.  You have arisen, you have shined.  Now use that as a springboard to the next step of your journey.  See the big picture. 

Envision the possibilities which lie ahead. 

Look around with the wonder of a child. 

Let your creativity flow out of you, painting a tapestry of hope along your path.

What do you hope for in the coming year?  What is realistic to expect?  How can you help make that happen?

Look into the future, says Isaiah, your children shall come from afar and be reunited. 

Dysfunction  and other barriers will be swept away for all will see the reconciling light of God’s justice and no one else will be permitted to play God.  That is the long-term vision.  Look up and see it afar. Perhaps it’s a long way off, but it is there nevertheless.  The beauty is that you can perceive and imagine it perhaps before others.  You have that wonderful advantage.  Look up and see it.  That’s what we are ultimately working toward—the human family reconciled and restored.

The result is recorded in verse 5.  Then shall you be radiant.  Your heart shall thrill and rejoice.  The King James Version says, “Your heart shall be enlarged” and the Grinch that exists in all of us will cease to be.  What are the signs of your enlarged hearts?

Not only will family be restored according to the prophecy, but so will wealth.  The particulars aren’t spelled out in some slick campaign program, but the result is freedom from want.  When Job finished his struggle with God, he also received family and wealth.  Isaiah says that the wealth will come specifically in the form of gold to restore the temple and frankincense to restore the liturgical life of the people.

When Matthew told the story of the wise folk coming from the east, he did so through the lens of the 60^th chapter of Isaiah.  For in both cases, a new day had dawned for the people.

And for us, on this Epiphany Sunday, a new day may also dawn.

Whatever your New Year’s resolutions might be, I hope you will spend some time consciously rising and shining. 

Think about what would happen if more of us arose and shined some life-giving light into this great world of ours. 

Think about what hope could be born.

Think of the problems we could address. 

Think of the realization that there is enough hope, creativity, audacity and courage around to make a real difference. 

It doesn’t have to be something big like changing the world.

It can start as small as being a bit more patient with each other. 

It can start by recognizing the light that shines even in your worst adversary. 

It can start by recognizing our own capacity for love, for forgiveness, for hope and for mercy. 

Maybe you are able to arise and shine, but someone else is not.  Can you be one to give them some light? 

It’s not usually helpful to tell a depressed person to cheer up or get over it.  But you can offer them the companionship of your own brightness, that’s certainly a gift. 

Each of us can do something.  When we arise and shine, then God is a little more obvious.  We see ourselves, our neighbors, even our world with clearer eyes.  Remember that God is there with is through it all.

And we garner the strength to live in hope in the coming year.  So, Arise and shine.  Say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God.  Say unto the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Plymouth, Burnsville, Roseville, behold a new day is upon us.  Arise and shine sisters and brothers.  Let the light of God fill you and then spill out to a world and a people who desperately need the hope, mercy, compassion, justice and love of God.  What a great way to start the New Year—rising and shining.