Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Earlier this year there was a scandal in Saudi Arabia.

They’ve been in the news of late for something horrific, but this event was a lighter note.

Back in January, a dozen camels were disqualified from the camel beauty contest.

Why were they disqualified, you ask?

They were disqualified for receiving Botox injections to make them more attractive.

Saudi media reported that a veterinarian was caught performing plastic surgery on the camels a few days before the pageant.

In addition to the injections, the clinic was surgically reducing the size of the camel’s ears to make them appear more delicate.

“They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw..It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it’s like, ‘Oh look at how big that head is.

It has big lips, a big nose.’”

Listen, real money is at stake.

More than $31.8 million in prizes are awarded for the pageants.

They even provide a diagram titled Standards of Camel Beauty.

lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,” Ali Al Mazrouei, a regular at such festivals and the son of a prominent Emirati breeder, told the newspaper.

"It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it’s like, 'Oh look at how big that head is.

It has big lips, a big nose.'

"

Real money is at stake: About $57 million is awarded to winners of the contests and camel races, The National reports, with more than $31.8 million in prizes for just the pageants.

You and I are unlikely to ever come across a camel beauty pageant in America, but we do know what it’s like to commodify beauty, to parade people across a stage and make value judgements about their physical appearance.

We can commodify beauty and exploit it for gain because a fundamental feature of beauty is pleasure.

Simply put, beauty delights.

Although we twist that pleasure into exploitation, it’s still the case that pleasure and beauty are intimately connected.

I almost titled this message, “There’s Something to Shout About!” There’s so much joy and rejoicing in this passage that it might make Presbyterians uncomfortable.

This text is a praise break.

And the something to shout about is that in spite of our mess, in spite of the way we don’t trust one another, in spite of the fact that we’re not magnificently merciful, that we don’t excellently extend mercy, or we’re not lavish with our love; in spite of the fact that the people of God are sometimes ugly toward one another and our neighbors, God himself promises that he will make us beautiful.

They even provide a diagram titled Standards of Camel Beauty.

It is sadly unspecific about what makes for handsome nostrils and withers, though it does mention a "leathery mouth."

Did you hear what the prophet says in v. 2, “You’re going to be called by a new name that the LORD will give you.”

That name is going to be, v. 4, “My Delight is In Her.” Isaiah says, “For the LORD delights in you.”

You see, this beauty won’t be exploitative.

This beauty won’t be about commodifying our looks for unjust gain.

No, it’s going to be for a praise and a glory in the earth.

And as we press against the darkness; as we press against the darkness that’s in our world, the darkness that’s still trying to come against our own hearts; as we strive by the grace of God against the things that prevent our own branch of Zion from growing in beauty, we rest!

We can shout for joy because we can rest, sisters and brothers, we can rest in the Lord’s promise to beautify his people.

We have no power to stop the beautification process because it’s not based on us.

It’s based on God’s promise.

The Appointed Time.

The Anointed One.

The Amazing Rest.

The Appointed Time

By the appointed time, I mean the time, the moment in time when the promise was made.

You see, we get clued in on that in the poem.

We already saw that the Lord promises to give them a new name.

Well, you only get a new name if it’s meant to replace an old name.

You don’t need a new name if the old name is working out well for you.

(African name…)

What’s the name that needs replacing?

v. 4,

You’ll no longer be named ‘Abandoned,’

Your land won’t be named ‘Desolate’ any more.

There’s debate over whether this prophecy came to the people during their exile in Babylon, or during the post-exilic period when they’d returned to the land.

We can debate all we want, but it doesn’t really matter!

The land ain’t what it used to be.

The glory days of David and Solomon are long in the past.

Even if they’re back in the land it still feels Desolate.

How are you to believe the promise at a time when your experience tells you that things are frail, fragile, and seem to be hanging on by a thread?

How do you not scoff at the notion of a promise of lavish abundance at a time when the former glory is just a distant memory?

The answer for them back them is the same as it is for us right now.

It must be by faith.

This isn’t news, but the Lord always calls his people to apprehend his promises primarily by faith and not by sight.

To put it another way, family, we always live as those who are waiting.

I love the stanza in the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling where he writes,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating

Can we wait, holding to the promise, and not be tired by waiting?

Can you wait and not be tired by waiting as the denomination still wrestles with issues of race, and class and culture?

Can you sing the words of that old Spiritual by James Cleveland,

“I don’t feel no ways tired.

I’ve come to far from where I started from.

Nobody told me the road would be easy.

I don’t believe he’s brought me this far to leave me.”

Do you have room in your heart to sing that refrain?

Because the time of the promise always calls for an exercise of faith in the face of life.

But listen, Alec Motyer strikes a chord in his commentary on Isaiah when he says,

The time of promise calls for an exercise of faith in the face of life.

Not life as it rushes to meet us with all its traps and snares, but life as we have helped to shape it by our wrong choices, faithlessness, and sin.

You hear what he’s saying?

Sometimes the exercise of faith in the face of life isn’t required because you’re enduring persecution.

No. Sometimes it’s necessary because you’re living out the results of your own wrong choices, faithlessness, and sin.

Why is it that their old name was “Abandoned,” “Forsaken?”

It’s not because they were being persecuted by the Babylonians.

It’s because that’s the name they earned as a result of the sinful choices they made.

Now we know that in Christ we will never be forsaken.

That’s not a name that will ever belong to his Church.

But the sobering truth is that we always have to be honest in and open to how our sin has helped to shape our current reality.

We have to be honest and ask the Lord to reveal to us where explicit or implicit sin has played a role in our life as a majority mono-ethnic denomination.

We can’t be afraid of that exploration.

We have to be honest and ask the Lord to reveal to us the ways in which sin had played a role in the way many women experience the PCA.

I preached at church recently, and a young African American woman approached me during the fellowship time after service.

She said to me, “I’ve read through the Women in the Ministry of the Church Study Committee Report for the second time and taken more notes.”

Then she asked me, “Will the PCA ever be a place where I will feel empowered as a woman?”

What could I say?

I could say something like, “Why are you seeking to feel empowered?

Are you trying to usurp the authority structure that God has ordained in the church?”

No.

The right response is to ask the Lord to reveal to us the ways in which our sinfulness have helped to shape life in our denomination such that this sister’s experience is that there isn’t room in our church for her gifts to flourish.

The time of promise calls for an exercise of faith in the face of life; an exercise of faith that calls us to an examination of the ways in which our sin has helped to shape the current reality.

The Royal One

We’re free to press into that examination because of the Anointed One, the person who makes the promise.

I love this passage!