Advent Listening: Isaiah

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Advent Listening

During a season which is often full of noise and lists and errands and travelling or connecting long distance, we are going to seek to slow down on Sundays during Advent.
We are going to seek to slow down.
To take time to listen. To hear the Scripture read, as we always do in our Sunday worship gatherings, but then to stop and listen again. And again.
To slow down and pause. To hold space for ourselves and for one another. To ask God to speak to us, and then to have the audacity to practice listening - and to do this together.
We’ll hear the text read three times. And we’ll take a slightly different posture during each of the three readings. The first time, we will just listen. Try to simply hear the text as its read and to hold a posture of attentiveness.
We’ll leave some quiet space just to help us with the whole slowing down thing. Just a minute or two…to just sit. To ask God to speak to you through this text…and to tell God that you’re listening.
Then, we’ll read it a second time - and don’t worry, I’ll remind you of what’s happening. During the second reading, we will pay special attention to whether a word or phrase catches our attention. This time, if something does stick out to you, go ahead and “get stuck” there… write down the word or phrase - and we’ll take a moment after the second reading to share our word or phrase with one another, if you’re comfortable.
Finally, we’ll listen a third time, and during the final reading, we’ll ask God whether there might be an invitation for us in the text. Is there something we sense that God wants us to take with us?
Holy listening, you might call this. It’s one way that we can enter into Advent and intentionally SLOW DOWN, take time, and refuse to add to the noise and sense of busy-ness that often is a reality in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Listening to Isaiah

Well, we have spent Advent in exile, haven’t we?
I’m talking about the texts we’ve been listening to on Sundays…
But I wonder whether the idea of an Advent in exile might be true in other ways as well.
Perhaps you’re still feeling the effects of pandemic restrictions.
Or, maybe like me, you’re feeling the road closures keenly. Plans to “pop down” to the coast are suddenly a dream. And while it feels wrong to complain too loudly while cities like Merritt dig themselves out of floods, we do feel the restriction, don’t we.
Or, maybe as the Christmas season unfolds, you feel the loss of dear ones. Or the estrangement of family and friends - for whatever reason. A season that emphasizes “TOGETHERness” can really make you feel your ALONEness quite keenly.
However exile rings in your own life and experience, we have been reading from the prophets for the last number of weeks. And they are speaking in the context of exile. God’s people experiencing the unthinkable…
We listened to Jeremiah - writing from Jerusalem to those who had already been taken to Babylon as exiles. Encouraging them to remember that exile wouldn’t get the last word, but also that they would be there for awhile, so they could seek the prosperity of Babylon.
Then we heard from Ezekiel - writing from exile back to those still in Jerusalem. Those whose hopes were as dead and dried out as a valley full of bones. Ezekiel invited his listeners to see that God could resurrect their hope. Could bring life out of what looked like an impossible situation.
And now this week, we are 40-50 years later… the exiles have been living their exile reality. Have planted those garden and married those kids off. And now the exile is either just about to end, or has just ended and they can go home - return to Jerusalem.
But these aren’t the folks who left Jerusalem… Oh, there might be a few who remember it for themselves, but these are mostly folks who were born during the exile. And so, their memory of Jerusalem isn’t their own. It’s a family heirloom…but perhaps it doesn’t seem real.
God is inviting them to turn and listen and to enter into this new chapter.
Isaiah is the prophet God uses to send this message. A poem of hope, of persuasion, or urgency and of witness.
Exile has become comfortable. Normal even.
A new thing, while longed for, is now hard to comprehend.
Do you remember the words Jeremy used for the call to worship - they are the first verses of this chapter?
Isaiah 55:1–5 (NIV)
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a ruler and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.”
As Gordon comes to read, let us listen to this text from Isaiah. To these words of of hope, of persuasion, of urgency and of witness.
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