Several years ago, at my previous church, there was a Sunday when I was planning to be away on vacation. The elders and I decided to not find a guest preacher for that particular Sunday, but to instead have the elders give the sermon.
And then we decided that, before I left, I would start writing the sermon, give it to the elders, and they would finish it.
And as I think back to that, I don’t remember how that little experiment turned out. But the fact that I don’t remember is probably a good thing. If things went poorly, I would have heard about it, and I would have remembered.
Anyway, the same scripture that was preached on then appears in the lectionary for today, so I thought I’d try a different version of that experiment. Today, I’ll preach the sermon, but I’ll leave some space; and instead of having just the elders finish the sermon, I’ll let all of you finish the sermon.
So I’m going to start preaching, but then I’m going to stop, and present a question for you to answer, with one or two people near you.
And I know, if you’re an introvert like me, you’d probably rather not participate in a sermon like this. One of our preachers at General Assembly kept telling us, in the middle of their sermon, to turn to our neighbor and say something, and for introverts like us, that’s just awkward. I know that.
But I’m going to have you do it anyway. I’ve acknowledged the awkwardness of it, so we’ve got that out of the way, so let’s get on with it…
The background to today’s scripture is this: the nation of Judah was prospering under King Uzziah. But then, under later kings, Assyria came in and basically took over the country.
It was devastating. The people wondered why God could have allowed this to happen. They tried to make sense of it all. They tried to find meaning in their terrible situation.
Some of us know what that’s like. When someone dies tragically, or at too young of an age; or, when there is a great disaster, a plague, a pandemic, or a major terrorist attack, people start questioning God, trying to make it all make sense.
And you’ll hear people say that God must have had a reason for causing this to happen, or for letting it happen. Maybe it was punishment for sin. Maybe it was to teach us a lesson. Maybe it was, in the case of a person who died too young, that God needed that person with him in heaven more than we needed that person with us here on earth.
Well, that’s what some people say…
And maybe you don’t agree that that’s how God operates… but you can see how people, when they are desperate, and when they are trying to make sense of things, will come to such conclusions…
In Isaiah 5, the terrible thing that happened was Assyria’s takeover of Judah. And people tried to make sense of it. Was this God’s will? Was this punishment for sin? Why did this happen?
Isaiah tried to make sense of this by writing about a garden. The gardener put a lot of care into growing that garden, hoping for delicious grapes… but only wild, bitter, inedible grapes appeared. So the gardener destroyed the whole garden - ripped it all out - and started over.
That’s how Isaiah understood what was happening to the people of Judah. They had sinned. Their leaders had failed to do what was right. They had failed to rule with justice. And so God allowed Assyria to come in and (basically) destroy Judah, so that God could then start all over, and create a nation that would produce the fruit God desires, the fruit of justice.
There are other stories in scripture of great destruction, which are seen as God acting to punish sin. One you may have heard of is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah; the people of those cities failed to provide hospitality and protection to two foreigners, and so God destroyed those cities. There’s also the Great Flood - 40 days and nights of rain, causing waters to cover the entire earth, destroying all of creation, so that God could then start it all over again.
The flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the invasion by Assyria - Biblical writers tried to make sense of these events, and they came to the conclusion that God allowed or caused these events to happen as punishment for sin.
This is how people made sense of what was happening. It was how they gave meaning to the events they experienced.
However, not every scripture agrees with the idea that God punishes sinfulness, and blesses righteousness. There are places in scripture where this interpretation is called into question.
The writer of Ecclesiastes was well acquainted with the idea that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Yet when he looked at the world around him, he saw that “the wise die just like fools” (2:16).
And the writer of Ecclesiastes also wrote this:
“In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.” (7:15)
The writer of Ecclesiastes struggles to make sense of this. Make it make sense! Why are bad things happening to good people?
The whole book of Job is about a man who suffered terrible calamities, despite being the “most righteous man on earth.”
Job’s friends believed that calamity is God’s punishment for sin, so they kept asking Job what sin he had committed. But Job had committed no sin. So why were such terrible things happening to him?
In the 9th chapter of John, there’s a story about Jesus and his disciples passing by a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples had been taught that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked, so when they saw the man born blind, they assumed his blindness was a punishment from God.
They asked Jesus: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered: “Neither.”
So here’s another example - this time from Jesus - that argues against the idea that terrible misfortune is always the result of God punishing people for sin…
First question: it’s not a test. Don’t feel like you have to answer every aspect of the question. It may even be that the question will inspire you to talk about something else that isn’t even directly related to the question… It’s OK to let your conversation go there…
90 seconds: What do you think? Does God cause, or allow to happen, terrible things, as punishment for sin?
In scripture, there is no “one answer” to this question. Scripture itself offers different answers to this question…as the scripture writers themselves tried to make sense of what was going on.
And yet… every time something catastrophic happens in scripture, God is there, working to restore and renew creation. Does God cause catastrophe to happen?
The scripture writers don’t agree on an answer to that. But they do agree that God is there in the midst of whatever catastrophe occurs, working to bring about a future of healing, wholeness, and restoration.
The garden: It is destroyed, but it is also replanted. It doesn’t talk about replanting here in this scripture (Isaiah 5:1-7), but later in Isaiah, there is a lot of talk about how God will restore and renew (ex. “I am about to do a new thing!” - Isaiah 43:19)
You ever watch any of those home makeover shows? Extreme Makeover Home Edition; Dream Home Makeover; Property Brothers; Love It or List It; Flip or Flop? This Old House? There’s literally dozens of them. One that Ginger and I have watched a few times is called The Ugliest House in America…
In almost all of these shows, the first phase of the home renovation project is the demolition phase. Just like when you plant a new garden, you gotta tear things out before you can put new things in.
90 seconds: In your own life, has there been a time of uprooting or demolition, when the old was gotten rid of? What did you feel during that time?
The biblical writers, with their different answers to why these things occur, don’t really seem to know why bad things happen to good people… and neither do I.
What I am sure of: God is with God’s people. Always. In captivity, God was at work, planting something new (as it were). And in any time where we feel things have fallen apart, God is always at work, planting, restoring, making a way for healing and wholeness to return.
90 seconds:
When it feels like your garden has been uprooted, or your foundation has been swept out from under you, Are you able to imagine the possibility that this is actually a time of replanting, a time of preparation for something new, and that new growth, healing, and restoration are coming?
90 seconds:
Is there any part of our church’s life where it feels like a garden that has been completely uprooted? Can you imagine the possibility that this is a time when new seeds are being planted, for a new garden that has yet to grow? What can we do to water that new garden, care for it, so it produces the fruits God desires?
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