Comfort (Isaiah 40)

 This year, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time working as an instructor at a science camp on Catalina Island, off the coast of Long Beach. There, middle schools brought their students to spend 3 or 4 days to learn about the unique ecosystem that exists on Catalina. We saw bald eagles and sea lions and dolphins and Catalina Island foxes, a species of fox which exists only on Catalina Island and nowhere else in the world.

And we did all this while going on hikes, snorkeling in the ocean, kayaking, exploring tide pools, and dissecting squid.

Well, before the first session, we had a few days of training; and, just a week before the training session, I found out that part of the training involved getting certified as a lifeguard. To lead these kids out in the kayaks, or snorkeling in the cove, we had to be certified lifeguards.

That made me panic. I’ve never considered myself a particularly good swimmer. And, I hate the cold. And if you’ve ever been in the Pacific Ocean, you know that water is not warm. It’s not like swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. And it’s especially cold in March, at the end of winter.

And I thought of backing out then and there.

But I’ve learned over the years that sometimes, it’s good to push yourself beyond your comfort zone, to do something that makes you uncomfortable.

So, I promised the people in charge that I would do my best. I didn’t know if I would be able to complete the lifeguard training, but I would try.

On the day of our swim test, it was cold and drizzly. Our instructor brought us cups of hot tea to drink before we got in the water, and the kindness of that gesture almost made me cry. 

Then: it was time. The water was so cold, at first I couldn’t even breathe. And I thought: If I can’t breathe, there’s no way I’m going to be able to swim!

But I pressed on. And I successfully swam the 500 yards, and passed all the requirements, and–at the age of 52–became, for the first time, a certified lifeguard.

And I’m rather proud of that accomplishment, since achieving it took me so far out of my comfort zone.

Isaiah talks about “comfort, comfort.” I long for comfort. I resist what is uncomfortable. I really didn’t want to get in that ice cold water. 

Yet Isaiah was speaking to people who had experienced something far worse than a little discomfort. What they had experienced wasn’t just the discomfort of swimming in the cold waters of the Pacific.

What the Isaiah’s community had experienced was trauma. Deep trauma. Trauma as the result of exile, suffering, and devastation, as Melissa Bills writes in this month’s Christian Century.

Likewise, the years leading up to the birth of Jesus were years of trauma brought on by generations of oppression that the Jews suffered at the hands of one empire after another. As Kelley Nikondeha writes in her book, First Advent in Palestine: “Each successive generation endured another wave of occupation. More sons lost in battle, more land confiscated, more hopes dashed…” Towns were razed, women and children enslaved, rebels crucified…

Today, the people of Israel and Palestine continue to endure hardship, occupation, terror, and trauma. Too many are being killed, or are watching their children die, or are being forced to leave their homes, despite having nowhere else to go. The suffering, the trauma, seem to never end. 

To them, and to all who endure deep, lasting trauma, Isaiah promises comfort. And the comfort Isaiah promises is more than a warm blanket and cup of hot tea after swimming 500 yards in the cold ocean. That warm blanket and cup of tea sure is nice, but God promises so much more to those who have experienced true trauma. 

God promises hope when all hope is lost. God promises healing to even the deepest wounds. God promises a new chance at life when you thought your life was at a dead end. God promises assurance and affirmation and love to those who thought they’d never be loved for who they are, or welcomed in any genuine way.

Sometimes it’s good to go outside our comfort zone. But when what we’ve experienced is so traumatic that we think we can’t go on, God comforts us, takes us by the hand, and leads us on a new path; a path of healing, wholeness, and salvation.

Massage Straight the Pathway (Isaiah 40:1-11)

 Have you ever written a letter to Santa?

Each year, the U.S. Postal Service receives hundreds of thousands of letters addressed to Santa. And of course, they do their best to get those letters to Santa. 

According to the Operation Santa website, “It began over a hundred years ago, in 1912, when Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock authorized local Postmasters to allow postal employees and citizens to respond to the letters...

“In the 1940s, mail volume for Santa increased so much that the Postal Service invited charitable organizations and corporations to participate by providing written responses and small gifts.

“Through the years, the program grew and took on a life of its own. Today, customers can go online to browse through the letters and if one touches them, they can adopt it and help the child have a magical holiday.”

This year’s letters have just been posted, but last week I read through some of the letters from last year…

Milena, age 11: “Dear Santa Claus, I’ve been a pretty good kid this year. All I want for Christmas is 3 things. The first thing that I want is a Cube. The second thing that I want is for me to get into Highly Accelerated Math this year. The last thing that I want is for my sister, Erika, to heal. P.S. I just wish that I will get into highly accelerated math before my Birthday.”

Eli: “Dear Santa, I know I have not been very good this year. So I am fine with coal in my stocking. Has anybody told you that you are the best?” 

Amir: “Dear Santa, I am writing to you to see if I can get help with Christmas for my family. My mom passed from cervical cancer. Since then my heart and family hearts been crushed. I have two sisters. Even though I’m a boy and was always told not to cry it still is hard not having my mommy around.” 

Julian: “Dear Santa, I am 10 years old. My wish is money for my parents, $100 would help us a lot. They are having a rough time with the bills. We also need Internet so I can study…”

Vicky: “Dear Santa, I want one thing. I been a good girl. And I want to ask if you please get me a new power wheelchair. My wheelchair is very old and it does not want to work… Also, If you can bring my service dog some healthy treats.”

Will: “Dear Santa, Do you support the lgbtq community and if you can speak to God can you tell him I love him, and if he loves me for being gay.”

I don’t know about you, but for me, some of these really touch my heart. Some of them break my heart. Not just because some of these kids are having a rough time, but because their path to healing and wholeness has been blocked by the obstacles that we as a society have placed before them. 

For example: why have we as a society told Amir that it’s not OK for boys to cry? Why do we tell boys that? Crying is healing. It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to be sad, and to express that sadness. Telling boys it’s not OK to cry puts before them a roadblock on the path to healing.

And why haven’t we as a society figured out a way to provide Julian with internet access? Kids without reliable internet access are placed at a tremendous disadvantage in this day and age. To grow up without internet access is to have a giant obstacle placed before you on the path to success.

And why haven’t we provided Vicky with a reliable wheelchair? I mean… come on! Why haven’t we figured out a way to have everyone’s healthcare needs met, the way every other developed nation has? 

And why, why do we keep telling kids like Will that God won’t love them if they are gay? Whoever told Will that God doesn’t love kids who are gay has placed a giant obstacle on the path between Will and God. Fortunately it sounds like Will is still trying to find a way around that obstacle, that he’s still trying to make a connection with the God who created him and loves him just as he is.

But if we keep putting obstacles on his path, how much longer will Will keep trying? If we keep telling Will that God hates gays, if we try to get Will to become something other than who he is by sending him to conversion therapy, if we say ridiculous things to Will like, “I love the sinner but hate the sin,” how long will it be until Will gives up on God? How long will it be until Will decides that the obstacles we have placed between him and God are just too much to overcome?

It seems to me that one of the absolute worst things we as Christians can do is put obstacles and roadblocks on the path to God. Yet we do it so often.

Jesus didn’t do a whole lot of condemning. The Bible says that Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. 

But Jesus did have some harsh words for those who placed obstacles in front of people who were trying to find their way to God.

“Do not do as the scribes and Pharisees do,” Jesus once said.  “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others.” In other words, they make it harder for people to find their way to God... “but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them!  They do all their deeds to be seen by others.  They love to be thought of as important, holier than others.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.  Hypocrites!  You lock people out of the kingdom of heaven!  When they try to go in, you stop them.  You snakes!  You brood of vipers!” [Matthew 23]

Jesus had no patience for those who placed obstacles and roadblocks on the pathway to God. Jesus especially had no patience for religious leaders who placed obstacles and roadblocks on the pathway to God.

And the more I try to follow Jesus, the more I find that I, too, have no patience for those who place obstacles and roadblocks on the pathway to God.

This week, I was startled by the hypocrisy of Georgia congressman Doug Collins, who, in addition to being a member of Congress, is also a military chaplain with a Master of Divinity - the same degree I have. The other day, Congressman Collins complained about Reverend Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church, and candidate for one of Georgia’s seats in the U.S. Senate.

Congressman Collins said of Reverend Warnock that “there is no such thing as a pro-choice pastor. What you have is a lie from the bed of hell.” Then he went on about how important it is that Christians be pro-life.

I have great respect for people who are pro-life - if, in fact, they actually are pro-life, and don’t just say they are to win political points. But when he was talking about the importance of being pro-life, Congressman Collins was speaking to a crowd of people, all gathered in close to one another, none of them wearing masks, despite the fact that we are in the middle of a devastating, deadly pandemic...and the location he chose for this little speech was at a gun range. 

Woe to you, Congressman Collins, you hypocrite, you snake; for you have locked people out of the kingdom of heaven.

That’s the kind of hypocrisy that places obstacles and roadblocks on the pathway of those who seek God. We’re talking obstacles the size of the Grand Canyon. We’re talking roadblocks the size of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

There are no roads over the highest part of the Sierras. There are no roads across the Grand Canyon. There is no way to get from one side to the other.

This week, the presidents of six Southern Baptist seminaries issued a formal statement in which they not only deny that systemic racism exists, but they also state that the study of systemic racism is incompatible with Southern Baptist beliefs.

In other words, they believe that racism is an individual issue, but never an issue of organizations or society; which conveniently lets them off the hook for examining the racism within their own institutions and within their denomination.

Woe to you, you hypocrites, you snakes; for you have locked people out of the kingdom of heaven. You have placed roadblocks and insurmountable obstacles on the pathway that connects people to God.

When it comes to the things some religious leaders preach and say, there seems to be a whole lot of fire and thunder and hot air...but, to paraphrase First Kings, the Lord is not in the fire, and the Lord is not in the thunder, and the Lord is definitely not in all the hot air that comes out of their mouths. Not when the words they speak keep people from finding God. Not when the words they speak are nothing but roadblocks and obstacles and great mountain ranges and deep canyons separating people from God.

True religion, by definition, connects people to God, but they are keeping people separated from God. They are making God inaccessible. 

What the world needs and what God needs is not a voice that makes that pathway between the people and God more difficult and harder to travel. 

What the world needs and what God needs is a voice that says, “In the wilderness - in the difficult and dangerous places - prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

What the world needs and what God needs is a voice that says, “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”

What the world needs and what God needs is a voice that will speak tenderly to those who have suffered; speak tenderly to those who have been shut out of the house of God; speak tenderly to those who have been victimized; speak tenderly to all the Amirs, Julians, Vickys, and Wills of this world, to let them know that though people may place obstacles in their path, God’s desire is to remove those obstacles, so that the path is smooth and level.

God’s desire is to catch those tears of Amir, and to catch the tears of every boy who has the courage to cry; 

...and God’s desire is to give kids like Julian the resources they need so they can learn and grow in knowledge and wisdom; 

...and God’s desire is to provide care and healing for Vicky and for every child with special physical or mental needs; 

...and God’s desire is to let Will and every other LGBTQ kid know that they are loved and affirmed in all their beautiful, holy queerness.

That’s how to prepare the way of the Lord. That’s how every valley is lifted up, and every mountain made low. That’s how to make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Sermon: "Taco Cat" (Isaiah 40)

If you are a Bible nerd like me, you may be interested to know that there is a palindrome in today’s scripture reading.

Don’t look for it in your English translation. Palindromes get lost in translation.

For example: “taco cat.” In English, it’s a palindrome. The letters are the same in each direction. Whether you read it from left to right, or right to left, the letters are the same. T.A.C.O.C.A.T.

But translate it into Spanish, and you get taco gato. Or, gato taco. Which sounds kinda cool... but it’s not a palindrome.

And, of course, a palindrome in Spanish gets lost when translated into English. In Spanish, luz azul is a palindrome. But translate it into English and you get “blue light.” Not a palindrome.

In our scripture, the second half of verse 4, is a palindrome in Hebrew. Well, almost. At some point in history, a scribe - copying the scroll by hand - made a typo, which ruined the perfect palindrome. But it’s close; and, in an earlier version that is now lost to history, it probably was a perfect palindrome.

Our translation:

The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

In ancient Hebrew, that is - the ancient typo aside - a palindrome.

Why is this so cool? (Other than the fact that palindromes are always cool…)

Think about what was happening: Isaiah is talking about the people who were forced to migrate, people who were taken out of their homeland and made to march east, to a new land where they lived in captivity; all this, Isaiah says, was punishment for their sins.

But now their sentence has been completed. Now the penalty has been paid and the term has been served. Now they are being allowed to return west, back to their homeland. Once their return is complete, the movement of the people will have an out-and-back motion to it.

They were taken out… and they were brought back. They went one way, then came back.

Just like a palindrome.

Cool, huh?

So the people have been in captivity.  In Babylon. In exile. Taken by force to a land they did not want to go to after being forced out of the land they called home.

As I said, according to how they understood it, God allowed them to be taken into captivity as punishment for their sins. But now their time in captivity is over. Their sentence has been served.

Having completed their sentence, their time of punishment, God is making an easy path for them to return to normal living. With the penalty paid, there should be no obstacle to a full and complete restoration of their lives. There will be no mountains in their way. There will be no deep valleys. The road will be level and smooth, with no rough places.

It will be easy traveling.

That is God’s justice. Sin has consequences, but even in the punishment, there is grace, there is forgiveness, there is reconciliation, and there is renewal. The penalty is always fair, and once it has been paid, the sin is wiped clean.

This is not the case for people in our society today who have served their time in prison, paid their penalty, and are released back into society.

People released from prison in the United States face stigma and countless obstacles. They can’t get a job. Sometimes they are released into society and they have no resources other than the clothes on their backs. No home. No money. Just pushed out of the gate.

The path before them is full of obstacles. Mountains do stand in their way. The path is not smooth. No wonder so many end up back in prison!

In California, youth who are sent to prison and then released… 90 percent of them end up back in prison. The path back to stability, the path to becoming a contributing member of society, just has too many obstacles.

In many parts of the country, the voting rights of prisoners are never reinstated. Six million Americans who have paid their penalty have not had their voting rights reinstated. Their sentence was served, the penalty paid, all with good behavior, yet the right to vote is denied to them forever.

And because more people of color are sent to prison than white people, half of all African American men, in some parts of the south, have had their right to vote taken away from them. Even though their penalty is paid and their sentence has been served, they are still being punished. On the path to reestablishing themselves in society, there are mountains too high to be crossed, valleys too deep to be crossed, and roads that are too rough to travel upon. Their exile from society is permanent.

Isaiah makes it clear that, for the people of God in Babylon, there would be no obstacles to returning to normal life. A voice cries out: “In the wilderness, in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”

In some places today, restorative justice programs are helping. Youth completing a restorative justice program, instead of having a 90 percent recidivism rate, have a recidivism rate of less than 20 percent. Isn’t that remarkable! Restorative justice programs help young offenders become contributing members of society. Restorative justice programs help make the road level and smooth, with no rough places.

We need more restorative justice.

Most of the justice in this country is punitive and retributive. It’s only goal is to punish. It does not help people reclaim their place. It does not help restore individuals. It does not help restore society.

Restorative justice is a way to smooth out the roads and remove the rough places. Here’s an example of restorative justice in action...

Two youth were caught spray painting swastikas on a synagogue in Des Moines. The synagogue initially wanted harsh punishments, but the judge asked the rabbi if they would be willing to work with the youth in a restorative justice program.

I read about this in Sandhya Jha’s new book, Transforming Communities. Sandhya Jha writes that “the youth met with holocaust survivors who had gone into hiding after the tagging of the synagogue. They explained to the youth the horrors of the extermination camps and what the symbol had done to their families.”

A part of restorative justice involves allowing those who committed the crime to face head-on the harm that they have caused.

Meanwhile, “the synagogue members learned that one of the youth had been seriously bullied throughout childhood in part due to hearing loss and speech problems. The Aryan nation, recognizing his vulnerability, recruited, embraced, and mentored him with the goal of him becoming a leader in his hometown and recruiting other white supremacists…”

Through hours of conversation “they began to recognize one another's humanity.” The youth agreed to spend many hours cleaning the synagogue & studying Jewish history. And the synagogue got the young man a hearing specialist.

Restorative justice is not easy, but it has a much greater likelihood of producing a positive outcome. It has a much greater likelihood of lifting up valleys, bringing low the mountains, making uneven ground level and rough places smooth. Without restorative justice, the youth who vandalized the synagogue would have gone to prison or juvenile detention, and would have likely remained committed to white supremacy.

But with restorative justice, youth who fall into crime have a much greater chance of coming back up out of crime. Down, and back up. In, and out. Back and forth. Restored to where they once were.

So Isaiah hears a voice; a voice that says,

“Clear the Lord’s way in the desert! Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God! Every valley will be raised up, and every mountain and hill will be flattened. The uneven ground will become level, and rough rough places will become a plain.”

Then, going on a bit further, that same voice says: “Cry out!”

And the prophet, who has been listening to all this and writing it down, seems taken aback. “Me? You want me to cry out? What shall I cry?”

And the voice says: “Lift up your voice! Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here. is. your. God!”

Cry out.

Lift up your voice…

We need voices lifted up, calling for justice. We need voices raised, calling for the rough places to be made plain.

Because in our world, there are a lot of rough places.

I talked about the situation of those coming out of prison; now I’m going to talk about the situation of those going in to prison.

The United States sends more people to prison than any other country.

The United States has for-profit prisons which depend on prisoners being sent to them. The prison industry is big business in the United States, and so often in these times, when our leaders have to choose between big business and the people, they side with big business.

No wonder so many are sent to prison for long prison sentences, for minor crimes.

No wonder so many more people of color are sent to prison than white people.

No wonder crimes that tend to be committed by African Americans receive harsher penalties than crimes committed by white people.

A man who embezzles millions of dollars ends up in prison for six months or a year, but someone who robs a person on the street for one hundred dollars can end up there for life.

We have an unjust, unfair, racist system of incarceration in this country.

That is not God’s justice.

In the midst of this, the voice says: “Cry out!”

In the midst of this, the voice says: “Lift up your voice.”

In times of injustice, it is always the poor who suffer. The poor who struggle day to day. The poor who have little influence in the halls of Congress or in the White House, because they can’t contribute significant financial sums to reelection campaigns.

In the last election cycle, during the debates for president, the poor were never mentioned. The middle class was mentioned a lot, but the poor were never mentioned. Not once. Not by either of the two main candidates.

In the midst of this, the voice says: “Cry out!”

In the midst of this, the voice says: “Lift up your voice.”

What shall we say when we cry out? What shall we say when we lift up our voice?

We shall say, as the prophet did: “Here. is. your. God.”

Here, in the faces of prisoners, is your God.

Here, in the lives of the poor, is your God.

Here, in the faces of those who have been mistreated, is your God.

Here, in the lives of those who have been treated unjustly, is your God.

Here, in the faces of those who have been judged more harshly because of their race, is your God.

Here, in the lives of those who have had obstacles put in their path, is your God.

Here, among those who have struggled over paths that have not been made smooth but have been made ever rougher by those in power, is your God.

Jesus was one of them.

He was born to poor parents, who were forced from their home by an oppressive ruler; parents so poor that they had to give birth to him in a stable, among livestock.

They became refugees shortly thereafter, fleeing to Egypt to escape a murderous regime.

Growing up in Nazareth, Jesus endured the prejudice of those who insisted that nothing good could come from that place.

He witnessed the brutality of Rome against his own people.

Certainly, God could have chosen to have the messiah come to earth a different way. He could have been raised in a palace, like Moses. He could have been a king like David.

But, through Jesus of Nazareth, God chose to identify with the least of the least.

No wonder, then, that Jesus himself became a voice crying out against oppression and injustice. No wonder Jesus lifted up his voice against unjust economic policies.

And so, as followers of Jesus…

As those who celebrate his birth every Christmas…

We are called to join with Jesus. We are called to cry out. We are called upon to lift up our voices, to demand justice.

For the poor. For prisoners. For the oppressed.

We must cry out and lift up our voices against the policies and plans of those who pass laws that penalize the poor, laws that exclude people for reasons of race or religion, laws that take from the people and give to big business, laws that take away healthcare from children in order to fund tax breaks for private jet owners.

Isaiah wasn’t afraid of ruffling feathers.

Jesus wasn’t afraid of a few negative comments on facebook.

They cried out for justice. They raised their voices for what is right.

As followers of Jesus, God calls upon us to do the same.

SOAR! (Isaiah 40:21-31)

The Super Bowl was last week. How many of you are football fans?

Not me. I mowed the lawn, walked the dog, and went shopping (it’s a great time to find a parking spot at Trader Joe’s). I got home and did see the last quarter, which was fun to watch, except for the brawl…

You know what my favorite part of any football game is?

The coach’s halftime speech.

In a real game, you don’t get to see the coach’s halftime speech. Instead, you see things like Katy Perry and dancing sharks. But in a football movie, you do.  And it’s the best.

The team is down by a seemingly insurmountable spread. They’re exhausted. They’re sore. They’re done.

And then the coach delivers a rhetorical masterpiece that renews their hope and their confidence. They don’t just run back onto the field – they soar on the field, they soar to the sky – and win the game.

I wish my sermons could be as inspiring as the halftime speeches given by football coaches in the movies.

The people of Israel needed a great halftime speech. They were down. Captured by a foreign nation, forced to leave their homeland, they had given up hope.

So God calls the prophet, and says to the prophet: “Comfort, comfort my people! Speak compassionately to them. Tell them the time is almost here to return to their homeland. The time is almost here to run back out on to the field and win the game.”

The prophet’s not so sure. “What should I say to these people?” he wonders. The people are like grass, and grass withers, dries up, and dies.

God says to the prophet, “Come on! Get up on a high mountain, and raise your voice! Shout to the people, ‘Here is your God, coming with strength, with a triumphant arm, to rescue you!’”

So the prophet speaks. The prophet says: “Look: the nations are like a drop in a bucket. The nations are like dust on a scale.”

Now, who pays attention to a drop in a bucket? If you are pouring out a bucket of water, and there’s one drop left – just one drop – so what?

And if you are measuring things in a scale, are you going to pay attention to a speck of dust? Is that speck of dust really going to make any difference when you weigh whatever it is you are weighing?

The prophet says the nations are like locusts and grasshoppers, while God – God is infinitely great in comparison. Just look at the stars and galaxies. Look how infinite the universe is. Compared to all that, we humans are nothing.

Nothing.

You know, for a halftime speech, this one isn’t getting off to a very good start.

Besides, the people of Israel already felt as though they were nothing. They didn’t need a prophet to tell them.

Imagine if you have a friend, a brother or sister, or a fellow scout who is feeling really down and in need of some encouragement, and someone – some prophet – comes up and says, “You’re nothing. You’re a bug, a blade of grass, a speck of dust.”

But the prophet isn’t done.

The prophet says, “Yes, you are small.  Yes, you are dust compared to God. But…

“You are precious. The dust is precious! You are a beloved child of God. God calls you by name. God calls dust by name? Yes! You – even though you are dust – you are more precious to God than a certain ring is to Gollum.

Imagine someone stopping the maid who is cleaning the house: “Wait! Be careful of the dust! It’s precious!”

There are times in everyone’s life when they feel like dust. Insignificant. Worthless. Ready to be swept away.

If you’re young and you haven’t felt this way, you will one day. It happens.

You’ll wonder if anyone really likes you. You’ll wonder what’s the point of everything. You’ll wonder why you get up every day, why you’re even alive.

But the prophet says: you are precious. You are a beloved child of God. God will strengthen you. God will give you the power to SOAR on eagle’s wings.

Even dust is beautiful. Have you ever been in a darkened room with one small ray of sunlight coming in, and shaken a blanket and then watched the little specks of dust catch the light as they float through that ray of sunlight?

I remember when I was a kid, thinking how beautiful that was! All those little sparkles looked like stars and galaxies floating in space, SOARING through the universe.

That’s YOU, in God’s eyes. Beautiful sparkles in the sun.

Did you know two of the main ingredients in dust are space rocks that have burned up in our atmosphere, and you – little pieces of dead skin? It’s you and the universe, combined as one. I think that’s cool. It’s beautiful. And precious.

You are beautiful and precious.

And God will give you the power to SOAR on eagle’s wings. God will give you the strength to run and run and run and never be tired.

How’s that for a halftime speech?!

Centuries later, in the time of Jesus, people still felt like dust. They still felt like bugs. In the time of Jesus, the Roman government was like a giant whose evil breath stank up the whole world.

And in that evil breath were unclean spirits – demons – that took control of people’s lives.

You don’t have to take these demon stories literally to recognize that there were forces in the world that kept people from living fully, that there are forces today that keep people from living fully… forces and powers that keep people from SOARING to their full potential.

In my sermon last week, I talked about Jesus’s encounter with a certain demon in the synagogue at Capernaum, and how the people were astounded by Jesus’s authority and the way Jesus controlled this demon.

Well, word got out, and people from all over started bringing to Jesus those who were sick or demon-possessed.

And then Jesus goes from village to village, healing people and casting out demons, setting them free to SOAR, and proclaiming his message that the kingdom of God is NOW.

In a world that beats you down, knocks you down, limits you and enslaves you, Jesus says you can SOAR.

You can SOAR above all that. You are free. Free to be the person God created you to be.

Even today, the world tries to define you and tell you who you are and what you should be. The world limits you, and keeps you from soaring.

Sometimes the people who tell you this are well-intentioned. They may think they are helping. They’ll tell you what they think you need in order to be happy.

But maybe they’re wrong. Maybe you don’t need anything. After all, you have life.  You have your breath.

Take a breath… You feel that? That is a miracle. It is a miracle to breathe. It is a miracle to be alive.

The wisest among us have found that one’s breath is enough to be happy. In the Bible, there is one word – ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek – that means both breath and spirit. Translators have to pick one of those words when translating it to English, but I like to think that the other meaning is always present.

Where there is breath, there is the Spirit. Where there is the Spirit, there is breath.

Inspiration and respiration: see how those two words are related?

Now the world tells you that there’s so much more you need to be happy. How many people think that if they can just have an iPhone 6, they’d be happy?

Guess what? As soon as you get that iPhone 6 – or whatever it is that you really want – the world will show you something else – like a new truck – that you just have to have in order to be happy.

And happiness becomes a goal that you can never ever reach. It’s like the mechanical rabbit that the greyhounds chase. I’ve never been to a greyhound dog race, but Fred Craddock preached a sermon about them once. He said he never went either, but saw it on television once, and there’s this mechanical rabbit that the dogs chase around the ring.

And Fred Craddock said he had a conversation once with one of these greyhounds that had gotten too old to race. He asked the dog, “Why did you quit?”

And the dog replied, “I discovered that what I was chasing was not really a rabbit, and I quit. All that running and running and running and running and what was I chasing? It wasn’t even real.”

We’re just chasing rabbits that aren’t even real. We’re chasing what the world tells us will make us happy, and this pursuit of false happiness keeps us from SOARING.

You already have what you need to be happy.

When his followers were ready, Jesus sent them out with authority over the unclean spirits and demons. He gave them the task of helping people get rid of what was keeping them grounded, so that they could SOAR. And what did he tell them to take with them?

Nothing.

They didn’t need anything.

No money, no bag, no extra shirt or sandals.

They didn’t need any special equipment; they were the equipment.

All that they needed to SOAR, they already had. All that they needed to help others SOAR, they already had. They had their breath. They had the Spirit. It was enough.

Because as long as you have breath, as long as you have life, as long as you have God’s Spirit, you have the power and the strength to SOAR.