Thirsty?

Sunday, December 12, 2021
Pastor Deb Kielsmeier

Isaiah 55:1-13

Today is our very last Sunday of our Old Testament journey. In September we began with the wonder of creation and have seen God’s faithfulness through all the twists and turns of Israel’s history. From Abraham and Sarah, to slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness wanderings and into the Promised Land. We heard the prophets calling, watched Kings rise and fall, and saw the temple built and destroyed. And now, only the southern kingdom of Judah remains… and she is still in the darkness of exile.

And they had been in exile for a long, long time. Seventy years to be exact. The people were tired. Really tired. From decade upon decade of hardship, struggle, and strain. Where was God? And all those promises God made? Was that just a fairy tale? Wishful thinking?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes – when life is hard, and nothing seems to ever change – It is easy to wonder, where is God? God has promised to be with us – and yet – our reality can be tough. Barren. Dark. Cold. Like a long mid-winter night during a pandemic. Is God even here? Does God hear our cries? Will a new future ever come?

But then. There!

On the horizon, breaking forth….

Do you hear it?

A voice ringing out -–like a hawker in the marketplace…

Ho –Ho! Listen. Everyone!

Are you thirsty? Come to the waters.

You! Yes you, everyone! You are invited. You don’t need money.

There is water for refreshment. Milk for strength. Wine for joy.

Come, delight yourself in the “richest of fare” –

²Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Come and Listen to me – That you might TRULY live.

Wow. Who wouldn’t run into that future?

But many who were born and raised in Babylon were reluctant. Hesitant to leave the houses they built and the lives they knew. And so, they clung to the meager crumbs for which they had worked so hard.

Why? Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? They were throwing away their very lives for what? It would never last. Never satisfy.

It is a fitting question. As apt for us today as it ever was in ancient times.

We chase after and work so hard for the things we think will bring happiness.

Or security. Or meaning:

a place on the team,

a degree,

a new house or car,

a promotion at work,

a slimmer body

a new relationship

or an exciting vacation…

All good things. Very good things. And yes, they bring joy, meaning and satisfaction… for a while. But in time, we begin to wonder. Wait, is this all there is? Somehow life is not all we dreamed it would be. And so, we double down, work harder, chase harder, or just numb out on binge watching, drink, or distractions to ignore the emptiness.

Blaise Pascal was a french mathematician and philosopher who lived in the 15^th c. He famously wrote that within each of us is a deep “abyss” that can only filled by God. Some have called it a vacuum that is God-shaped. We can try stuffing cars and iPhones and promotions into that aching void. But ultimately, there is only One who can truly satisfy.

Ho, Ho! The voice cries out…

Are you thirsty? Come. Come to the waters. Drink deeply from living water which flows from the heart of God.

Are you hungry? Come. Come to the banquet. Feast upon in the true bread of heaven.

Are you empty? Aching? Weary? Come. Come and be filled. To overflowing. With the only one who can truly satisfy.

You are invited.

All this drinking and chewing and swallowing imagery is rather interesting, isn’t it?

It reminds me of a bible study a few years ago, during which the women around the table were sharing their faith stories. Judy told us that she was raised in a Christian home and grew up in church learning about Jesus and God’s love for her. She believed – but was basically up in her head. An “intellectual assent,” as they say in seminary. But then, she said, “One day, I swallowed.” A few eyebrows shot up… What? But she explained. I believed in my head, but one day I swallowed and took Christ into my whole self…into my heart, my life, my everything. And it has made all the difference.”

I love the imagery. She believed, but when she finally swallowed or opened her life -her everything – to God and drank deeply of God’s love – it made all the difference.

Here we are at the very end of our Old Testament journey – standing with the exiles at the edge of Babylon. It was hard for some of them to leave. But God’s voice was calling. Calling them to come home again. To move out, into a new future. Filled with water, bread, and wine. Filled with life, with light, and hope.

It is God’s future is on that horizon.

It is not about more stuff. It has nothing to do with more things.

It isn’t about striving to hold onto hard earned crumbs that will never satisfy.

No,

It is God’s future that is coming –

It is breaking in. Here and now. Into every heart. Into every life that will receive him.

God’s future is now.

Can you see it? For unto us, a son is given… living water, the bread of heaven. The life – the future – you were created for.

Come, now…. step into God’s future,

¹²For you shall go out in joy,
and be led home in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
¹³Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

And all God’s children said – AMEN.

Past Sermons

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

The book of Romans is a letter. An actual letter. Like, a letter written by hand and then sent to someone else for them to read. Paul, the author of this letter, wrote a lot of letters. Paul was an apostle, that is, someone who is sent – in this case, he is one who is sent to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to the furthest reaches of the known world. He’s really, really good at it.

At the time that Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome, he’s been doing this work for probably twenty years and is at the peak of his career. He’s developed a great pattern in his work: visit a place, get to know the people, continually share his faith with them, help gather a community of believers from all walks of life, and stay with them while they learn how to be followers of Jesus. Then Paul leaves – after all, he’s got other places to visit and more people to teach. He is an apostle – he is sent. But he doesn’t leave the church abandoned. He writes letters back to these churches, especially when he hears about crises or conflicts. Sometimes they need comfort, sometimes challenge, sometimes critique, but always he writes as one they know and love. They welcome his input.

The letter to the Romans is not like that. Paul has never been to Rome. There is already a Christian church there, one brought over likely from Jerusalem very early in the faith. And the church in Rome has recently seen conflict. A few years before the writing of this letter, the Roman emperor expelled all the Jews from Rome. Because Christianity was effectively a form of Judaism at the time, Christians were also exiled. After the emperor died and the Jewish Christians returned, they found a church that had continued to grow and develop – this time with Gentile Christians.

It’s hard for us to understand how shocking and despicable this would have been. Two weeks ago I preached on Acts 10, and how Peter’s vision of God calling all animals clean and good to eat flew in the face of millennia of culture, history, and society for Jewish Christians. Jesus himself was Jewish and kept these laws – surely if anyone else wanted to be Christian, they could likewise follow these rules. Peter’s vision and the general movement of the church revealed otherwise.

That didn’t mean it made things easy. It is hard to let go of tradition and expectation and legislation as the Spirit moves us to new places. I hear people struggle when someone sits in their pew or wears sweatpants to church. Let’s be honest: those are enormously trivial things. If still we grind our teeth at the thought of these worthless infractions how much more might faithful people be driven to despair by moving on from the purity laws ordained by God?

This is the faith community to which Paul writes. He writes to a church redefining and fighting. It is a church that feels a deep rift, a painful split, one that goes deep into matters of identity and righteousness, one that threatens to dissolve into name-calling and condemning and finger-pointing and disgrace to the very name of God in whose name they mean to gather – and if we’re honest, we know how that feels. Those fears are not unfamiliar.

So how does Paul start his letter? He has no standing in that church in Rome. They don’t even know who he is – and if they do, it’s possible that they might still remember him as he was in his youth, an aggressive persecutor of the early faith. What can he say that would possibly invite them to listen to him, to hear the word he will share, to receive the message that he hopes will join them together in the work of the gospel?

He keeps it simple: he tells them the truth. He tells them who he is, and it is fully wrapped up in who Jesus is. His self-introduction is the story of the gospel. Nothing he can say about himself means more than who he is in Jesus Christ.

He tells them he wants to come see them, that he wants to be with them, that he hopes he can share some spiritual gift – but even more than that, so that they might mutually encourage each other in faith. He doesn’t want to come to them because he’s better than them, because he can fix them so they can get things right, because they’re obviously sinful mess-ups who just haven’t been taught the truth. No, he wants to join them for mutual encouragement in faith. He wants to walk with them. He hopes he has something to offer them in his teaching and leadership, but just the same, he knows he will grow by being with them as well.

What if that’s how it’s supposed to be? What if we’re supposed to talk about what we believe and why, not because we’ve got it right and we want to establish our superior knowledge, but because we know that God works through our mutual encouragement in faith? What if we were not ashamed of the gospel, not afraid of getting it wrong, not worried that someone would think we were weird for talking about what we believe and why and then asking others the same? What if we trusted that the power of God was at work in this mutual encouragement? What if we were not so proud and short-sighted as to think that the way we see God is the only way God works in the world? What if we actually believed that God is at work in the world, that God has already been working long before we showed up, that we arrive as much to learn as to teach?

Ah, but I know the argument against it: we’re supposed to keep polite conversation, right? What don’t you talk about at the dinner table? Religion and politics, right? Look where it’s gotten us. It’s gotten us to a place where we can no longer have civil discourse, where we are more likely to condemn than to seek to understand, where we claim a Christian can only look one way, live one place, vote one direction, take one moral position. It’s gotten us built up and walled off and fighting against our own beloved members of the family of God.

So don’t do it. Take Paul’s example. Tell people who you are. Tell them where you’re from. Tell them what you believe. And then invite them to do the same. Make your story of faith as natural a part of your introduction as where you work and where you live and who’s in your family. And when someone’s story is different, listen to it. Hear it. See God at work in it. Be amazed. Allow for the mutual encouragement of faith, because this is how the gospel is shared.

No matter where you go from here, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what comes next for you – you can do this. You are called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel which is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith – no matter what. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thirsty?

Sunday, December 12, 2021
Pastor Deb Kielsmeier

Isaiah 55:1-13

Past Sermons

Faithful & Unfinished

Obedience and Preservation

When You Have to Go to Plan B

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

Faithful & Unfinished

Obedience and Preservation

When You Have to Go to Plan B

About Augustana

Quick Links

Contact Us

Worship Hours

Thirsty?

Sunday, December 12, 2021 Pastor Deb Kielsmeier

Isaiah 55:1-13

Past Sermons

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019 Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

About Augustana

Quick Links

Contact Us

Worship Hours

Sunday, December 12, 2021
Pastor Deb Kielsmeier

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson