Isaiah 64:1-9 Sermon

We pray and pray and see little change. Are we talking to ourselves? Is the promised return of Jesus Christ an illusion? Some see the world in such sorry shape that only dramatic divine intervention can shake it into a new form, like a potter balling up the wet clay and starting over again. More often, we walk in disappointment, as when Thanksgiving gatherings did not meet up with our fondest hopes.

Frustration is evident here in our readings this morning. It is possible that the people are reacting to prophecies of perfection, but find real life hard and unrewarding. Despair is not the only enemy of hope. Frustrations corrode hope over the years. They wonder why God’s power seemed present only in the old stories, not in their lives now. God seemed hidden, a God who did not hear. So, this is a prayer complaining to a God who they wonder is even there for them any more. Boldly, they go so far as to say that if God were more apparent to us, then we would not fall into sin so easily.

After they complain, they use a rare prayer phrase, our father. They are able to say our father after they get their complaints our of their system, and then they start to set them aside. I knew a very religious teacher who had an epiphany when he realized that it was not my father, but our father. God does not work with individuals alone, but God works with entire social systems. God works in the interaction and intersection of groups of people. God takes into account the good of the whole as well as the good of the one. When God hears a prayer that prayer must be taken in light of the whole community, not just our small part in it. Even small events can have ripples that can touch the heart of the existing order.

Communion is presence of the living Jesus Christ in our lives this new church year. In our tradition the Spirit lifts us into a heavenly table of Christ. Here God accepts our need to have a tangible reminder of the presence of god. So, as the hymn says, we touch and handle things unseen. We actually ingest into our life’s blood the spirit of Jesus Christ this morning. After we eat our fill and beyond on Thanksgiving tables, here we get a spiritual feast where just a little is more than enough. Communion continues the potter and clay image in a new key. In Communion we receive the presence of Jesus Christ. That means that the spirit of Christ works within us every day. It is a personal force that shapes us, molds us, coaxes us. The elements are from nature, but they have been changed by human ingenuity and work from wheat and grape to bread and juice. Most of us said a special grace around Thanksgiving tables, or will soon, and Communion is an act of grace for each one us to live ladled with grace until we meet again in Lent.

We get a jump-start on 2009 by having the church year start a month before calendar New Year’s. We enter a new year with hopes for better times. God is always at work making a new world out of what we have crafted together. Just as the roots of perennials are at work beneath the surface, as their roots gain energy, so Communion works at the root level of our lives to nourish us and prepare us for the shock of the new that comes every year. God is setting the stage for a new age for better times. We are charged with doing our part to help make our corner of the world a fit place for human beings to live, especially for the children growing into it. We don’t do it alone. God is at work shaping us even as we help shape God’s world.