"'Godspeed' Living"

Here are the words of encouragement I brought to the people of First Lutheran, Omaha today.  The words of God for the people are recorded in Isaiah 43: 1 - 7. 

Great padding had become a necessity these days.  Right up with food, shelter, clothing, lightening fast Internet service and the latest techno gadget, great padding has come to be a key to quality existence.

Now, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I’ll confess my own behavior on this one.  Our 10-year old mattress has developed some lumps.  The “pillow top” that we began with isn’t so pillowy any more.  It seems that our sleep patterns are affected.  So, we headed to “The Mart”, right? 

What I found in meeting with sales people is that there is a whole new generation of “pillow tops”; mostly manufactured with the latest in “memory foam” for an amazingly soft and restful sleep.  We were told, of course, the better the memory foam, the better the sleep! AND the higher the price.  We bought one of these great padding, better sleep mattresses.  But, it had to be ordered, delivery sometime in late Jan. 

So, that left us with our now less than pillowy mattress for a while.  The down side now is that we know how amazingly soft and restful our mattress could be.  That prompted a discussion about how our current mattress is still actually the best one in the house and prime for the guest room.  Blah, blah, blah.   Then, low and behold while cruising through Costco on the way to the fruits and vegetables, guess what jumped into our cart?  It was a wonderful, memory foam mattress topper.  Now, while waiting for our amazingly padded better sleep mattress, we have the next best thing – our less than pillowy mattress, rejuvenated for a better sleep.  And, I have to say, I think it really is.

When I think about it, it is amazing what we are willing to do for better padding and deeper comfort.  Our desire for deep comfort padding spills over to how we look at seats in theaters, restaurants, clubs, sports venues and, yes, even, churches.  But what about peace of heart, peace of soul or peace of spirit?

What we hear today, from the prophet Isaiah, are words of profound comfort.  These words are to people who are in dire need.  People whose despair is driven by truly earthshaking concerns.  Their nation has been broken and scattered.  Their homeland, community and families are in dancer.  Even their very lives are in danger.  They are in exile, packed up and carted away to a foreign place.  Their hardship is like being in raging waters and scorching fires.  Their exile has them broken and overwhelmed. 

God’s word of comfort for this hurting community is “do not fear.”  God’s vision for a plush restful time, even in the middle of hardship has to do with trusting God’s action and promise.

We, you and I, may not be “exiled” in the same way as the Israelites were in this historical situation—that is captured, separated from home, family routines in a foreign place.  But we live in our own “exiles”, the ones we create when we separate ourselves from God or when we just want to curl up in our own cocoon and take care of ourselves.  There are our own “exiles”, the exile we create for ourselves from God and others, when we just want to curl up and forget about the hardships of life, content in our own world.

On another level, lest we lose perspective, there are those, maybe even us, who are experiencing raging waters and scorching fires.  There are those seeking just to survive while trying to find something, someone pillowy to support them.

There are the overwhelming and raging rivers of divorce, death, depression and job disillusionment.  There are fractured relationships, killing cancer and an economic roller coaster. 

There are the fires of life, the flames of family conflict, abuse, and life threatening health concerns.  There are those who are wasting away because there is nowhere else to turn. 

What that all boils down to is this:  whether we know it or not, one of our quests is for comfort for our souls.  The comfort we seek can only come from God who speaks promises through the words of Isaiah – words of as much comfort today as several thousand years ago.

God’s good news is that we start in a privileged position.  As the baptized, as the chosen, we start with the fact that God has created us.  God formed us, called us, and redeemed us.  No matter how bad life gets, no matter how raging the waters, not matter how hot the fires, no matter how many disillusionments and disappointments we live through, nothing, not one thing, is going to change the connection we’ve been given. 

God’s permanent commitment to us is that we are precious, special, honored and elevated and loved. 

The part that really gets deep in my spirit is to think about what God tells the Israelites about their ‘redemption’.  Redemption is about “buying back.”  God says that his people are so honored and special that God will trade off even the strongest and biggest nations of the world (Egypt, Sheba) to get his people back.  Hopefully you see in that shadows the fact that God gave something even more precious, his own Son, Jesus, to buy us back from the grave, from the powers of the devil.  God is willing to go to whatever extent necessary to keep us in his fold, to comfort us as his people.

Some 405 years ago there was a ship that brought colonists to Jamestown, Virginia.  The ship’s name was “Godspeed.”  It wasn’t any kind of a cruise ship.  Those colonists, cramped on that ship, endured intolerable conditions.  It took them 5 months to cross the Atlantic, six weeks just to clear the English Channel. 

It is clear that ‘Godspeed’ has nothing to do with velocity.  The ship had a top speed of about 4 mph, joggers go faster than that.  “Speed” means “prosper.”  So “Godspeed”, a blessing we often use, is a prayer for God to help someone to prosper or to succeed.

To live with a “Godspeed” attitude is to understand that God’s promises are active.  It is to trust and rely on God to be at work building new opportunities and renewing hope, even in raging waters, scorching fire!

Consider this truth:  Calm waters are often a respite and a relief from the storm, from the trials and challenges.  But the fact of the mater is a sailor can’t get very far in calm waters. 

For trans-Atlantic sailors, there is an area somewhere between Africa and the Bahamas, the ‘doldrums’, where it is often calm.  It is serene when calm, but a place where no progress can be made.  In the doldrums, a sailor aches for, looks for, lays awake at night hoping for a breath of breeze, or even a gust or gale to be able to move on.

You see, it is in the rough waters that one learns about God.  It is the trials, the hardships, the exile times, that we are most able to see God in action, moving us with the wind of the spirit to move forward to prosper, to succeed, to discover God in action, continually forming us and shaping us for God’s blessing, the pillowy security of God’s blessing!

In the waters, in the fires, claimed and named, we can focus on being God’s people, focus on God’s care and peace, live in God’s revealing in the rough waters and God’s offer of fortune.     

Amen.