Ever Felt, "Set Adrift"

Have you ever had the feeling that you had been cut adrift?  How will I ever find my way back?  What words would you use to describe the feeling? 

Jan 10 2016  Readings  Isiah 43: 1-7  Psalm 29

A new attendee to a local church looks out on a sea of faces and wonders where do I sit?   How will I fit in?  Will they like me?  Will I like them?  Is this a meeting place where I will feel wanted and needed?

A women walks by the den within her home looking at the chair where a loved once sat reading the newspaper.  The room is full of reminders.  The feelings of being cut adrift, being alone or lost come rushing back one again. 

A man drives towards the Dr. Office for an examination he has been dreading for the past several months.  His body will no longer let him hide the discomfort and the sense that something wrong is going on within him.   

Who am I?  Where do I belong?  What makes me worthy?     You probably know that these questions which take root in us during adolescence and young adulthood never really go away.  I do not know about you but I have often felt at different stages during my life cut adrift, left out on a limb or have found myself feeling lost, alone and lonely. 

These questions can come from our subconscious mind but not always.  It makes no difference whether they come from, the sub conscious or the conscious mind, what does matter is, where we go looking for the answers to these questions.   Many of us get distracted while looking in the wrong places.  It is very common for people to look for the answer to these identifying questions within their work, their achievements or their profession, only to find them short lived there.  What happens to a women when she begins to feel what phycologist call the empty nest syndrome?  When the last of the children are all gone, off to college or finished and are now out there on their own?  Is the woman no longer a mother? What happens to a home maker when there is no home for them to be maker anymore?  This often happens during family separation or divorce.  It also takes place for the elderly when they face the options of full time homecare or nursing home.  Is she no longer the home maker?   What happens to a man when his career comes to its end at retirement?  What happens to a man when he feels he can no longer satisfy his spouse sexually?  Is he no longer a man?  These three old identifying question may come to the forefront anytime without warning. 

This does not only happen to individuals but happens to groups who get their identity from a label or a name.  Legionnaires, Lyons, Sisters of Charity, or Church organizations like the United Church, you name yours.  Take away their label, United, Baptist, Anglican or Catholic or their common meeting place, the building where they congregate and many will begin to feel cut off, set a adrift, or experience the loose of their roots.  Individuals within the group who have experienced this begin to sense a piece of their identity slipping away.   

Isaiah the Prophet in the chapter 43 has a message for all of us who are feeling the pings and pongs of being cut off, lost or set adrift either personally or as a community.    He is speaking to the bloodied, bruised and bewildered Jewish people of Israel but also the message is for us today both personally and as a community of faith.   
Isaiah tell us Israel’s arrogance and disobedience to the will of God, opened the door that began a set of circumstances that will punish them severely.   The Babylonian empire would conquer them and throw a whole nation into exile.  In the previous chapter, chapter 42, you can read Isaiah’s harsh words of judgment, but now in chapter 43 Isaiah offers the reader these hope filled words of comfort.  Our God is not a God of condemnation as was the Greek and Pagan gods of Egypt.  No, our God is always hope filled and continues to extend hope to us for a future in spite of our sin.  

Isaiah offers his readers some insight concerning these three questions.   Who am I ?  Where do I belong?   What makes me worthy?   These are good question and Isaiah does a pretty good job of answering them for us.  Let us hear these words in Verse 4 of his writings:  “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.”   In the eyes of God we are all still his children.  Not just any child but His child.   God is our true parent and sees us clearly in our curious, adventurous, foolish and fear filled lives.   We are not just from but are of God, made in His likeness, His image with the promise that we will one day be again with him.   If we could truly see ourselves in the fullness of the universe, what we might see is a tiny person on a tiny planet who is not and I repeat “NOT” insignificant in the scheme of the fullness of it all, despite our shortcomings.   Falling short is part of the deal folks, it is the only way we really learn anything.  Just as you cannot hope for something you already have, you cannot learn from something you already know.  If we were made not to make the mistakes we do, then why would we need a savior, what would we need to be saved from?  We can take comfort in the realization that our failures or sins do not prompt God to quit loving us or laying claim to us, “You are mind” sayth the Lord God: Isaiah 49.     

Who am I?  I am a curious, adventurist child of the universe with a parent who allows me the freedom to fall and grow on my own time in my own way and who is continually seeking me, loves me and wants the very best for me.  Isaiah is told by God and then he pens it in Chapter 49: “I have carved your name on the palm of my hand. I will never forsake you, I will not leave you orphan, I will never forget my own.”    

Where do I belong?   I belong in community with others.  The prophet reminds us that our core identify lies not in our roles as individuals, nor is it determined by the relative size and wealth of a congregation.  Our sense of belonging cannot be found within our doctrine, dogma or achievements as a community or the status of our peers.  It cannot be found in the label we attached to our community either, but from the one who claims us and will never let us go.  

What makes us worthy?  Here we sit on a bench, chair or pew in a small church in small community on the margins of a hostile planet and its environment.  Yet the prophet tells the reader, as small as you may feel you are valued and cherished by your Creator God.   He tells the reader in Verse 1:  “Do not be afraid for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine.”   God claims you and holds you close.  We belong to God as sheep belong to the shepherd.  We are worthy only because we are His.  Not because we are good, for only God is good.  Not because we are have gained in stature in the eyes of the world, for we are all equal in the eyes of our Creator and we are all still learning children at heart.  May I suggest to you that we can trust and
hope in the God who is with us, and will protect us even in the midst of the floods of chaos caused by our irresponsibility as individuals and as a community.  Now isn’t that GREAT!!