God’s Not Done Yet

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 9
July 7, 2024 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs

Readings: Ezekiel 2:1-5; II Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-3

We began today with a passage from Ezekiel. The prophet is speaking in a time of exile, as he and his people are far from their homeland. They’ve been gone awhile, and they wonder if that will ever change. And here we have this startup prophet who has been given a word of hope. It’s a difficult word with mysterious visions; it’s a word about how God is restoring the nation, bringing them home. It’s a word that seems so out of realm of the possible that God warns Ezekiel that the people won’t listen. 

The Jewish understanding of a prophet is not a soothsayer who looks into crystal balls and tells the future. Rather, it’s someone who is called by God at a particular time, place, and people to tell the truth. They tell the truth about the world: The world is broken and we have done the breaking by not following God’s will. We have not loved the Lord our God with all of our heart, and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. So we have sunk into brokenness and sin, and we cannot see through the darkness past the power of death and decay. That kind of talk is what gets prophets into trouble, especially when they start talking to the people who are benefitting from the death and decay. 

But a prophet doesn’t stop there: In the face of that reality, the prophet then tells us the truth about God. They tell us that God is calling us to himself, calling us through grace, calling us to repentance, calling us home. God is calling us to a new vision, to redemption from the power of sin and death, to the promise of new life. 

That’s what God is doing through Ezekiel, and that’s what the Father is up to in Jesus Christ today as he teaches to an inhospitable crowd in the synagogue and sends his disciples out like sheep among wolves. That’s what God is doing with the Church, with you and me, even today: Calling us to tell the truth about God; that God has not abandoned this world; that God is redeeming us, right here and right now, to a new future and new life, even amid the world’s desert of pain. 

Ezekiel’s people won’t see it. It’s hard to see a new future when we are so knocked down by the present realities of sin and death, of pain and sorrow. It’s hard to see through the darkness and into the light. Jesus is encountering the same inability to see in his own hometown. We should not be surprised when that happens in Hot Springs, too. 

Today, let us tell the truth about the world: There is a heaviness in the world. There is pain and sorrow. There is sin, death, brokenness and despair. That’s true in our individual lives. That’s true in the lives of our nation and the world. And it’s so easy to let that darkness take us over and cloud our vision. It’s so easy to give into despair, to think that this is it, to give into cynicism. But my friends: Hear the word of the Lord. God isn’t done with this old world yet. 

Just as God spoke a word of hope through Ezekiel and through Jesus, so the Spirit is speaking a word of hope to us and to our world today. There are things that are heavy and difficult. And who are we to do anything about it? It all seems to be heading toward death and destruction, and we find ourselves identifying with St. Paul’s own sense of helplessness and weakness. But my friends: Hear the word of the Lord. God isn’t done with this old world yet. 

There’s that African American spiritual that says “sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” Sometimes I feel like I can’t lift my head. Sometimes I would rather throw my hands up in the air and hide out in a hole. Sometimes those pessimistic voices drown out hope for a future, drown out the promise of God’s redemption. But my friends: Hear the word of the Lord. God’s not done with this old world yet–or with you and me. 

God, even now, is picking up what has been thrown down. God, even now, is making new what has grown old. God’s strength is being made perfect, even in our weakness. God’s forgiveness and grace have not run out, even when ours seem to be in short supply. The well of God’s love isn’t running dry, even when I can’t love anymore. God isn’t done yet–not with you, not with me, not with our world. 

There is a future–God’s future–of justice and peace and joy and love. There is a vision–God’s vision–of a world turned about by faith and hope and love. There is a promise–God’s promise–of redemption and healing for all God’s people. And God’s the one who is making it happen, even now. 

As people of God, we have been sent out just like Jesus’s disciples. And there are going to be times when our hope in God’s dream will fall on deaf ears. There will be times when our proclamation of God’s love is met with scoffs. There will be times when we have a hard time believing it ourselves–times when we can’t get ourselves up. But like Ezekiel, the Holy Spirit of God will lift us to our feet because  we have a message to proclaim. 

Our message is not that we are transforming the world. No. That’s not our work to do–and thank goodness, because we would surely mess it up. Our message is that God is transforming the world–that God’s grace and goodness and love are enough to redeem this whole world into the Kingdom of God; they are enough to heal the brokenness in our individual lives and inaugurate that Day of peace that dimly shines through all our hopes and prayers and dreams.  

My friends: God’s not done yet–not with this world, not with you and me. God is making all things new, even now. God is standing us up on our feet and sending us out with good news to share, a new vision to proclaim: that the grace and love of God are enough to transform us all, to give us new life, to set our feet down in a new place of hope, even amid the world’s present sorrow.