The Rev. Jeremiah
Williamson
Isaiah 51:1-6
Quarry
Who are you? When the Zoom meetings end, when the screen
goes black, when the lights go out and the night wraps you in silence, when
everything else fades and your eyes close for the night: who are you?
It is a question for
all times, but one that feels especially pressing during these times. During these pandemic days so much has been
stripped away, put away – so much has passed away. So many things upon which we have established
our identity are gone; so many things in which we have grounded our sense of
self have proved impermanent; so many foundations have cracked and crumbled.
I have found myself
wondering: what is a priest without an altar?
Or a pastor without the ability to visit? Or a member of the Body of Christ without the
opportunity to be nourished by the Body of Christ? The existential questions of this time are
relentless – and far too often uneasily satisfied.
Our human tendency is to
define ourselves by our context – by those things with which we surround
ourselves – people, places, things, roles, allegiances, jobs, status. And yet life has this way of reminding us of
the temporal and fleeting nature of those things upon which we often rely for
meaning.
There is something
inside of us that yearns for meaning, for purpose, for the affirmation that we
matter – a kind of restlessness that we work hard to quell. That is why an external crisis, like the
current health crisis, is never just external; because when the external
conditions in which we find meaning are disturbed the crisis reaches our
internal places.
The people to whom
Isaiah writes in today’s Scripture passage were living in exile; it was an
event of profound trauma; it was their greatest crisis – a physical exile that
caused a soul-deep devastation. They
were worshipers without a Temple, a nation without a land, an Exodus people who
had lost their freedom. Those things
that had traditionally defined them had been reduced to rubble. The foundations upon which they built their
identity had crumbled. They were living
in an existential wasteland.
The prophet Isaiah tells
them to dig deeper. Look to the quarry
from which you were dug, he tells this disillusioned and disoriented people. They could no longer rely on buildings or
geography for a sense of worth; those things had proven unreliable. Their search for meaning was not to be found on
the surface; their worth could not depend on the many temporary accidentals upon
with which they had come to rely. They
had to find something more reliable. And
the truth for which they longed was buried much deeper – in their past, in the
place where their roots lived, but also in that inner space that still wore the
dirty finger prints of the Creator God.
They were living in
exile – all broken hearts and broken dreams – but they were no less children of
the promise: that is what the prophet is telling them. Nothing could change the answer to the
question. Without Temple, without land,
without freedom, they were no less children of God; they were no less made in
the image of the divine; they were no less God’s incarnate hope for a crumbling
and desperate world. The divine light
that burned deep within could not be dimmed.
It was still there. There were
just so many things calling from without that they had forgotten to look inside
for the answers.
It is the truth with which we live but still often forget: we are people
of infinite worth because God infinitely values us. “You are not your job;
you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive.
You're not the contents of your wallet.” You are a child of God; you are marked as
Christ’s own forever. You are God’s incarnate
hope for a crumbling and desperate world.
It
is important that you remember that. And
it is important that you, who know that ancient truth, be the ones to remind
others. It is the work to which God is
calling you. It is the good news of God
in Christ that you have promised to share.
The
Eden to which the prophet Isaiah refers in today’s passage is not just a
beautiful, mythical place. It is the
place in which God’s fingerprints were smudged onto your soul. It is the place in which God’s lips kissed
you alive. Eden is where God’s love and
acceptance were enough. Eden is before
consumption left us feeling so empty. In
Eden there was nothing else but love and so nothing else mattered – because for
a brief moment we knew that love, unconditional and eternal, was enough.
Look
to the quarry from which you were dug. Remember
Eden – the quarry from which you were dug, the place in which God hand-made you
from the dust, the garden in which God filled you with the wind of Spirit and
the light of Heaven. And remember that
on that day, the day you were dreamed into being, the Creator God, the Ancient
of Days, held you close, gazed into your soul, and named you “child of God.” That is who you are – and that is who you
will always be.
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