February 28 2016 How Love Guides Us

February 28 I Corinthians 10.1-13, * Isaiah 55.1-9 “How Love Guides Us” Pastor Jacqueline Hines

What a greeting Isaiah begins with in this well-known passage from the prophet Isaiah. Ho! If we were trying to get one another’s attention we might say “Ho” like Isaiah did or we might say “Hey” or “Hey You” or “Whoooooah” or “Yoooo Hoooo”. Some even whistle, “reeee-u -iittt”. Once in a classroom of rowdy kids, I dropped a book on the desk, making a loud noise. That got everyone’s attention. It is the loud things in life that get our attention. It is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, isn’t it? When God wants our attention, God knows just what to do!

This Lenten season is about God getting our attention. Lent is a time appreciate that we are blessed when we let God have all of our attention all of the time. We especially want to pay attention to God during those times when our hearts are most restless, when someone is irritating the devil out of us, when we fall down emotionally and we can’t get up, or when we fall down physically or spiritually and we can’t get up, when our patience is at its wits end. There are definitely times when we want God’s attention, so it is good to pay attention to our God.

Verse 1 tells us whose attention God is trying to get. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money,  buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. God’s blessings are priceless; they cannot be bought or sold. All who are willing can receive the good things God has for us.

God wants our attention when we are most vulnerable, when we are in need. Are you vulnerable? Are you in need? Then God is calling you. Are we vulnerable as a church? Does our church have a need? Then God is calling our church. Is there a generation that is vulnerable? Is there a generation in need? God is calling that generation. God calls us when we are vulnerable. God calls us when we have a need!

Many of us keep our cell phones close by our side. A ringing phone usually gets our attention right away. Have you noticed that television and radio commercials have a lot of telephone ringing sounds that are not always related to the product that they sell?  Advertisers know how to get our attention. God knows how to get our attention, too.

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wine and milk, like milk and honey are symbols of health and nurture, sweetness and life. In our most vulnerable and needy moments, God calls us to blessings that heal and nurture all those for whom God can get their attention. God is calling us, guiding us to heal and nurture wherever we go.

Does God have your attention, today? Good! When God gets our attention, God is so ready to make covenant with us as verse 3 says, “I will make with you an everlasting covenant,..”   The covenant is God’s promise to heal us and pour love and support into our lives. It is our opportunity to do what verse 3 says, 

 “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

Listen so that you may live. When we are vulnerable and have a need, we are often at risk. We have dug wells for families around the world because we understand the need to have clean water in our communities. 

In Flint, Michigan they are afraid for their lives. We hear of the rashes, sickness, and the high levels of toxic lead in the brains of children. They have a need. They need clean water. For over a year they have been thirsty for good water. Hopefully, God has their attention and they will be guided to the healing and nurture that they need to receive and to give.

In last week’s movie Unbroken marines’ plane crashed and were adrift in the Pacific Ocean for about 30 days.  They could not drink salty sea water. They became thirsty. Their thirst was so prolonged that it became a traumatic, life-threatening experience. God guided them one way and another.

Life can throw any of us into waters too deep and over our heads. We can be turned upside down. We lose stuff when our lives are turned upside down. Stuff falls out of our pockets, and out of our lives. Hearts get hurt,  bruised and broken. Yet, out of life’s chaos God creates great good. There is always a miracle in every mess. During Lent we set aside time to find God’s message and meaning in the mirk and the mire of our mayhem.

I was meditating at the beginning of the week and I thought I had not heard of any random shootings lately. My bubble was burst a couple days ago when I heard of a man in Kansas who went berserk and killed several people when the courts confronted him about his violent behavior.

If we think God was silent from the day this poor man was born, we must think again. There is no doubt God speaks to us when we are vulnerable and in need. The question is, are we listening? Does God have our attention? Prayer is a conversation? Are we participating? Are we listening?

In New Life Live Christian Counseling radio show, a man called in to complain that his wife would not obey him. I would do anything she asks me to do, so I expect her to do the same. I asked her to make chicken for dinner. She baked the chicken. She knows I do not eat baked chicken. The counselors advised him to listen more carefully because evidently his wife was not able to use her adult voice and ask for what she wanted;  acting like a juvenile was the best she could do to get her message across.

We must listen if we are going to be prepared to respond with or without words to each other’s message and to God’s message. Listening brings us to the next level, to higher heights and deeper depths of God’s love. Listening brings life.

Lent is our time to search for God through spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, worship, study, service and so on. It is a time to search for God until we hear God’s voice, for we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So we must, as Isaiah reminds us in verse 6:

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near;
⁷ let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

God has beautiful plans for us, whether we are prospering or struggling,   overboard or under the gun. Whether our situation is making us better or bitter. God is speaking, trying to get our attention to guide us in the ways of life.

I saw a commercial that showed a young man playing a piano. He was masterful and passionate and made beautiful music. There was a caption across the screen that said, “Every key is different.” Then he turned to another piano behind him, started playing and the caption read – “What if all the keys were the same.” He played the piano with all the keys sounding the same. He played with the same fervor and passion, but the music was not beautiful. It was more like noise. Then the caption appeared – “Let’s be different, but let’s stay together.”

We are designed to work together, to stay together, to be the church together for the sake of clean water and every beautiful blessing God has for us. May this Lenten season keep us making beautiful music together.