June 24, 2018 Isaiah 10:20-11:9 THE REMNANT

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1 June 24, 2018 Isaiah 10:20-11:9 THE REMNANT Two thousand years ago, a man came to our planet to lead us invite us into a different WAY of Life. For many people in our time, this now seems more and more far-fetched. I understand that perspective. I do not share it, but I understand it. Jesus was here a long time ago. So many things have changed. What are the chances that a Jewish peasant from Galilee would still have perspective enough and truth enough to be significantly relevant in our time, and how could He possibly be the top spiritual leader for our time? If there really is a God, and if this God really does have a plan and a purpose for our lives here, wouldn t things be moving on toward fulfillment of this plan? Why do so many things still feel stuck in the mud of human foibles and alienation? We are all wonderful people, in many ways, and there are endless improvements in the life we know today (medicine, science, technology, travel, leisure). But on the inside, things do not seem to be significantly improved. There is no one among us who does not have a long list of complaints about injustice and inequity and people being abused and mistreated. And this is not mere rumor; this is still happening to people we know and love. And yes, it is still happening to us. Jesus may have been the true Messiah for His time, but why doesn t God send another Messiah for this current time? Is God still waiting for us to pay more significant attention to the Son he already sent? Yet as the years go by, isn t it less and less likely that enough people will pay attention to Jesus to make any difference in life on this planet? While eating breakfast the last few days, I noticed a book Mariana had set down on a box not far away. I could read the title but nothing else. It turned out to be a romance novel by Jill Santopolo. Not very good, Mariana said, but the title still intrigued me: The Light We Lost. I have been thinking a lot about the remnant lately, and this phrase kept feeling more and more poignant. Maybe I am just old and getting too serious or something. There is beauty and truth and love all around, and I am increasingly grateful for most of it. But in the larger picture, and deep within, I am also very sad. It seems to me that the light of Jesus has mostly been lost in our world. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 1 OF 9

2 Oh, I do know and rejoice that thousands of individuals still discover that Jesus is the light of their lives. He certainly is the light of my life, despite all my imperfections. It is impossible to know what our world would be like today if He had not come. Nevertheless, for the most part I do not see our world following or honoring His light. Thousands is a drop in the bucket where billions are concerned. I do not believe that a very large percentage of the population anywhere is seriously seeking the Life Jesus invites us into, or trying to be faithful to the guidance of His Holy Spirit. It is staggeringly clear to me that this is what is wrong with our world. You would think by now that faithful followers and apostles would have made the Gospel a far greater and clearer beacon of light for all of us. The light we lost is the greatest tragedy of our time. Not hunger or poverty; not war or global warming or racial injustice; not the divorce rate or abused children or unemployment those are all side effects. And we lost this light because we did not love Jesus enough to hold on to His light. It was not taken from us; we threw it away. In ongoing pride and stubbornness and rebellion, we have refused to repent refused to turn to be healed and forgiven and loved. And so the spiritual side of us still lives at half-mast. It is there but muted and partial and crippled. We trust His truth until things get difficult, and then we revert to what we know will work: doing things our way, and by our anger and resentment and vengeance. Or we play it safe and keep quiet. Anger is sometimes of God, and Jesus demonstrated it more than once. But we are not faithful or obedient to that either. Sometimes staying out of the fray can be sinful. Silence is not always golden sometimes just yellow. There are times when obedience to the Spirit requires us to be in the thick of things. Even the Christian church in our time often seems to be immersed in the world and in the values of this world, rather than clearly dedicated to the Life and Message of Jesus. And in many places it is more the voice of fear and judgment than it is the voice of grace and mercy. How can it be that the body of Christ no longer welcomes Jew and Greek... male and female (or in our time, gay and straight, black and white, and every other color, religion, and layer of society). Conservative congregations are often full of anger and prejudice toward all outsiders; in many liberal congregations, there are no standards or principles left, so there are no outsiders that is, you cannot tell the difference between a Christian and any other member of our society. As Paul lamented: If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? (I Corinthians 14:8) BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 2 OF 9

3 In any case, we do know something of the mayhem, cruelty, and turmoil that has been part of our history here for the past two thousand years: Crusades; inquisitions; much suffering and slaughter perpetuated by the church. Conflict between Islam and Christianity, and conflict between Catholic and Protestant. Pilgrims fleeing from persecution in England, then persecuting others in the new world when they were established enough to do so. Then of course to wars, depressions, Nazis, communists, and slavery in our own country until just a few years ago. What is the impact of Jesus in our world at this point? Is it much or little? I do mourn the light we lost. Will a remnant remain and rise again? Such thoughts have caused me to think more and more about the remnant. It is a theme a biblical claim or promise perhaps bigger than some of us know. I remember it from seminary days: A remnant will remain. It starts perhaps in Deuteronomy (4:27-31), but it is carried by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Zechariah. Paul sees the infant church as a remnant in his time. (Romans 11:5) No surprise for one rabbinically trained. So how do you keep from losing faith when hope on earth gets dim? Maybe God has not quit on us. When the mainstream gets faithless or walks into disaster, maybe God has a Plan B. Maybe something has survived that can rise out of the ashes, and God will use it to carry on with the true purpose. Noah survives the flood. Joseph rises out of prison in Egypt. Then the Jewish slaves are freed from Egypt. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse (Jesse being the father of King David, an ancestor of Jesus). There is a remnant from the Babylonian captivity. The twelve tribes are decimated by the Romans, but twelve apostles have been chosen. And a synagogue movement has formed where the temple and the priests once held sway. There is a difference between down and out. Maybe we have lost the light, but has the light gone out? The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5) That still sends chills up my spine as much as it did when I was a young boy. Jesus was and is the remnant of all remnants. And He has been the light for numerous remnants that have carried on the purpose of God ever since. Some of us still believe this. But do we believe it in general, or do we believe it for ourselves and for real? BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 3 OF 9

4 I think we should not be in too great a hurry to answer that question. It is a very big question. I have more than a few issues with it. I have no qualms or questions about the need for a remnant in our time. The answer to that seems blatantly clear to me. It does not make me right; it just tells you why I am convinced of it. So I am also convinced that the remnant remains. That is, I am confident that the Holy Spirit is waiting for the right time to empower some remnant that will rise in our time. The remnant is usually more than just one tiny group. The faithful who remain and take up the purpose again are pockets of faithful people here and there (who have not bowed the knee to Baal, as Elijah learned), and the Holy Spirit gathers them and sets them back on course again. Obviously I am wondering if The New Church might be one of those remnants one of the pockets of the faithful who will be used by the Spirit to bring true renewal to the Christian Life and purpose in our time. Of course, we cannot choose to be remnants. We have neither the power nor the authority to do such a thing. Only the Holy Spirit can choose the remnants. But if we are truly faithful and loyal to Jesus, will that makes us likely candidates? It has crossed my mind. However, I am too old to lead a remnant. This is clear to me. And we are too small to be a remnant. We do not have enough clarity to be a remnant. We have enough problems just trying to survive, so how could we possibly be a remnant? But these are excuses, not reasons. Moses, Jeremiah, Peter, and Paul all had equally convincing excuses. Such things are never the real problems. Are we willing? That can be a problem. I have no idea how willing each of you really are. Being a remnant is no cup of tea. Being a remnant is usually a tough assignment, and it is rigorous, to say the least. So if I start to lead us as if we might be chosen to become a remnant, I suppose that might give us our answer fairly quickly. That is, if the mere thought that we might be chosen to be a remnant gets too difficult and most of us quit The New Church, that would be a pretty clear answer, don t you think? By the way, I recently resigned from Community Church, Congregational, because it became clear to me, in a number of ways, that there was no way that church was willing or ready to be or become a remnant. I was surprised and saddened to realize this. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 4 OF 9

5 When I became the Senior Pastor there three years ago, I was still under the impression that a pretty significant number of the members there were faithful enough to welcome and respond to such a challenge, should the Spirit wish to call them in that direction. But you saw the reaction even to the simple suggestion that we make vocatio our chosen mission. From that time onward there was more and more resistance to my leadership. Finally it came to open rebellion. Balking at the simple and obvious spiritual disciplines of the Christian Life is hardly a good recommendation for a church that wants to become a remnant. Of course, that is not the story line you will hear down there. The lies and the defamation of character proliferate. Interesting that none of that was necessary. All they had to say was We don t want to be a faithful church, and I would have left them alone. Finally I did hear what they were saying, and so I did leave them alone. But they are still turning cartwheels to make everything look different from what it really is. Please, you do not have to do any of that in The New Church. If the Christian Life looks too rigorous to you, just say so. We can just tell the Holy Spirit to go look for some other remnant. * * * Before leaving the subject, maybe we should take a look at what some of the remnants have looked like in the past. What are some of the characteristics of the remnants we have already seen? For conversational purposes, I will narrow the field to four: Moses led a remnant out of Egypt. Jesus led a remnant in first-century Palestine. Martin Luther led a remnant out of Catholicism. The Mayflower Pilgrims were a remnant from the Church of England; they saw themselves as the New Israel of their time, and they said so, straight out. One thing that is always true of the remnants is that they are trying to live faithful lives where all around them the majority of people have abandoned any serious attempt to be obedient to God, even though they still claim to be the religious of their time. So the remnant always surfaces in dangerous and risky circumstances. It seems at first that they have little chance of surviving. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 5 OF 9

6 MOSES Everybody knows the story of Moses and how easy it was for him to walk in on Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, and demand the release of Pharaoh s slaves. We know it was easy because the power of God was with Moses. But that cannot have been how Moses was feeling. The only assurance Moses had was that if it worked if he got the Israelites into the wilderness and to the holy mountain then he had heard God correctly. Of course, Moses had the help of his brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam. Aaron built the golden calf and nearly got them all killed. He and Miriam complained about Moses being the leader, when they could have been the leaders just as well themselves, they thought. Miriam became a leper as punishment for her complaints, but because Moses interceded with God, the leprosy only lasted for seven days. (This is all in the Book of Numbers.) Korah, the first cousin of Moses and Aaron, led two hundred and fifty of the leaders of Israel in a revolt against Moses leadership because he was jealous. He could not see any reason why he should not be more prominent than Moses. But revolts and revolutions are often more costly than we think they will be at first. Korah and his whole clan died (swallowed up by the earth), and then a further fourteen thousand seven hundred died (and they were not millions to start with). Of course, Moses got blamed. Moses was always blamed for everything that went wrong in the wilderness. Faithlessness cost this remnant an extra forty years in the wilderness before their children grew up and finally crossed the Jordan River and moved into the promised land. Risky, dangerous, and tentative yet this was one of the most famous remnants we know about. And indeed, without this remnant it is impossible to imagine the survival of Judaism. JESUS Not sure how many of you think of Jesus and His twelve apostles as a remnant. They were certainly a tiny band of Jews who transformed Judaism and sent it back into the world when it looked like the worship of Yahweh was all but extinct. Of course, the transformation from Old Covenant to New Covenant was so great that many think it was not a remnant but a brand-new revelation from God. On the other BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 6 OF 9

7 hand, only a handful of the Christians under the New Covenant ever caught on to the transformation, so mostly it became a return to the Old Covenant. Still is today. Were Jesus and His followers a remnant a Judaism revitalized or were they something brand-new altogether? And which are we? Well, it is not my job to answer all the questions, even though some of us wish I could. MARTIN LUTHER I certainly think of the Reformation as a remnant of a Christianity that had all but lost its vision, its purpose, its identity as Christ s church. Subsequent reforms within Catholicism drew some of the Catholic church into far more faithful living. But in Luther s own time, there can be little doubt about the corruption and apostasy of the popes and of most of the Catholic church itself. Was it risky or dangerous for Luther or his followers? Luther was an outlaw of both state and church for most of his life. Reviewing the records, it is almost unbelievable that Luther was not executed by either the pope or the king or both. Most scholars agree that if Luther had not died of his physical ailments when he did, he would have been executed within weeks of his demise. Luther had many loyal friends and a huge array of bitter enemies. Yet almost single-handedly he brought back veneration for biblical authority and the core concept of grace as the central meaning and purpose of the Christian Gospel. Luther s influence is almost beyond comprehension, yet his anger toward Jews for not accepting Jesus as the Messiah is both sad and proverbial. His sorrow over the Peasant Wars ( ) and the slaughter of a hundred thousand peasants and farmers makes it difficult indeed to idealize the Reformation. Luther spoke and wrote against the peasants because he could not stand the anarchy that was tearing his country apart. And who was being blamed for it? As with Moses and Jesus, everything was Luther s fault. MAYFLOWER PILGRIMS Possibly the Pilgrims of Plymouth are as classic an illustration of a remnant that we can find anywhere. Clearly they were fleeing from the corruption of the Church of England. Clearly they wanted the freedom to worship God as their consciences dictated. Clearly they were driven by religious motives, not greed or lust or pride. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 7 OF 9

8 They risked everything and sailed into danger and deprivation in order to honor their allegiance to God. About half of them survived the first winter in the new world. They still thought of themselves as the New Israel of their time. The bonds of friendship and community that held them together were incredible. But late in his life, William Bradford (who wrote Of Plymouth Plantation) lamented though he claimed to understand the fact that the community of faithful Pilgrims had not lasted because, as the new world opened up more and more opportunities, the Plymouth Pilgrims had scattered to the winds, chasing prosperity as more important than Christian community or the original dream of a radical faithfulness. Who in their right mind would choose being the New Israel over being prosperous? Or choose being faithful to Jesus over being successful in this world? * * * It is very comforting to think that a remnant will remain that no matter how hard life gets here or how much the religious establishments go faithless and corrupt, there will always be a handful of people somewhere who will keep the faith and hand it on to the generations to come. I do take great comfort in that. A remnant will remain is one of the promises I cherish and take hope in. Yet none of the remnants I know about ended up being successful or lasting for very long, even from a spiritual perspective. They do not escape the sin or the corruption of this broken world. And they pay a fearsome price for trying to stay faithful in this world. But wait just a moment. Is it true that they do not last for very long? Is it true that their influence is fleeting? I am only one person, but I am not the only one who still remembers Moses or Jesus or Luther or the Pilgrims. They continue to illumine our lives, and to remind us of longings and values and purposes that give us reason to go on striving and believing in things this world does not contain things this world can neither deliver nor deny to us. The remnants live for the spiritual side of the dual reality we are all caught in here. Of course they are not successful from a physical perspective. If they were, they would not be the remnants of God s BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 8 OF 9

9 faithful people. If they were, they would not carry the light that lights our way with hope and purpose. The remnants not only remain; they far outlive their own time in light and influence. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The world is not perfect. The churches are not perfect. I am not perfect. Only, some of us do remember Moses and Luther and the Mayflower Pilgrims. We remember many other remnants as well, and how they have a strange, almost eerie way of connecting with each other. And we remember Jesus, the Christ, and are endlessly grateful. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2018 All rights reserved. PAGE 9 OF 9