Comfort, Comfort Ye My People, Sermon December 4, 2011

By The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Welcome to the Rector’s “Sing-a-long” sermon.  We can hear our reading from Isaiah as song.  “Every valley…”  We hum these phrases to ourselves this time of year.

“Comfort, O Comfort my people.”

From the Prophet Isaiah, the word is comfort for those who have lost everything.

“Comfort, Comfort ye my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”

Isaiah speaks to the people of Jerusalem in exile in Babylon.

They have lost everything; country, family, wealth, status, self-esteem, social role and occupation. All the things that give orientation and stability to life have been wiped out by conquest, exile and life as refugees in a far away land.  They have even been cast away from the near presence of God, which for them was in the temple at Jerusalem.

Into despair, disorientation, and displacement the prophet speaks the word of God “Comfort.”

Generations of prophets had predicted the downfall of the Kingdoms of Judah and the Capital Jerusalem for very particular reasons.  The Kingdom would fall because they had put their trust in wealth, in royalty, in armies and in the temple cult.    The Kingdom would fall because they had chased after foreign Gods, worshipped false Gods and run after fertility cults which featured temple prostitution, and more enjoyable worship rich with contemporary images, drama and not a word of reproach about the growing inequality of wealth in the land.

By building up wealth, and armies, and Kings and Temples,  Judah had become ripe for hostile take over from competing kingdoms.  How did rising empires fund their growth and their top-heavy hierarchies?  By hostile takeovers; i.e. invasion of neighboring states, pillage of treasure and appropriation of natural resources.

The Prophets told the truth.  Israel and Judah were sacked and their elite taken into exile. Why?  Because, they had sought comfort in all the wrong places.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says the prophet to a desolate, displaced and despairing people.

And more,
 “Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear, say to the cities of Judah,  ‘Here is your God!”

Yes, Here is your God.  In this place of desolation, displacement, and despair, God is here!  God is your comfort when all else falls away, when all our usual sources of comfort are lost.  Be not afraid.

How many times today will you be afraid? How many times will you feel anxiety rise in your heart and clench your throat?  An excellent Advent Spiritual Exercise is to take notice of all the times each day fear and anxiety rises in your heart.

So much spirituality is damaging because we are taught to repress, reproach and judge ourselves for thoughts and feelings that rise in all of human souls.  So when those fears arise, just notice them, be gentle, be curious, even be amused by yourself. (Self-amusement is for me the healthiest spiritual approach there is!)   And then, speak a word of comfort to your own heart.  Can you try that? Can you believe that is possible.
Belief is a gift we give ourselves.  Belief is a ministry we can bestow upon ourselves.  When we feel fear and anxiety simply respond with the tender words of the Prophet, Comfort, O Comfort.  God is my comfort, even here and even now.

God is calling us to comfort.  Become an ally of the comfort.  Speak the tender word of the prophet to your own heart.  This is our gift as people of faith.
I have seen this gift lived out in the stories of our people here in this place who have taken this gift and provided comfort to others in all kinds of distress.  Daughters who have laid in bed and embraced their mothers while they have died, whispering words of love into their ears as they made that final transition.  Friends who have warmed a dying friend under a quilt they made by hand as they sat in a love seat holding hands.  Caregivers who have sung spiritual songs and said gentle prayers while bathing a sick person on the last day of her life.  All of us who have told our beloveds that all would be well because some small part of our heart or brain had receive God’s beckoning call of comfort and so we somehow knew this is true in an ultimate sense.

This is among our gifts as Christian people; the ability to speak comfort in distress to our hearts and to those whom we love.  To speak tenderly a word of love and hope because we know that God can and God will make a way of return to the Divine Life.   This is why so much great music come from this passage in Isaiah, it speaks to our hearts.

Comfort, O Comfort my people.

Amen.