February 5, 2017 Pastor Sara Wolbrecht In Divisive Times Isaiah 58:1-9 I don’t know about you, but I spent much of this week trying to keep up with what was happening in our country – and so much of it has felt heavy, even paralyzing. I’ve heard from many of you how there is fear and anxiety and concern that you’re carrying. And in talking it out with others, I heard language that captured why this feels like a heavy time. The word is division. So much of what we’re hearing is trying to separate us from others. An article I read from the International Bonhoeffer Society this week named their concerns this way: “…we are gravely concerned by the rise in hateful rhetoric and violence, the deep divisions and distrust in our country, and the weakening in respectful public discourse. Some of the institutions that have traditionally protected our freedoms are under threat. In particular, this election has made the most vulnerable members of our society, including people of color, members of the LGBTQ communities, Muslims, immigrants, refugees, the poor, and the marginally employed and the unemployed, feel even more vulnerable and disempowered.” - Statement Issued by the Board of Directors of the International Bonhoeffer Society, 1 February 2017 My own sense of being overwhelmed by it all this week, and looking forward to this time with y’all, it is striking to me that we are in this series on the Force of Nature – looking at how we harness the incredible power of community. For in divisive times, being a community that is with and for others, is absolutely what is needed. So I felt God inviting us into a space today of looking at how to respond. WHAT DO WE DO? What do we do in these divisive times? Anyone else looking for what to do? Well that’s where we’ll head. And to get to the “what to do” we’ll reflect first on who we are, as followers of Jesus, and look to how the story of God, throughout time, has captured what a faithful response can be in divisive times. We’ll turn to scripture in a moment, but I want to start with a video because it captures a baseline for us in how to see what’s happening. …And because I wept uncontrollably when I watched it – and Kris even posted it on Facebook and tagged me in it, which is awesome. Maybe you saw it – it’s actually a commercial for a television station in Denmark – and even though we’re not Danish, it is still powerful. So let’s begin with this: VIDEO: “All that We Share” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD8tjhVO1Tc Did you see it this week? What we do in divisive times…Goes back to what we tried to do at the beginning of this service and with our kid’s message. It begins on a fundamental level with not giving in to rhetoric that tries to make our neighbor different than us. Divided from us. And seeing, like in the video, that we will always stand in any room with people who fit into different boxes than us – and that’s part of the gift of life lived on this planet – there is rich diversity in what it means to be human! And in that diversity to recognize that there is also so much that we share across the lines that would attempt to divide us. So I want to turn to the Prophet Isaiah to dig into this more fully – this question of what we do in divisive times. Isaiah, and the prophets of the Old Testament, they functioned as God’s mouthpiece, they would speak for God. Israel was God’s chosen people, and so time and again YHWH tried to communicate with and lead his people, Israel, through thousands of years together. One of the defining moments for Israel was the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple at the hands of the Babylonians in the 6th Century BCE, which resulted in deportation and exile for the Israelites. The book of Isaiah, is a (complex) meditation about the destiny of Jerusalem INTO the crisis of exile and the promise of Jerusalem OUT of exile into new well-being. We’re going to read from Isaiah 58, which falls in the final of the three section