Latest / St. Paul Podcast / Looking Back 8.23.26

Transcript

Looking Back 8.23.26 · St. Paul Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Paul Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: My name is Mark Neethammer, Senior Pastor at St.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: I am hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: These words were spoken to God's people in a time when they were longing for restoration, trying to remember who they are and to lean on the promises of God.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Through the prophet Isaiah, God calls the people to listen, to look at the faithfulness shown to their ancestors Sarah and Abraham, and to rest in the promise that God's salvation will last forever.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: A reading from Isaiah chapter 51, verses 15 through 6.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah who bore you.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: For he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord will comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord, joy and gladness will be found in her.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving and the voice of song.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: For a teaching will go out for me, and my justice for a light to the people.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I will bring near my deliverance swiftly.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: My salvation has gone out, and my arms will rule the peoples.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: The coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look at the earth beneath.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: For the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: But my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: As we've just heard, Isaiah speaks to a people who are trying to find their way.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Every aspect of their lives has changed.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And into this time of chaos and despair, God gives them an image that is both ordinary and powerful.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: That image of a quarry is where our sermon begins today.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Not only as a place marked by what has been taken away, but also a place where something lasting is formed.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: As you listen to this week's message, may you hear God's invitation to look again.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Look back to the promises that have held God's people from the beginning, and trust that God is still building, restoring, and bringing new life.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: When I first moved to northern Minnesota, I regularly found myself driving over what remains of the Ruchelow mine.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And I was undeterred by this large hole in the ground left by the old pit mine.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: It holds a really similar shape to quarries, a landscape I became familiar with even as a child.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: There's a still active quarry in Burnsville that I used to drive past growing up.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: And we visited sites of old limestone mines as field trips.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And as I drove over this bridge and over what remains of the mine on my way to my Northwoods home, this became the signal that I was almost there.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: This simple ravine carved by human hands in the earth began to hold memories, to meld into my feeling of what it meant to be home, and became a reminder that I was part of something bigger.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Quarries are kind of a strange landscape.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: They're a place where we go searching for what's beneath the surface.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Stones are cut from the earth piece by piece, and as each is removed, the landscape changes, eventually becoming almost unrecognizable.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Walls are carved away, the ground is open and emptied, and what was once whole can look barren, almost scarred, and we're left with this giant hole in the ground.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And yet, quarries are not simply a place of destruction.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: What is removed from them has value.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: The stones will get turned into something else.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: A church even.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And into this despair, God says, look to the rock.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Not look ahead at what is to come, but look back.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Look to where your story started.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Look to Sarah and Abraham.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: The promises made to them, but to all generations yet to come.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: An invitation to remember their identity, to remember who they are, even amid the chaos of this separation and displacement.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: The exiles would have been familiar with this image of a quarry.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: The stone was foundational to the ancient world.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: Mesopotamian kings often demanded massive building projects as symbols of power and pride.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Each stone shaped into monuments that proclaimed the strength and permanence of the empire.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: But Isaiah turns this imagery around.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Babylon may have its buildings and appear powerful and permanent.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: But look at what God has formed.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Remember the promises made to your ancestors.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: You came from Sarah and Abraham with one family, with one promise, and God made you many.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: But God sees the continuation of a promise.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Rather than debris, God sees building blocks.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: And there are seasons where we too may feel like the exiles, scattered, disconnected, run ragged, too busy to spend time with the people we love, so tired and overwhelmed that we start forgetting about the little things.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: We look around and wonder how all of these pieces of our lives are possibly supposed to fit together.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And God simply says, look to the rock from which you were hewn.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Remember who you are and whose you are.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Remember that God's faithfulness does not begin with you.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't depend on you holding everything together perfectly.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Hope begins by remembering that God was faithful long before we ever entered the story.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Her garden like her desert like the garden of the Lord.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Wilderness in Scripture is a place of desolation, a place where nothing grows.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: So for God to promise to turn barren land into the bountiful likeness of the Garden of Eden is an intense contrast and a huge promise.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: God promises not only to restore what was lost, but to make something entirely new.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't just promise to get the people out of their exile desert, but God promises to make the desert bloom.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And as I imagined this garden springing up from desolation, I was reminded of a story.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: In 1904, the Butcher family moved to Vancouver Island to break ground on a cement plant.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Their backyard became a limestone quarry and became the source of their livelihood.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: A few years later, the quarry was nearly empty.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Rocks had been carved from the ground and the walls, and this empty, scarred pit was all that remained of a once untouched landscape.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: But the family matriarch, Jenny, had a vision of what this empty quarry could become.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: She began hauling in topsoil with a horse and carriage, planting ivy and flowers, and little by little the quarry transformed.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: She didn't see a hole in the ground or a depleted resource.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Jenny saw an oasis.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: A once barren and empty hole in the ground that was filled with new life.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: This vision of a future, new life blossoming from nothing.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: It's the same hope that Isaiah asks of the exiles.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Not a hope that denies their current situation or erases their destruction or their grief.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't deny the chaos of this world we live in, but God speaks a promise into it.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: God takes the scattered and builds a community.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: God takes what appears to be the end of the story and makes something new.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: So when God says, listen to me, listen carefully.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world filled with voices trying to tell us what we should fear, what to desire, what to believe, who to blame.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: We're incessantly confronted with news and social media and advertising, comparison, family demands, work, notifications, and the carefully curated versions of other people's lives that live online.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: God interrupts all of that to remind us that that noise is temporary.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: But God's salvation is forever.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to wait in hopeless anticipation.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: It's already here.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: We are already wrapped in God's promises.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: We already know God's grace.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: We know the love revealed on the cross, and we know the resurrection.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: The garden may not be fully restored yet, but death still exists, creation still groans, there's still grief and injustice, and there's still wilderness.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: But we can rest in the grace of God and be confident in God's promise to make all things new.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: When we look at ourselves, we may see only an empty quarry.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: We may look at the world and see only wilderness.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Or at history and see only ruins.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: But God invites us to look again.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Look to the rock.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Look to the promises of the one who created you.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Because God does not look at you and see rubble.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: God looks at you and sees everything that God is building.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: The God who called Sarah and Abraham, the God who turns wilderness into gardens, the God whose salvation reaches the ends of the earth.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: That God is continuously building and restoring and bringing new life.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And when everything else fades away, God's promises remain.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: God's grace remains.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: God's mercy remains.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And God's salvation will be forever.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Give us today our daily bread.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Now and forever.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: As you go into this week, may you remember the rock from which you came and the God whose faithfulness holds your story.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: When you see only wilderness, may God help you trust that a garden can bloom.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: When you feel scattered or worn down, may you remember that God is still building, restoring, and bringing new life.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Go in hope, held by God, whose promises remain forever.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Our commitment to endeavors that lend hope to other people stretches across the country and around the world.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the St.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Paul Podcast.