I recently did a google search for “scriptures about fatigue” “bible verse about being tired,” and instead of getting verses from the Psalms like, my bones are heavy, I can barely lift my head, I got a big long list of scriptures about how to fix being tired or be careful not to get tired. “Your body is a temple,” “lift your drooping hands” “love not sleep lest you come to poverty; open your eyes and you will have plenty of bread.” And then it also helpfully suggested, “Based on your search, people also ask, ‘Is being tired a sin?’”
But just like there are difficult people in the bible, there is lots of tiredness in the bible. Because there are humans in the bible. Our Scripture today is addressing people who have been living in exile for 70 years. They are exhausted. They are faith-worn and weary. They’ve kind of given up hoping. Their answers to ‘what is a good life and how do we live it?’ have had to change. They’ve had to adapt their answers to be things they didn’t chose, to settle into a life they never intended to be living. But now they’re accustomed to it and the idea of this ending and having to muster the energy to go back where they came from and start up that life again feels impossible.
Who is this God and what is God up to? That’s a question they’ve almost stopped asking. What’s the point? It just gets painful and complicated to muck about in the wondering. Did God abandon them and let them be captured? Is God too weak to protect them? Or does God not really care about them? Why stir it all up?
So now, they can go back to Jerusalem. But do they want to? Their trust in God is worn a bit thin, their imagination is dulled for what was or could be, and they are wearied by even the thought of starting over and rebuilding. So, the prophet is nudging them, inviting them, as one commenter puts it, “to poke around in the ashes of a long-dormant faith to find a small spark still left.” (Charles L Aaron Jr, Working Preacher).
All of chapters 40-55 in Isaiah are what scholars called, “Second Isaiah,” written to a people in exile, inviting them to remember who God is. Encouraging, gently cajoling them to wake up to recognize both God’s unsurpassed power and might, and God’s loving care, to let themselves trust because God is trustworthy.
The ancient Hebrews believed the earth was enclosed in a dome, like a snow globe, and God sits above the dome of the heavens holding back the waters of chaos. Almighty, all powerful, ruler of everything.
Friday, while my daughter and I were snowshoeing, feeling invincible, racing across the top layers of knee-deep snow, and then feeling ridiculous, waddling awkwardly across plowed paths in our giant unwieldy footwear, she commented that humans are adorable.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Think about it,” she said. “Humans are so cute! We are not aquatic creatures, and yet we love to play in the water. So we put on special water outfits and go paddle around in it. Or we decide we want to go to the moon so we build spaceships and go there and bring back some rocks, like, Look! A souvenir! Humans are so cute!”
We are like adorable little grasshoppers in God’s terrarium.
There is no doubting whose world it is, or who has the ultimate power in this world. And it’s not anyone or anything inside the terrarium. Not shifting circumstances, not rulers or regimes that come and go like shallow weeds that get blown down, not our fellow grasshoppers, that’s for sure.
To whom will you compare me? God asks.
Lift your head from what’s in front of you and look around at the vastness that is so beyond you, and yet held by God, who knows each and every single star and far flung planet and doesn’t lose track of a single one.
Then he goes on to say, as Eugene Peterson paraphrases it in the Message,
Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
God doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
God is Creator of all you can see or imagine.
This God does not wear out, or give up, or need rest. (And yet God does rest, by the way. More on that in a couple of weeks). No, this God gives power to the faint and strength to the powerless! Even the young and energetic get tired, even strong athletes collapse with exhaustion. But those that wait on God will renew their strength.
This is one of our, “Don’t get tired, or here’s how to fix it if you do.” verses that we like to put on posters and coffee mugs and bookmarks. Here’s a strategy to run and not grow weary – look to God. Or to put it more starkly, If you really had faith you wouldn’t get tired. But that is not what this is saying. Our translation doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the eagles’ wings thing – it not like an eagle spreading its mighty wings and easily taking flight, it’s more like an eagle molting its feathers and getting brand new wings.
Wait on God, the prophet says.
Then he goes on to say, as Eugene Peterson paraphrases it in the Message,
Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
God doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
God is Creator of all you can see or imagine.
This God does not wear out, or give up, or need rest. (And yet God does rest, by the way. More on that in a couple of weeks). No, this God gives power to the faint and strength to the powerless! Even the young and energetic get tired, even strong athletes collapse with exhaustion. But those that wait on God will renew their strength.
This is one of our, “Don’t get tired, or here’s how to fix it if you do.” verses that we like to put on posters and coffee mugs and bookmarks. Here’s a strategy to run and not grow weary – look to God. Or to put it more starkly, If you really had faith you wouldn’t get tired. But that is not what this is saying. Our translation doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the eagles’ wings thing – it not like an eagle spreading its mighty wings and easily taking flight, it’s more like an eagle molting its feathers and getting brand new wings.
Wait on God, the prophet says.
It’s not your job to muster the strength for what’s in front of you, not even to figure out the next step. God will give you the direction and the strength for what is to come. It will be God’s strength imparted to you.
It’s impossible to go back. Going back is not really an option. That world is over. That life is done. The Israelites far from home for decades have changed; home itself has changed. What they will be going to will be different. It is a move forward, with God, led by God, into something new, by the strength of God. In a few chapters, Isaiah will tell them exactly this- God is doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?
Obviously we are not in exile. And yet… and yet.
This is our 48th Sunday worshiping together online. It has been almost an entire year since we “temporarily paused” gathering in person. Our kids finished a school year out of school and most likely will finish another one this way as well. In the meantime, restaurants we love have closed (or burned down), patterns of work and life were disrupted and altered, nearly a half a million of us in this country have died of covid, and 2 ½ million in our world. We’ve had to adapt to things we didn’t choose, to settle into a life we never intended to be living.
We will go back, the day will come. But it wont be back. It will be forward into something new and different. It will take imagination and energy for rebuilding, revamping, revitalizing what has been shut down and redirected. And most of us are exhausted, not sure how we are going to make it through the rest of this, not to mention that.
And in the midst of it we are apparently googling things like, Is it a sin to be tired?
Friends, some of us haven’t been alone – except for in the shower – in months and months. Others of us have only been alone for months and months. We are not wired to live this way. We need each other. We need community. We need lives of input and dialogue, of celebrations shared and grief alongside. We need touch. And sometimes we need to not. always. every. single. minute. be. touched.
This life is hard. It’s not easier. Maybe you need to hear it again because it has been a while since we’ve said it overtly – this is really, really hard. Not being able to take things for granted, thinking through every move. Plans always about to be canceled, hopes always about to be dashed. Living under the shadow of threat and risk. Constantly weighing safety and risks, navigating masks and distancing, negotiating people’s differing boundaries and strong feelings about those boundaries. Tracking cases, and variants, and deaths, and treatments, and vaccines. Bearing the economic implications and political tensions. This is an exhausting life. It’s a slow leak of energy all the time. And then we act surprised or feel guilty when we feel weary. We should feel weary. And we should listen to that feeling and not judge or ignore it. This is a life that requires more rest, more gentleness, more patience with ourselves and each other.
It’s impossible to go back. Going back is not really an option. That world is over. That life is done. The Israelites far from home for decades have changed; home itself has changed. What they will be going to will be different. It is a move forward, with God, led by God, into something new, by the strength of God. In a few chapters, Isaiah will tell them exactly this- God is doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?
Obviously we are not in exile. And yet… and yet.
This is our 48th Sunday worshiping together online. It has been almost an entire year since we “temporarily paused” gathering in person. Our kids finished a school year out of school and most likely will finish another one this way as well. In the meantime, restaurants we love have closed (or burned down), patterns of work and life were disrupted and altered, nearly a half a million of us in this country have died of covid, and 2 ½ million in our world. We’ve had to adapt to things we didn’t choose, to settle into a life we never intended to be living.
We will go back, the day will come. But it wont be back. It will be forward into something new and different. It will take imagination and energy for rebuilding, revamping, revitalizing what has been shut down and redirected. And most of us are exhausted, not sure how we are going to make it through the rest of this, not to mention that.
And in the midst of it we are apparently googling things like, Is it a sin to be tired?
Friends, some of us haven’t been alone – except for in the shower – in months and months. Others of us have only been alone for months and months. We are not wired to live this way. We need each other. We need community. We need lives of input and dialogue, of celebrations shared and grief alongside. We need touch. And sometimes we need to not. always. every. single. minute. be. touched.
This life is hard. It’s not easier. Maybe you need to hear it again because it has been a while since we’ve said it overtly – this is really, really hard. Not being able to take things for granted, thinking through every move. Plans always about to be canceled, hopes always about to be dashed. Living under the shadow of threat and risk. Constantly weighing safety and risks, navigating masks and distancing, negotiating people’s differing boundaries and strong feelings about those boundaries. Tracking cases, and variants, and deaths, and treatments, and vaccines. Bearing the economic implications and political tensions. This is an exhausting life. It’s a slow leak of energy all the time. And then we act surprised or feel guilty when we feel weary. We should feel weary. And we should listen to that feeling and not judge or ignore it. This is a life that requires more rest, more gentleness, more patience with ourselves and each other.
And at some point, this uncomfortable life that we’ve adjusted to will end, and we will “go back” – except it will be different. We will be different. And what we go to will be different.
So then or now, at all times, our job is to trust God. To entrust our weariness to God. To wait on God to lead us forward into the future we can’t envision for ourselves. And to trust that when God does, God will give us all the energy we need to participate in the rebuilding. God will give us new wings.
To whom can we compare this God? No one. There is no one like God. And this God cares for us. Take heart, beloved ones. God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. That’s us. God has got us.
Amen.
So then or now, at all times, our job is to trust God. To entrust our weariness to God. To wait on God to lead us forward into the future we can’t envision for ourselves. And to trust that when God does, God will give us all the energy we need to participate in the rebuilding. God will give us new wings.
To whom can we compare this God? No one. There is no one like God. And this God cares for us. Take heart, beloved ones. God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. That’s us. God has got us.
Amen.
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