Richard Davenport
January 19, 2025 – Second Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 62:1-5
Laurie and I did the long distance relationship thing back when we were dating. Thankfully it wasn’t as though we were on opposite ends of the country. We had a four hour drive between us that was basically a straight shot along the highway. We started out with long email conversations before we finally decided to meet up. Every other weekend, either she would come down and stay with some friends for the weekend here or I’d go up there and stay with some people.
It worked, but it wasn’t the best. It’s obviously not how these sorts of things are supposed to go. Sometimes you do things because that’s really all you’ve got, but it puts an added strain to the situation. How do you learn what it’s like to be around someone, to see how they act in real life? How do you learn what kind of habits they have, how they react to things? Do they have some of those little quirks that aren’t really bad, but are so annoying to you that you can’t really handle them? What about their friends or family?
All of these details are a part of the bigger relationship question and all are simply harder to sort out when your interaction is so limited. Many people find that the extra hassle just isn’t worth it. Without that regular interaction, it can feel like the relationship will never grow, and if it won’t grow, then better to just cut your losses now and put your energy into one that will.
Our relationship with God can have many of those same qualities. For many people, hearing that God loves you is just one of those trite platitudes that get repeated but that doesn’t really mean anything. You hear and just nod absently and go on about your day. It just doesn’t affect you. It has about the same impact as someone telling you, “Just hang in there, things will get better.” Quickly heard and quickly forgotten.
Maybe if you had some sense of what that meant, things would be different. When you have a tough day, what you really want is a hug. You want someone to sit and listen while you vent about life. Thinking about God, being out there, somewhere, well, it just doesn’t have the same impact.
We usually think about God in terms of long distance relationships. We don’t really mind him being out there, but we don’t get a lot out of the relationship because of that very distance. He’s just so far away that we tend to feel there are much better places to invest our time and energy.
Having been in the ministry for quite a while now, it’s no surprise that most Sundays tend to blur together. There are a few that stand out because of some bit of excitement or another. I do still remember my first Sunday on duty though. I don’t remember the service itself, or really anything that happened afterward. What I do remember is being there at church pretty early. I was going over my sermon several times. I was checking all of the details of the service, nervously pacing around. I remember walking through the sanctuary, looking over a bulletin and thinking I needed to check on something or other when I looked up and Laurie was standing there. We were engaged at that point, so it might not have been all that surprising, except that she was supposed to be out of town at a conference. Seeing her there, well, I had trouble processing things. It was one thing to know she was thinking about me and praying all went well. It was quite another to have her there and to have her support in person.
You look around in those times when you feel lonely, depressed, beaten down, exhausted, and all you want is someone to give you a hug, to support you, comfort you, to be with you. God just doesn’t seem to do that. The ways in which people can surprise you by their love at least follow some basic rules. Laurie might show up to support me on a difficult day, but there wasn’t any expectation that Jesus would suddenly show up in person. You know God can do anything, but you also just know he isn’t going to do that. God isn’t going to call me on the phone. He isn’t going to invite me to lunch or to go shopping with him or to just sit around and watch a movie together or any of the kinds of things guys and gals do when they’re getting to know each other and pursuing a relationship.
Lots of Christians will tell you you need a personal relationship with Jesus. That’s great and all, but it doesn’t quite fit with the kinds of personal relationships we build elsewhere. Jesus just doesn’t work the same way. I can’t share all of these kinds of things with him because he isn’t here.
We tend to have a distorted view of what relationships in this world are supposed to look like, particularly when it comes to dating and marriage. There’s the Hallmark-y ideal, the ruggedly handsome Prince Charming type comes in and sweeps the poor, lonely girl off her feet. He wins her over with grand romantic gestures that make her feel all warm and fuzzy, they fall madly in love and live happily ever after.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these fun romance stories, but they tend to focus on the emotional highs and equates them with a loving relationship. If there’s no passion, no feeling of the heart going pitter patter, no swooning whenever you see each other, then there must be no love. A loving relationship becomes defined by this.
As Lutherans, we tend to avoid talking about emotions like this a whole lot. Emotions are important, God gave them to us after all, but they don’t dictate reality. Whether you feel forgiven isn’t nearly as important as the fact that you are forgiven. Wallowing in self-pity over your past sins when God has told you they are forgiven doesn’t help anyone.
Still, we can’t help judging our relationship with God the same way. If there are none of those emotional highs, we tend not to think of it as a relationship at all. We can’t make our relationship with God into something it isn’t, so it ends up being a low priority. We may not abandon it entirely, but we won’t put a whole lot of effort into something with so little return. Every so often we may call out to him in the hopes he hears us and can stop whatever he’s doing to help us out, but otherwise we don’t bother much.
Sadly, as is typical, we judge our relationship with God based on the relationships we have in the world, rather than the other way around. Every relationship we have in this world is a pale, distorted imitation of the relationship God desires to have with us. God is with us through the high points, but also in the everyday mundaneness of life.
In his book, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis gives a vision of what Hell might be like. Each new resident of Hell moves into a home in a city. Each resident lives however he thinks best, doing what he wants and giving no regard to anyone else. Pretty soon, the habits and behaviors of those around you drive you bonkers, so you move out of town, further away from everyone. People continuously seek isolation, and so they keep moving further and further away, with greater and greater distance between them, all so you can live in your own little world with no one else to intrude.
The problem with looking at Hell this way is that we think this behavior is confined to Hell, but it isn’t. Hell is simply where God allows us to live out our sinful inclinations for all eternity, but those same desires exist here. This is who we are now. We want a relationship on our terms. We want it to look the way we want or we don’t want it at all. We want maximum return for minimum effort. Our relationship with God just doesn’t give us that. It’s a long distance relationship and it doesn’t charge us up the way we expect that it should, so we don’t spend a lot of time on it.
God thinks differently. God himself is the model of the ideal relationship. Self-giving, self-sacrificing, holding nothing back. Without him at work in our lives, we would have no relationships at all, no comfort, no support, no love. He overcomes our sinful inclinations, allowing us to connect with the people around us, allowing us to love and support one another, just as we are loved and supported by them. We want to be alone and yet we also want to be loved and to love in return. All of our relationships are long distance relationships as God sees them, because none of them come to us naturally. All of them take a great deal of effort to cultivate. No relationship works as easily as it should.
Through the season of Christmas and now Epiphany, we see what God deems important. You want control over every aspect of your life. Since people don’t do what you want or follow your commands, you constantly find ways to distance yourself from them, seeking isolation because it’s the only way to exert control over your surroundings. But God knows, deep down, this is what you truly want and it isn’t what you were made for. Christmas is when God comes to be with his people, not just calling them on the phone once in a while, but truly here, in person, living in and among those he loves most. Epiphany is the reminder that he doesn’t just love a few people in a particular place or time, he loves all and draws them all to himself. Like your fiancé showing up unexpectedly, he arrives in the world to be with his people, loving them even when it means giving his life for them. He isn’t willing to abandon you to a life of self-imposed isolation.
He could have brought it all to an end right then and there, but there were more he wanted to bring in, more that would be abandoned without him, more of his people to gather together. You may not see him all the time, but he is there nonetheless. He gives you reminders as only he can, a warm ray of sunshine to brighten a cold day, a series of green lights to get you where you need to go on time, prompting a friend to call you out of the blue when you happen to be having a tough day. All of these little things may look like just coincidence, but, as we acknowledge in our post-Communion prayer, God is the fountain and source of all good things. If something good has happened to you, it is because God planned and orchestrated it just for you.
Despite the times you think it isn’t all worth it, God never gives up on you. The relationship is a long distance one, but that doesn’t mean he is absent. We come here to worship thinking about all that we receive in the service. God forgives us for all of our past sins. We come to the table to receive his grace. We think about what he gives us, but we must also think about who we are with. We are not forgiven just so we can return to our lonely and isolated lives. We are forgiven so that we may be with God and with one another, and so we share the table together and you are here at his express invitation.
Our relationship with God is long distance, but not without moments that we get to share together. What’s more, it is one with a definite goal and end point. The relationship between God and his people grows closer and closer as the days go on. Ever since Adam and Eve ran off to hide away, to isolate themselves, God has been seeking out his people, reconnecting with them, finding all of the places they’ve hidden themselves. He isn’t content with a long distance relationship any more than we are, so he comes to us himself and he continues to spend time with us throughout the years.
The passage in Isaiah is directed to people in the future. The people have been running away from God. They’ve been isolating themselves. They’ve been trying to have everything on their own terms and it is driving them apart. Soon God will give them the release they seem to be longing for and they’ll find how much they regret leaving behind what they once had. But God seeks them out. He brings them back. He looks forward to the joyful reunion. The joy and delight every groom has at seeing his bride to be, walking down the aisle in her pure white gown. They look forward to a life together, never to be alone again.
This is what God announces to his lost people. They may be lost. They may be alone. They’ve done it to themselves. But, God will continue seeking them out. He doesn’t want his people to ever be alone. He will make them pure again, righteous and clean.
Epiphany continues the story. We once were alone and we didn’t want anything else. But God has shown us what love means and what we were meant for. We didn’t seek him out, but he sought us and has found us here in this world of darkness and isolation. We look forward to the day when the fleeting encounters we have here give way to a life together.