To Sustain the Weary With a Word

Brad Sullivan

Proper 19, Year B

September 16, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Psalm 116:1-8

James 3:1-12

Mark 8:27-38

To Sustain the Weary With a Word

Years ago, when I was youth minister and assistant priest, one of the youth in the church said to me, apropos of absolutely nothing, “You shouldn’t even be paid.  All you do is talk for a living.”  She said it with a smile…I think she was joking.  We laughed.  There is a lot of talking in my job, and one thing I pointed out was, “hey, I gotta eat.”  Hopefully what I’m really doing through all this talking, is sustaining the weary with a word. 

That’s what God had Isaiah do in his years of prophesying to Judah:  sustain the weary with a word.  Judah had not yet been taken into captivity by Babylon, and Isaiah prophesied both warnings of coming captivity and promises of restoration.  Throughout Isaiah’s messages of warning and hope, there was a recurring theme of sustaining the weary with a word. 

The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and princes of his people:  It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.  What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.

Isaiah 3:13-15

One of the main problems that God had with his people was how they were treating the poor and marginalized.  ‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?  Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’  The people called out.  “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day, and oppress all your workers,” God responded through Isaiah.  (Isaiah 58:3)  God was not pleased with any religious sacrifice or offering while the unskilled workers were left poor and marginalized.  God was not pleased by any amount of pious devotion or faith by those in a nation in which the wealthy became rich off of the labor of the poor, and the poor did not make enough to get by. 

If it sounds like I’m getting political, talking about America, that’s what’s in Isaiah.  Isaiah was there to sustain the weary with a word, not to uphold the wealthy who kept the poor weary through low wages.  Isaiah was not about class warfare.  Neither was God.  God wasn’t telling the wealthy they had to be paupers.  He was telling them, however, that if they truly wanted to be God’s people, then they had to make for darn sure that the poor among them, the wage earners and day laborers, had more than enough to get by.  Otherwise, God said, you will not continue to be my people.  

That is the heart of God.  Don’t worry so much about pretending to love me through devotion, worship, and religion, God says.  Truly love me by making sure that the least among you has enough not to be in poverty. 

At our last diocesan council, there was talk about executive salary, and I spoke with a man who agreed wholeheartedly with Isaiah.  Years ago, this man was being paid a multi-hundred thousand dollar a year salary, and those whom he managed and oversaw were being paid not just less, but not enough.  They were struggling.  So he changed that and lowered his own salary to give substantial raises to those who worked under him.  This man didn’t talk for a living, but he did sustain the weary with a word:  the word of Isaiah, the word of Jesus which he lived out and made real in his life.

The word of Jesus that he lived out was, “those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  This man didn’t go hungry.  He didn’t lose his house.  He sacrificed quite a lot of luxury and convenience.  He didn’t have the lifestyle that he could have, but he had enough.  He chose to have less than the market demanded he have in order to make sure that others had what they needed.

That’s losing your life for Jesus’ sake. 

Choosing to get by with less ain’t the easiest thing in the world to do.  There are folks who will ridicule you for it.  Folks who would be made uncomfortable by it.  Choosing to get by with less so that others may have more is kind of counter to the American dream.  Work hard enough, do enough, and you can get ahead, get rich, become powerful, a captain of industry.  Choose to sacrifice your own wealth for the sake of your workers?  That’s not really in there.

“Sustain the weary with a word,” God told Isaiah, and let that word be lived out in your actions.  To be fair, everyone is weary.  Even the wealthy and powerful get weary.  We all have variations on the same brokenness inside of us:  fear, lack of trust.  From our earliest days, we all come to realize the world is often dangerous, and we can’t always trust the people around us.  Jesus understands that fear which means God shared that fear with us.  God gets it; God understands, that fear and lack of trust, our brokenness, is part of what drives us to seek power and wealth.  With enough power and wealth, we feel secure, like we don’t have to depend on untrustworthy others.  The problem is, it’s hard to get wealthy without someone down the line working for almost nothing.

If you try to save your life, you’ll lose it, Jesus said.  Give up your abundance, your excess, your luxury (which many would call “comfort”), and see to it that those who work for very little, have enough.  If you’ve got someone who works in your home or in your yard, pay them more than they ask for.  Encourage others to do the same.  Shop at businesses that pay their workers more than the minimum.  Tell businesses that don’t, that you won’t do business there.  Sustain the weary with a word.  We’re not talking charity here, we’re talking wages needed to have enough, even if the market demands less.

I keep thinking of the Frank Capra movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  It’s the story of George Bailey, a businessman who owns and operates the Bailey Building and Loan.  He was hoping for a more lucrative business, but when his father died, he ended up taking over the business because the only other lender in town was a rather greedy man named Mr. Potter.  Potter charged high interest, made a lot of money, and no small amount of people were left impoverished when they were late on their loans. 

So, George Bailey continued his father’s business, making loans to folks so they could build a house, make it till the next month or the next job, and he didn’t charge high interest, and told folks who couldn’t pay him back, to do what they could when they could.

George didn’t get rich.  He helped his community.  He had a drafty old house, an old car, and enough for his wife and kids.  He’d been a man with big dreams, and was frustrated by seeing his childhood friends getting wealthy and getting ahead while he was stuck in his hometown, not getting wealthy, sometimes wondering if he was going to be ok, if they were going to have enough.  Even so, he wouldn’t let that fear drive him to get rich off of the needs of the folks to whom he loaned money.  He helped his community.  He sustained the weary with his word and actions.

Then his bumbling Uncle Billy lost a huge amount of money, and George was facing the possibility of jail time and of losing his home and business because of the missing money.  In the midst of this crisis, his wife made some calls to friends and family to let them know that George was in trouble.  Folks from all over the community came pouring into his home, bringing money to get him out of the trouble he was in, and he received a message, in inscription in a book:  “No man is a failure who has friends.” 

That’s what giving up your life for Jesus looks like.  That’s what sustaining the weary with a word looks like.  If all you do is talk for a living, if you mow lawns, if you’re a captain of industry, or anything in between, we get to sustain the weary with a word.  We get to live like George Bailey and all of his friends.  We get to encourage others to do the same, to save our lives by giving up our lives, and to sustain the weary with a word and with action.