The new freshman enters the cafeteria and looks out on a sea of strange faces. None of his friends from middle school have this lunch period. He wonders where he should sit? Which group should he join? Will anyone here be his friend?

A woman sits in her kitchen and marvels at how quiet the house is. She walks down the hall and peers into what for years was her youngest daughter’s bedroom. She smiles looking down at the floor, quite certain this is the first time in a long time the room has been clean enough to see the floor. She wonders what adventures lie ahead for her brilliantly creative yet wildly disorganized daughter. For that matter, what lies ahead for her now that she is cut loose from the busy-ness and the clutter and the noise that gave her life so much purpose?

A man lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. Everything aches. To think he had looked forward to retirement until arthritis slowed him down and his partners suggested he retire early. He looks at his alarm clock and realizes that last year at this time he would have already been at work for an hour. He wonders if the guys he rode the train with everyday remember him? He wonders if he should even bother getting out of bed, he’s not going to do anything worthwhile anyway. He feels worthless.

Human beings are defined by their relationships. We cannot will ourselves to be born. We are the product of relationship. I am the oldest of Jim and Jan’s five children. I am Eric’s wife and Elizabeth and Gibson’s mother. I am the rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. I am my cat Agnes’ favorite lap. David Grauer likes to call me his boss, but I am also his priest and his friend. I am formed by many, many relationships.

Each of us is a part of a web of relationships that defines us, sustains us and gives our lives meaning. The constellation of relationships that shape us as individuals is dynamic – constantly shifting and changing in ways large and small and in ways that we perceive as either beneficial or detrimental. With the change of semester we have new classes, new teachers and new classmates. Babies are born. Daughters become mothers and mothers become grandmothers. Spouses die. Parents divorce. We fall in love. A friendship slips away. We find new friendships in a knitting group. An adult child moves back home. Our health fails. When our relationships change, we change… sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes irrevocably… sometimes joyfully, sometimes fearfully.

Isaiah wrote for the Jewish people exiled in Babylon. The web of relationships that had defined and nurtured the Jewish people was trampled, tattered and nothing but shreds. Families were torn apart. The priests and religious leaders were split off from the communities they led. None of the relationships that had given their lives meaning appeared to be intact.

As prophet, Isaiah used words to hold up a mirror for the Jewish people. He charged them with looking at their desperate and desolate situation clearly and honestly. True, their homeland had been sacked and Babylonian invaders had hauled them off, but they were more than victims. Isaiah forced them to face their participation in the calamity. Israel’s arrogance and prideful disobedience had caused them to fail to take the Babylonian threat seriously.

Isaiah also refused to let the Jewish people give into fear and give up. As we heard in the scripture that _____________________ just read, Isaiah reminded them that all is not lost. Although they felt cut off and estranged from all that gave them identity and hope, they had not been abandoned by God. What the people of Israel had forgotten was that before they were anything else, before the greatness of King David, before the glory of Solomon’s temple, before they were the nation of Israel they were God’s people. They had forgotten their foundation – the relationship upon which all their other relationships were formed – they lost sight of their relationship with God.

God’s words for the Israelites are tender and comforting, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine… no matter what happens, I will be with you, because you are precious in my sight and honored. I love you. Do not fear, for I am with you.”

Letting go of their fear must have seemed impossible for the exiles, for they had been stripped of everything that had made them feel safe and secure. God tells them their hope and their identity is not found in their own strength or in human wisdom or even in military or political might. Fear should be gone because God has claimed them and called them by name, there is no devastation that they cannot survive because God is with them.

Who are we? Where do we belong? What makes us worthy of love? Anytime our web of relationships expands or contracts we ask ourselves these questions. Sometimes joyfully… sometimes fearfully. The prophet reminds us that our core identity is not found in what we do, or where we live, or what we drive, or where we vacation. Our identity – our very being – comes from God calling us precious in God’s sight and honored. Our sense of belonging comes not from the acceptance of our peers or our standing in the community, but from God who has claimed us and will never let us go. What makes us worthy is not our personal accomplishments but God’s absurd and abundant love.

As Christians we celebrate and claim this very special relationship with God in baptism. In the waters of baptism we understand that God marks us and claims us as God’s children. In the water’s of baptism God seals God’s love for us, no matter what we might have done or what might happen. In the waters of Baptism, God says to us, “You are my child, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

Many years ago now, I visited my friend Teri at her home. We had not seen each other in a while and our time together was short, so we took any opportunity to be together and catch up. One evening, we chatted in the bathroom as she bathed her toddler son, Patrick. Patrick loved taking baths. He particularly enjoyed having his mother wash his hair and then make sudsy sculptures on the top of his head. Because Patrick was having such a good time, I imagined he would throw a fit when it was time to get out of the tub.

So I was surprised when Teri said, “Ok Patrick, get ready. It is time to rinse your hair and get out of the tub.” and Patrick promptly and peacefully tilted his head back and closed his eyes. As Teri rinsed Patrick’s hair, she said these words, “Remember that you were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Remember you are loved by God.” Then Patrick climbed out of the tub and into a towel and his mother’s embrace.

As Teri dried Patrick off, she looked up to see tears streaming down my cheeks. She said, “I want Patrick to remember he is baptized. Someday he will need to know he is loved by God.”

The comforting and hopeful words of Isaiah are easier to read and hear about than they are to truly believe. These are words we need to return to over and over, just as we need to be reminded of our baptism. Words this good – love this uncommon – take time to be believed and absorbed and celebrated.
_______________________

iW. Carter Lester, “Pastoral Perspective, Isaiah 43.1-7” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C Vol. 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Eds., (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 218. The idea for these vignettes is Lester’s.
iiKathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective, Isaiah 43.1-7” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C Vol. 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Eds., (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 221.
iiiLester, 222.
ivLester, 222. This is almost a direct quoted of Lester’s words.