I am posting my sermon early this week, since I am headed on vacation Monday (when I usually post the previous Sunday's sermon)! My Grandmother is turning 90 and I will be going back east to celebrate her birthday with her and see my parents. It will be fun!
This week's sermon is about power and I am using the story (and movie) "Ever After" to do the "Leppert Weave" (patent pending) between the illustration and scripture. :)
The movie and story, "Ever After" was on this week, on Wednesday evening. I caught the tail end of the story (after church and hanging out with our teens) and was quickly captivated by the story. I've seen this movie several times but for whatever reason, the fact that it is the remake of a timeles story, Cinderella, makes it quite facinating.
I watched as the mean step mother, the barones; exert her power all over Danielle (the Cinderella character played by Drew Barrymore). This woman burns Danielle's late father's book, steals her deceased mother's wedding gown and slippers, and forces her to work as a slave... instead of the noble status she should have from her father.
The baroness and her daughter, Marguerite, are horrible and exert their power in the most evil ways.
The second sister, Jacqueline, seems powerless throughout the whole film and yet tends to Danielle's wounds that were inflicted on the poor girl, by being whipped at the hand of her powerful stepmother.
Danielle and Jacqueline appear to be the most powerLESS in the story. And the baroness and Marguerite seem to be the most powerful.
But the ending of the story forces us to ask the question: Who holds the power? In the end, power is messed with and the people we thought were the weakest were actually the most powerful. And the people we thought were the most powerful, are actually the weakest.
This story causes us to ask: Who holds the power?
Much like our scripture passage today forces us to ask, who holds the power?
In Isaiah 45:1-7, God is depicted as quite powerful, unattainable, and amazing. God is indescribable, incomparable, amazing, and extremly powerful.
But there is another guy mentioned in this passage... if you didn't read it or didn't happen to catch it. His name is Cyrus. No, not Billy Ray Cyrus. Or Mylie Cyrus. But Cyrus of Persia.
Cyrus is known as "Cyrus the Great" and was born around 576 BC. He conquered land and created an empire bigger than even Rome (some say). He was King of Persia, Babylon, and others. Many historians consider him an equal (if not greater) than even Alexander the Great.
But the Jews (or the people of Israel) thought really highly of this guy, Cyrus. Because he gave an edict of restoration, allowing the exiles of Israel (who were in Babylon) to return home. The people of Israel had been exiled-- or sent away into a land known at the time as Babylon, and it was Cyrus who gave them an edict for them to return to their homeland (the Promised Land).
Cyrus was a powerful, powerful king. Who exerted his power to claim more land and do a whole lot. He (and others in his kingdom) thought he was amazing, indescribable, all powerful, untamable, incomparable... a god among men.
He thought he was all that and a bag of Ruffles Rippled Potato Chips. Have you ever had those? They are fantastic. And Cyrus thinks he's as great as those thick, rippled chips.
But God says something different in this passage. God talks about how God was in control of all the things Cyrus did. God says Cyrus is nothing but a mere gnat that goes where God's divine hand swats him towards and wants him to go.
So the question is, who is God? Yahweh (the God of the people of Israel)? Or Cyrus, the powerful king?
Or as our original story asks, who holds the power? The hand... or the gnat?
In our story, "Ever After," we think our poor Cinderella character, Danielle, does not hold the power. We think the ones who speak the loudest throughout the land, the baroness and Marguerite, hold the power.
Much like we think Cyrus, who speaks the loudest throughout the known world at that time, the people may have been tempted to think he held the power. He was king of almost the whole known world at that point... that's pretty powerful.
And in our story, "Ever After," it turns out Danielle, is really the future Queen. She holds all the power, and in the end, saves her horrible powerless stepmother (the baroness) from being shipped to the Americas, far from home. Danielle, in the end of hte story (the one we thought was completely powerLESS) has so much power, she determines the fate of the person we THOUGHT held all the power.
This is much like God is saying in this passage of Isaiah. It is God who holds the power, not Cyrus. God alone, is the only God. God is the one who flattens mountains, cuts through iron bars, strips kings of power, and is the almighty, most powerful, amazing, indescribable, uncontainable, untamable God. Not Cyrus.
How often are we, the church people of 2008, like Cyrus the Great?
How often do we think we are all that and a bag of Ruffles Rippled Potato Chips? We build great church empires? We build great, outreaching compassion programs. We construct beautiful sanctuaries. We design indescriable Sunday School lessons. We create amazing material and programs...
But who is God? Who holds the power? Who did all these great things?
Who is the almighty, most powerful, amazing, indescribable, uncontainable one? God? Or us, the creators and designers of this beautiful church and the phenomenal programs we see around us?
Who holds the power? Who gets the credit? Us or God?
God is calling us, in this passage, along with Cyrus to recognize who is God. Who holds the power.
Yes, we do great things in Church. We do great things in Sunday School. We have a lot of good things going on... but who holds the power? Who is God?
In our story, "Ever After," we were shocked by who actually held the power. The one we thought was the weakest turned out to hold enough power to determine the fate of the person we THOUGHT was the most powerful.
Danielle's power came not from herself, but by virtue of her office-- as the new Queen. She was powerful because of something outside of herself, becoming Queen. She had no power apart from being Queen.
And in the same way, we have no power apart from God. Cyrus had no power apart from God (according to Isaiah).
There is no power, apart from God's power.
We must listen to Isaiah's call to recognize who hold the power in all the good things we do- in all the programs we have- in all the ministries we do. It is God. There is only one God. We do all these great things through the ministry and power of God.
Then, on Sunday, I plan on playing a song by Chris Tomlin (that I have hinted at through this sermon), called "Indescribable," a beautiful song about God's indescribable power.
As this song plays, I will give them a piece of paper that has the prayer of St. Nicholas of Flue at the top: "My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you. My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you. My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you."
And on that piece of paper I will ask them to write down all the great things they are doing in the church, all the wonderful things they are doing for God and God's Kingdom. And then I will ask: Who did this? Who holds the power? Me or God?
For we must be reminded... of who is doing all the good things in Church. Humans? No. Pastor Christy, definately not. It is God.
God is the most powerful, indescribable, amazing one. All power comes from God.
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