Isaiah 43:16-21
March 17, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
A few years ago, it was pretty common for someone to forget to silence his cell phone and it would ring. I would look over with a stare! Now, we often hear our phones chirp or bling or other notification beeps telling you that you have just received an email or one of your Facebook friends posted something that she wants you to know about or a member of your family just sent you an Instagram with a picture that they hoped you would like.
We are often so addicted to be connected that we can’t wait for little over an hour to check our social media while we are in worship. How many of you have a smartphone or a device that connects you with others? Pretty much all of us!
There’s a new phobia that is a phenomenon of our day. It’s called FOMO—the fear of missing out. It’s the stranglehold that tech obsession has on our culture. The research is that 50% of teens and young adults have become “moderately or highly anxious when they can’t check their technologies as often as they would like.” Almost two-thirds check their texts every 15 minutes or less. Maybe that’s the reason why churches are not attractive to young people today since we have not built into morning worship “e-mail” breaks every 15 minutes that we are together!
When it has come to the college classroom, some professors have allowed 60-second “e-mail” breaks every 15 minutes so that the students would stop being distracted with social media and better focus on what is being taught. Although that sounds like enabling and accommodating this addiction, professors reason that if their students’ minds are always worrying about what they are missing, then how can they focus attention on what they are getting.
Isaiah
What does all of this has to do with Isaiah? From this text, the prophet Isaiah has this fear of missing out—FOMO but his people do not. Isaiah fears that Israel may miss out on the new thing God wants to do. But the Hebrews seem to want to live in the past. You can say that they have the fear of losing their past. Isaiah writes, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old” (43:18).
Now, churches and religious people are notorious in looking in the past and celebrating our history. We remembered our past in 2005 when we celebrated 125 years of faithful ministry as a church. Are we not supposed to look back at what God has done in the past? Isn’t it strange that Isaiah asks us not to remember former things right after invoking the story of the exodus? Does nostalgia cripple us in some way? What about the commands to “remember” that occur all throughout Scripture?
The counsel of Isaiah to his people, and God’s counsel to us, is that we need to remember the past without fixating on it. He didn’t want Israel to miss out on what God is about to do. Isaiah takes them to the Exodus for perspective. Pharaoh had changed his mind on releasing the Hebrews, so he and his army chased them down onto the shores of the Red Sea. But God split and held back the waters so the Hebrews could walk across safely (Ex. 14; Isaiah 43:16-17).
Isaiah wanted Israel to see that God saw their plight, heard their cries and saved them from the Egyptian army. While these things were true for their ancestors held captive in Egypt, they are still true while they are now captives in Babylon. God still sees, hears and saves. But how God would see, hear and save would change for them now. How God will deliver them from captivity will be different from the past because God is always doing a new thing.
So while the Babylonian captives should remember that their God was a rescuing God, they weren’t to anchor their expectations in only what God had done before—as though what God had done before is all that God can do. If they had a fear of losing their past, they won’t be able to see what is right in front of them now. Isaiah was afraid that Israel would miss out seeing God doing a new thing.
Missing Out
What are you missing out today?
We probably all know of a friend or someone who is still obsessed over a past romance. Meanwhile, he or she is totally missing the amazing person in front of them everyday. They lose out because they’re in the past.
Many people and perhaps many of us here have had fond and warm memories of our college days especially when we had the opportunity of dorm life. When we graduated, we still wanted to maintain that carefree college life often funded by Mom and Dad because we were not ready for the real world. Some of our young people are experiencing this and missing out on what the real world has to offer. As adults with more life experiences, we know that the real world is far deeper and richer if we live in it now.
Some of us today may still be harboring those dreams and aspirations of that perfect job that we never got or that perfect spouse that we thought we could have or that perfect family that we see that others seem to have and wish that we can have as well and in turn we are missing out of what we do have! You don’t have the fear of missing out because you are still thinking about the past!
Even Moses didn’t have the fear of missing out—FOMO and fell victim to living in the past. When the Hebrews were parched in the desert, God told Moses to strike a rock with his staff—it gushed drinking water (Ex. 17:5-6). When they thirsted and complained again in Numbers 20, Moses was to speak to the rock before the people. Instead he bashed it with his staff twice this time. Drinking water still gushed, but it was called a distrust of God (Numbers 20:12). Moses was looking for God to act in the same way he did in the past—and for that, he would never enter the promised land.
From Isaiah 43, we are meant to reflect on the past with gratitude but we are not to allow it to prevent us to see what God is doing new today. God is sending a clear message to us. God is saying, “You ain’t seen nothing yet! Get your eyes off the rearview mirror and onto the road in front of you. If you don’t have FOMO—the fear of missing out, you better get it, because some amazing things are going to happen, and you’re going to want to be there!” God says, “I am about to do a new thing; it springs forth, do you not perceive it” (Is. 43:19).
On this 5th Sunday in Lent, do you have a fear of missing out? You should. If you are stuck reminiscing about how wonderful the past was and how we should be going back to the good old days of what was, you need to have the fear of missing out—FOMO so that you can expect the new to happen.
Some of us might still have some dreams and hopes of what life should have been. And for the greater part of your life, you are still praying and hoping that some day that life will happen for you. Maybe it’s time to stop looking backward and start looking forward. If we are unwilling to let go of some of these dashed hopes, we would never fully be able to focus on the beautiful things that are happening all around us today, right now.
There was an article by Mark Rails in the Christian Century awhile back on mindfulness. Mindfulness is love that resists distraction. It is a staunch refusal to fall into absentmindedness. It is focused, sustained attention toward the beloved. Mindfulness is choosing to cherish and then choosing again and again—never to back away from that initial decision. When was the last time that you can remember that you have a mindfulness of something or someone important in your life? When you are mindful, you won’t miss out.
Devoted spouses, dedicated friends, caring parents are all mindful of the ones they love. Above all else—God is mindful of us.
I read recently about how people while having dinner together can’t resist answering their smartphones or seeing what email they just received. To bring back the importance of eating out together for conversations and being mindful of who is around the table, a suggestion was to put everyone’s phone on the table and the first one who can’t resist to answer his/her phone when it rings would pay the dinner bill for everyone! We need to be mindful of those we are with.
Since God is mindful of us, we who are loved by God can become mindful of others. In Philippians 2:5, Paul writes, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” The amazing thing about Jesus’ mind was that it was always directed toward others. He noticed those who were forgotten. He cherished those who were despised. In the midst of a crowd pushing all around him, Jesus noticed the touch of a despairing woman who merely grazed the hem of his garment. On the cross, Jesus noticed the penitent thief beside him making room in his heart for God. We can say that Jesus was divine mindfulness incarnate.
Do you know who is sitting next to you? Are you mindful of this person? How about turning to him or her and say, “I am mindful of you. I see you and don’t want you to miss out on what God is doing new in you!”
God’s Promises
Isaiah says that God promises to transform the desert created by arrogance and false trust, the place where unclean animals live, into a place of “water” and “streams” where his chosen may have all their needs supplied. But if we don’t have hope or if we are not mindful of what’s happening right now and being consumed by our past, we might miss out. We will miss the provision of God and living as God’s people.
While God was promising liberation for his people from Babylon, God was foreshadowing the ultimate liberation through Christ. Human leaders had bailed Israel out in the past, but they need to be ready for a “new thing.” Christ will be our final Redeemer.
The Gospel lesson for this Sunday is from John 12:1-8. It’s the story of Jesus visiting Bethany the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead earlier. After dinner, Mary took a pound of costly perfume and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. But Judas objected and said that the money could have been used for the poor. Jesus probably knew that he was a thief and had no intentions to help the poor.
Judas Iscariot was stuck in his own dishonest past. He could only see what 300 denari could do whether it was for the poor or for his own greed. But Mary was mindful of what is about to happen. She not only didn’t miss out, she actively participated in the new things that are about to happen. She was mindful of Jesus’ plan even how horrible it will be as he walks toward Jerusalem. Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Let us not miss out on the love of God when we are mindful of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Like Israel, we can have the fear of losing our past and not FOMO, not have the fear of missing out. Let’s have the fear of missing out so that in the end, we’ll see Jesus Christ is risen on Easter morning.
But let’s revise FOMO to mean the “Fun Of Moving On!” The Fun Of Moving On means that we are excited that God is doing something new. What is new? God sees, hears, and saves.
God said, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.”
The Apostle Paul said to the Philippians, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.”
So when I hear one of your smartphones chirp or bling or beep, I won’t give you a stare anymore but rather you are telling me that you have FOMO, the fear of missing out of God’s wonderful surprises of always doing a new thing!
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, pull us out of our deep-seeded past where it is safe and familiar and lead us to have the fear of missing out so that when you are doing wonderful new things in the world and all around us that we would see, receive, welcome and participate with you in the unfolding of your kingdom. Bless us with the eyes to see and the will to press on toward the goal for the heavenly prize of God in Jesus Christ. Amen.