Not Even Fools

Propers: Gaudete Sunday, AD 2022 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It shall be called the Holy Way [and] no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.

Apart from the Torah, those first Five Books of Moses, the most sacred writings in the Hebrew canon would be those of the Prophets. If it were not for the Prophets, there would be no Judaism, and thus no Jesus Christ as we know Him.

The Prophets wrote during the Exile—some a bit before, others a little after—which was that period of time when the people of Israel and Judah lost everything that they knew. The Promised Land of their ancestors was conquered, the Temple of their God destroyed, and the royal line of David broken, once and seemingly for all. Any citizens of any means were scattered to the winds, and their fate as a people appeared as that of so many others conquered by Assyria and Babylon: oblivion.

But despite all the odds, all the forces working against them, the Judean people managed to keep their identity even in a foreign land. They did so by becoming People of the Book: telling the stories of their ancestors, trusting in the promises of God. This in fact was the period, this time in Exile, when the Torah, the Law, was assembled and edited into the form with which we are familiar today: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Books of Moses were bound in Exile.

Well, technically they were scrolls, but you get the idea. Can you imagine Judaism without the Bible? The Bible made them Jews, while at the same time they as Judeans had made the Bible. No longer did land and king guarantee God. Now it was the Word: the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Indeed, it was the Prophets who taught us this, who promised the Exiles that God had not abandoned them; that He in fact went with them into Exile.

And the whole pattern of the Bible speaks to this experience: Adam and Eve expelled from Eden; the Hebrews first in slavery then in Exodus from Egypt; always this pattern of exile and return; always this promise that God is still faithful. And as the Bible took shape, both the Law and the Prophets, the people’s understanding of God grew. He wasn’t just their God, they realized, but the God of all. Their mission, their faith, was to fulfill God’s mission of bringing the whole world, all the gentiles, home at last in Him. That had been the promise given unto Abraham.

God would overturn the Exile. God would bring His children home. God would even undo every wrong, every loss, every death, and make the world whole again, make it whole in Him. There would be a great Restoration, a great Resurrection. And the agent of all this would be the Anointed, the Messiah, the Christ of God. He would succeed where all the worldly priests and kings of old had failed.

Thus when the Exile ended—when the people of Israel and Judah could at long last return home, fulfilling that impossible hope—they went with joy, seeing how God had been with them all along, seeing how God now welcomed them home. And if that came true, if the promises of the Exile had all come to pass, then surely the Prophets were right about who God is and what God does; surely they were right about the coming of the Messiah, and the end of sin and death.

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,” prophesied Isaiah, “and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy … A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way … It shall be for God’s people [and] no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.”

Isaiah was very important to the early Christian community, as he was to Second Temple Judaism more generally. We have at times referred to his book as our Fifth Gospel. Many understood the ministry of John the Baptist as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy of “a voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the Way of the Lord!’”

Now, in the interest of providing some context: there were in ancient Israel two great highways running north and south, one on either side of the mountains. To the west lay the Way of the Sea along the Mediterranean, and to the east the King’s Highway winding through the desert wastes. These were the lifeblood of the nation, arteries of trade connecting Africa, Europe, and Asia Minor.

Isaiah prophesied a new Way, a new road, leading the people home, gathering in the nations, bringing us back to God. And on this Way would all be cleansed of sin, and safe from beasts, and not even one would be lost, not even one gone astray. That’s what Jesus called Himself, remember: He called Himself the Way. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.” The early Church, before we were called the Church, before we were yet termed Christians, went by the name of the Way.

Even centuries later, the Tang Dynasty of China classed Syriac Christians as favored Taoists, because we called ourselves followers of the Tao, and Tao means “Way.” So it’s Jesus, you see, in Christian understanding, who is the Way prophesied by Isaiah, the Way who brings us all home and gathers the nations to God.

When the followers of John the Baptist come to Jesus, as they do in this morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, they ask Him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” And Jesus responds by telling them, “Go and tell John what you see and you hear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

He is describing here the Way of the Lord, the Way Isaiah promised. “Are you the one?” “Yes, I am the Way.” John prepared the Way; Jesus is the Way. And truly this is joy, sheer joy, for all who have ears to hear, who take no offense at Him. Note that there is no judgment here, no rejection, no fear along the Way. “Be strong and do not fear!” Isaiah cries. “Here is your God! He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense; He will come and He will save you.” The wrath of God consumes all and only that which separates Him from His children.

And the bit that’s really got me this time around—the verse to which the Holy Spirit insistently points with flaming fingers in my mind—is that one line, that one promise, that “no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” Thank Christ for that. Once you have the Way, or once the Way finds you, you cannot be lost. You cannot wander off into the wilds. You may take the circuitous route, you may delay upon the Way, but no traveler shall be lost, not even fools go astray. And I am a fool.

What a word of grace this is, what a word of joy. Because, God, I feel lost sometimes. I feel I’ve gone so far astray. Time and tide sweep me up to dash me against the rocks. Yet it is not so, says Isaiah, whatever it seems. You can never be lost again. Even in Exile, even in suffering, He is always there; He is always with you. He is always your God, always your Father, and you His beloved child. You are not lost, because you cannot be lost. You are on the Way. You are going home.

Whatever the troubles and the sorrows of this day, of this life, you have never been alone. You could never be alone. And you have always been loved, in every moment, every heartbeat, every breath. It could not be any other way. And your destination is assured. It is already, and not yet. You are on the Way: He has found you; He is in you, and you are in Him. So that even on the journey, on this Odyssey of life, you are always already being gathered home.

Nothing can change that. Nothing can take that from you.

Come now out of Exile. Walk now on the Way. Receive the joy promised unto us by all the faithful Prophets of old. We were lost, and have been found. We were blind, yet now we see. And none of us, not even fools, shall ever go astray.

This is the promise of God. And God does not break promises.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.