“Landing Instructions”

Isaiah 40:21-31

February 5, 2006

Saint Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

I don’t know if you have seen it or not, and in good conscience, I am not sure that I can recommend the movie that Susie and I saw last Saturday night. The movie is the 2005 version of Fun with Dick and Jane starring Jim Carey and Tea Leoni. It is the story of a couple who are living the American dream. They live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. They both have great jobs and he drives a BMW. When the movie opens, new sod is being placed in their front yard and a swimming pool is about to be dug in the back.

One morning, Jim Carey’s character, Dick Harper, shows up at work, a place called Globaldyne. His secretary tells him that he is wanted on one of the upper floors. It seems that the higher the floor, the more important the employee is. So Dick guesses, “Do they want me on the twenty-first floor?” His secretary, with her thumbs, motions for a higher number. Dick guesses again, “Do they want me on the thirty-first floor?” Again he is wrong. He guesses a third time. He asks, “They don’t want me on the fifty-first floor, do they?” His secretary smiles and says, “Yes, congratulations!”

You see, the fifty-first floor was where the penthouse was and an invitation up there meant a sure promotion to be the vice-president of something. So Dick Harper makes his way up there via the elevator. For many of the floors, he travels with a crowd, but when he nears the top, he is the only one. He starts to sing, as only Jim Carey can, a song made famous some years ago. The words are these, “I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every night and day, spread my wings and fly away. I believe I can soar. I see me running through that open door. I believe I can fly.”

There is something about the human spirit, that when there is a triumph of some kind, we talk about it using a metaphor, an image, a symbol, and that symbol usually involves something that flies. We talk about it in these terms. We say, “We rose above it.” We say that because everyone of us believes that there is something inside of us, that wants to reach the heights, that wants to strive for the best, that wants to overcome it all.

One of my favorite country music artists is Sara Evans. She sings about this kind of thing in one of her songs, where she belts out, “But how do you wait for heaven? And who has that much time? And how do you keep your feet on the ground, when you know that you were born to fly!”

Our scripture lesson for this morning, taken from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah’s prophesy, is one of the greatest in all of the Old Testament, maybe even in the Bible. It is what the prophet says to the Israelites when they were in exile in Babylonia. They had not always been there, of course. There was a time when they were the envy of any nation. Their cities were the best and the strongest there was not a temple in all of the world that was more beautiful than their’s in Jerusalem. It is safe to say that they were reaching the heights. They had soared and were among the greatest ever.

But that all changed. Their world came crashing down on them. They were attacked. Their beloved temple was destroyed. They were carried off to bondage. All of this happened as a result of their sin. You might say that they are where they are not because they soared too high, but because they stooped too low.

It is in their captivity that we catch up to them this morning. Isaiah’s words are supposed to be comforting and encouraging. He writes, “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint!”

Have you ever seen an eagle soaring? When I was a kid, I had the chance to go to Reelfoot State Park in western Tennessee, not far from my hometown. The state park was known for it’s wildlife, but particularly for its population of bald eagles. I only saw one. He was majestic. He was powerful. He was graceful. He was strong. He was commanding. I would have liked to have been up there flying with him, flying above it all, overcoming troubles, soaring!

Now let me say this to you. Soaring above something, rising higher than something, means that there has been something challenging in our lives. I’ve told the story. I’d like to tell it again this morning about the man who had a reputation of being eccentric. That is a big word for someone who is a character. He lived in the days just before the Wright brothers conquered flight. This man claimed that he had done just that, conquered flight. He invited his neighbors to come and watch his demonstration of that. They arrived and he appeared on the roof of his two storied house. He called down to the crowd and then placed a set of wings on his arms. Then he jumped. Everyone watched as he waved his arms furiously together for less than a minute. Then he fell to the ground. The gathered crowd helped him to his feet. When they were sure that he was all right, one of them asked, “I thought that you said that you conquered flight?” The man thought about it less than a second; he answered, “I did. I have conquered flight. It’s my landings that need a little work!”

I guess that if you are going to reach for the heights. If you are going to try to be the greatest, then you had better be prepared to land well. Beloved, we had better know how to land these days.

I remember hearing the story of a husband and wife who were blessed with a new daughter. From the very beginning, they knew that she was special. She was beautiful and smart; because her mind was so good, these two decided that they would protect their daughter. Their plan was to have private tutors to come into their home to mold her mind. They exposed her to the greatest things in life, to the fine arts, and other things like that. They sheltered her from the things that they thought would hurt her spirit. You might say that they taught her to soar. Somehow they were able to keep her from hearing what the real world was like. They didn’t allow her to watch the news. She never read a newspaper and so she didn’t know that the world outside of her world was one where there was cheating and lying, and deceit, the world that we all know too well.

She was extra-ordinarily bright and so when it was time, they let her go into the world. She enrolled in college and then quickly failed out. She married young and then quickly divorced. She was having a hard time coping with the real world. Then, when she was 23, she died tragically, in an accident. Five years after that, her mother mustered up the courage to read the journals that her daughter kept of those years. They journals were meticulous. Every thought that she had, she recorded. The mother read every word and when she was finished, she said to her husband, “There is no doubt that we taught our baby that she could soar, that she could reach the heights, to touch the stars. What we didn’t teach her to do was to land.”

It is said that we must give our children two things, roots and wings. Life is structured in such a way that you are supposed to fly. But it is also structured so that you will come down. When you do, you had better have good landing instructions.

You might say that the words in our Bibles are landing instructions. “They shall mount up with wings like eagles.” For the Israelites, Isaiah’s words come at the worst time in their history. A crash has happened. They have fallen. They are where they are because of their sins. They are, you might say, where all of us are when a crash has happened. Sometimes our world comes crashing in on us. The crash may be the news that someone we love has had a stroke and it doesn’t look good; we’re told to get home in a hurry. Sometimes the crash is the news that the job won’t be our’s anymore, that the teenager is in trouble again, that the prognosis is not good, that death is inevitable. After the crash and after you have dealt with the effects of it; you have a decision to make. What will you do? Will you stay there on the ground, or will you get up?

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells a great story in his book Who Needs God. It is the story of what he did after the death of his son. It happened in the summer of 1981. He told his family that as a part of his journey back, he was going to get into shape and run in the Falmouth Road Race, a seven mile mini-marathon. His family was supportive and to help him get into shape, his daughter bought him a t-shirt. One the back she had printed, “Isaiah 40:31.” The words are part of our lesson today. “Those who trust in the Lord will have their strength renewed. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not grow weary.” The shirt didn’t make the rabbi a champion, but says Kushner, “That verse has been very important to me ever since. It teaches me where to find God in this unpredictable and often discouraging world. God is the power that replenishes, that renews our strength when we have seemed to use all of our’s up!” I am with the rabbi on this one. My strength, too, has been tried and even tested this year. It has for several reasons. One is the death of my sister. There are others. To be honest with you, if it were not for the strength of God, I would not have had any strength at all!

What do we do? Do we stay in one place? Do we not try again? Do we not risk it all again? Do we not love again? Do we not trust again? Do we wait for the other shoe to drop? Do we live in fear? The best way to not be disillusioned is to have no illusions. If you strive for the best, most likely you will disappoint and be disappointed if you reach for the stars, you might fall a little short. So what do you do?

I remember reading about an interview that happened with the president of the Rolls Royce Car Company. Rolls Royce cars, of course, are very fine. The interviewer asked this question, “Sir, do Rolls Royce cars every break down?” The man thought about it for a minute; then he said, “No, sir, Rolls Royce cars never break down. But sometimes they temporarily fail to proceed.”

When you are knocked to the ground, it may be that way for you. So what do you do? Listen again to the promise of the prophet, “But those who wait for the Lord those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Sara Evans is right. We are born to fly. Let us pray.