Praying for Ferguson’s Divided Highway

Sunday August 24, 2014

{This is the homily I preached this past Sunday evening during our prayer service for Ferguson. RL}

In Isaiah 35, the prophet offers words of comfort to God’s people in exile who are grieving the loss of their loved ones, their homes, their freedoms, even their dignity. To address these staggering losses, Isaiah gives them an even more staggering promise: one day, God will lead them home in what can only be described as a joyful homecoming parade.  

            And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

the unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

             No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there. 

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isaiah 35:8-13)

This colorful vision, with its high-definition clarity of the new heavens and new earth, has always been important to me.  But, in light of recent events in Ferguson, it has meant even more. Most of the drama in Ferguson has played out on a short stretch of West Florissant Avenue which, on most days, would pass as a typical suburban street.  There’s a Quik Trip on the corner, a Subway on the other, and a Walmart just a few blocks north.  It is also not far from the spot where 18 year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed.  In the sad days that followed, West Florissant Avenue became what many journalists termed a “war zone.”  One even referred to it as the “Road into 'Fergustan.'”  For weeks, we witnessed the troubling scene unfold on television as military assault vehicles rolled past McDonalds’ arches and plums of tear gas enveloped the neighborhood BBQ joint.  As darkness fell on West Florissant each night (and the camera lights flicked on to capture the action), many people took to the street to seek peace.  Others arrived seeking trouble.  But this much was clear: West Florissant was a divided highway.  The police on one side, gripping their batons, and the people on the other, clenching their fists. 

Thankfully, West Florissant Avenue was quiet last night.  I pray it stays that way for a long time.  But the past two weeks leave me desperate for more than just a tranquil street for the people of Ferguson.  I want a transformed one.  Not a highway divided but a highway united.  Not a highway full of angry chants for justice but a highway full of songs of grace.  Not a street where thugs hold good people ransom but a street populated by the ransomed of the Lord.  Not a protest march but a parade of nations.  Not a street where mothers grieve dead sons but a street where ‘sorrow and sighing’ flee from the Presence of the Living God.  Not a road to nowhere but the road to Zion.  I want it all: the freedom, the music, the holiness, the everlasting joy, and the gladness.  I want everything Isaiah promises and the Risen Jesus guarantees. I want it, all of it -- not just for Ferguson -- I want it for me and for you.  I want it for every square inch of this creation that creaks and groan under the weight of sin. I want God to deliver on the jaw-dropping promise of a new heavens and a new earth.  Everything I know about Him screams that He will.  As the song we heard tonight puts it: “His promises shall never be unmade.  Though we wait we do not wait in vain.”   

Though we wait...And while we wait, we pray.  We pray the words our King taught us to pray, “Our Father...Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  And we work.  We work wherever our King has called us to offer glimpses of the future Way of Holiness on our present broken streets.  And we worship. We worship Jesus Who walked His own lonely road, and faced His own angry mob, and endured His own war zone -- all out of love for us and His commitment to lead us all home.