A Whole New Thing!
A Whole New Thing!
A Sermon for Pleasant Street Church
Rev. Reebee Girash
March 21, 2010
Text: Isaiah 43: 16-21
Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 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. 20 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, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
Prayer
Sermon
They just couldn’t do it this year.
The United Church of Christ of Medfield couldn’t do, this winter, what they’ve done every winter for years: take a retreat together, out in the woods, skiiing, eating, enjoying each other. In this year’s difficult economy the leadership decided it was time to let go of this tradition. The money wasn’t there.
And I am sure, they were disappointed. We have been there, haven’t we? We just can’t do it this year…
But God said, I am about to do a new thing!
And the leadership of that church, they listened! They let go of the old in order to embrace a whole new thing.
This year, Medfield was part of a whole new thing! 321 people spend a Saturday serving in their community, instead of a weekend skiing. 321 people were part of a whole new thing! They called it “Mission: Possible.” And they’re not done yet! (March 18, 2010 – ucc.org/news) It started with them saying, we just can’t do it this year. Then, God said, so don’t do that anymore. Do a whole new thing!
18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 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.
Sometimes, it’s easy, to see that new thing God is doing.
There are days when life is so good you just want to shout, praise God! Thank you, God! When things are so right that it wells up from deep inside you, and you have to say, God is good! All the time! All the time, God is good!
Days when you can see it: that new thing. The day when there are twelve kids in your Sunday School class. The day your tax refund arrives. The day you sign a contract to have your basement renovated – guaranteed dry. The day your daughter says her first words. The day the crocuses bloom. Oooh, God is good. You can see it.
And then there are the days when your vision is blurry and you can’t quite see it. You can’t quite see that new thing.
Days when the basement floods. Days when you have sent out 50 resumes. Days when you haven’t sent out any. Days when your child is sick. Days when even church is not a refuge, because you look around you and you see fewer people, less money, and chipping paint, and all you can think here, is, we can’t do it anymore.
Moments of wilderness, when you cannot see the way, when the water is a flood, not a river in the desert.
Moments of deep Lent, you know, when you can see the cross but not the empty tomb.
Moments when you are in exile, wishing you could be back home; back in your favorite sanctuary.
Friends, that is exactly when Isaiah was speaking to the people. They were in exile, in crisis, and that is exactly when God said, I am about to do a new thing!
All the time, even when you are in exile, God is good!
You were here in January when Sister Sarah and Sister Claire Marie testified to the Haitian people’s faith – that in the aftermath of an earthquake, they could say it: God is good. They chose to proclaim it, God is good.
God is doing a new thing in our world.
Part of our challenge, is to do what the Israelites in exile had to do: to believe in that new thing, in that future. They couldn’t see it, any better than we can. Isaiah said, hey, God’s going to make everything right again – but what they could see right at that moment was Babylon. Isaiah asked them to believe. To look into the future. To perceive something imperceptible.
God is still speaking – can we listen?
The water is right there in the desert – are we ready to see it?
A colleague of mine (Laura Ruth Jarrett) will preach it this way today: you have to choose to move from dread to joy. When life is hard, dance. When there’s a challenge, tell a joke. It’s a choice.
The world is enough of a mess, this building is enough of a mess, this church is enough of a mess, that you could give up. You could sit down and weep.
There’s a time for that, it’s true. Ecclesiastes even says it: there’s a time to weep.
The Psalmists say it over and over – like Psalm 137 – about the very same exile Isaiah preaches about “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept, when we remembered Zion.” (Psalm 137:1) But have you noticed, at the end of every Psalm of Lament, there is a choice to hope: “The Lord will fulfill God’s purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever!”
And that’s the word of Isaiah, too: to people in exile, Isaiah challenges: dry your tears, be part of what God is doing! Behold! Restoration! Hope! A Whole new thing!
Do you not perceive it?
My friends, this is the week when we are asking you to be part of our Stewardship Campaign for Pleasant Street Church. I know, the timing seems a little strange. We aren’t quite sure where we’re going to be in 6 months, or a year. We’re in the wilderness, and we’re asking you to stay part of that wilderness journey. We keep telling you, there is a new thing that God is doing, that we will be invited to be part of. But right now, it’s not quite visible.
What is visible is the past:
The former glory, and the all-too-recent floods. We want to run back to the heyday. We want to run away from the floods. But God calls us to move toward the future.
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
About this challenge, Paul Tillich, the great theologian, writes “We cannot be born anew if the power of the old is not broken within us.” (The Shaking of the Foundation)
Many of us treasure that which is old around us: old traditions, old buildings, old friends, even those long past.
And many of us reject the past, rebel against it.
In both cases, the past has a power over us that Tillich says it should not.
I’m not asking you to totally let the past go, to forget it, to banish it completely. I don’t have the gumption that God and Isaiah had, to tell you not even to consider the things of old. But I am asking you: to choose to believe that there is a future, a whole new thing, that you can perceive, that you can be part of, that you can even help to bring about. You can’t do it if the past controls you.
When we chose as a congregation, to make a change and to work toward merger, we chose future over past.
We did that as a congregation. And we’ll be called upon soon, as a congregation, to choose future over past, once more.
In the Stewardship Process, however, we’re being asked to do that as individuals. You may look at the next year and see uncertainty. I see potential. I see God, doing a whole new thing. I see congregations and merger groups and strategic visioning committees who want God to do a whole new thing, and to do it in their midst, with their support and enthusiasm and participation.
“16 Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 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. 20 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, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.”
This church asks you to choose to perceive that new thing God is about to do. To choose to be part of it. To choose, even when it’s hard, to dance.
Friends, I don’t know exactly what will happen to my job in the next year.
I do know that my living expenses have gone up since we moved.
And I know all the other obligations I have.
But on faith, choosing to believe in the future, choosing to believe that God is doing a whole new thing here, and that God is good, all the time, John and I have chosen to maintain our pledge to this church. I don’t like talking about money, but I figure it’s pretty important for you to know that as your pastor, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, because I and my family believe that God is doing a new thing here.
This is the week some of you will decide what to pledge. (Some of you already have, and that’s wonderful.) If you are deciding whether to give, or how much to give, I would urge you:
Give, because you aren’t just giving to the church – you are giving to God.
Give, because you believe that God is at work here.
Give, because you choose to believe that God is doing a whole new thing.
Give because you want to be part of that.
Give, because you know, the stronger our stewardship is, the stronger a merger partner we make.
Give, whether you think the past was good or bad, because you choose to believe that the future is going to be better.
Give to declare your praise to God.
Because God is good. All the time. Amen.