The Presumption of Pentecost--5-23-10

Scripture--Acts 2: 1-21  Click here to go to Bible Gateway

              Ah, Pentecost, that wild and crazy day, where any attempt to harness the working of the Spirit is doomed to fail and any attempt to control what God is doing is burned in the same amazing fire that brings to us the gift of the Holy Spirit…Pentecost, that day that turned those passionate followers into a movement, is full of the movement of God is ways unheard of and with a passion that spread beyond the precious few.  Pentecost, frightening for some, uncomfortable for many, just couldn’t be contained.  The Holy Spirit was loose—it was a day when God showed us what it would mean to let go and let God take over. 

                The early followers, Luke tells us there were about 120 of them, had stayed in Jerusalem, just like Jesus told them to.  They had gathered in a room for the week and had been constantly praying since the time that Jesus left them last week.  Finally, the day of Pentecost arrives.  Now, most of the time, we Christians forget that Pentecost meant something before we came along…sitting here in the shadow of this Temple’s altar, we are encouraged to remember the great link between what came before and what happens next.  “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word pentekostos, which means “fiftieth”.  It refers to the feast held 50 days after Passover.  Two Jewish feasts have and can be celebrated:  The Feast of the Harvest explained in Exodus 23 or the Feast of Weeks, explained in Leviticus.  Many centuries later, after the Jewish peoples were exiled to Babylon, Pentecost became one of the most important Jewish feasts and the Jews now scattered around the ancient world made an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship together as a people.  It is into this scene that God sent the Holy Spirit—like a mighty rushing wind.      In the midst of this gathering of people from all over  the world, a gathering of people who spoke at least 15 languages, the miracle happened. 

                Picture yourself among the disciples:  A sound rips from the sky without warning, the roar of an unbelievably violent wind—the whole house is shaking.  Then a giant flame appears, divides itself into smaller flames and leaps from one person to the next.  Everyone present receives the Holy Spirit—no one is excluded and a sign is given—people start speaking in languages they have never spoken before.   However, let us not be content with assuming that this speaking is the miracle—for it is not.  The great promise of Pentecost is not that people were speaking new languages—the great promise of Pentecost is found in what happens next.

                Luke tells us that, because of the holidays, Jerusalem was filled with people from all over the world—you heard the list (and were all probably grateful that it wasn’t your turn to read the scripture today).  And these people, many of whom knew nothing of Jesus and his disciples got the shock of their lives—they could understand what these people were saying—everyone of them—no one was excluded from hearing his or her own language.  And this, my friends, is the presumption of Pentecost—that the gift of God’s Holy Spirit is for everyone, regardless of the language they speak or the history they bring to the table.  For in the understanding of what these followers of Jesus are saying, comes the realization that something important is going on.  And God uses common people speaking in uncommon ways to illustrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who had yet to receive it.

                Language is the most important aspect of being relational beings.  We talk to each other.  We use language to bind us together and we use language to tear us apart.  Whole peoples have been subjugated throughout history because they “couldn’t speak the language”.  Not so different even today, language continues to set us apart.  And God used language on that day to show us in no uncertain terms, just how wide and vast, and plentiful the Spirit of God is.  The Church, thoughout history, has used the Pentecost event to set us Christians apart—but this is not what God was doing—this is what we did with God’s actions, quite frankly, after the fact.  And so, this mighty presumption of Pentecost is that nothing sets us apart, when we are joined with the Spirit of God—that language barriers and barriers of every kind are broken down.  AND, this is where we find our greatest challenge.

                Before returning to our challenge, let’s finish our story—people are amazed to hear their own language, but not for long—as soon as the wow factor wears off—we humans are a fickle lot—they immediately fixate on finding an explanation.  “These people are drunk”, they say.  Now Peter’s immediate response has always tickled me a little—“Of course, they’re not drunk, it’s only 9:00 in the morning.”  Always made me kinda glad that the Holy Spirit arrived in the morning and not at Happy Hour.  But, Peter goes on and, really, quite brilliantly, links what is happening to words from the prophet Joel: 

" 'In the last days, God says,
      I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
   Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
      your young men will see visions,
      your old men will dream dreams.
 Even on my servants, both men and women,
      I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
      and they will prophesy.
 I will show wonders in the heaven above
      and signs on the earth below,
      blood and fire and billows of smoke…” 

                Pretty fast thinking, when you think about it…don’t know that I would have had the presence of mind, in the midst of flames of fire leaping, people talking in 15 languages at once, and hecklers making rude comments from the peanut gallery, to quote scripture.  Let’s you know that God had a plan and knew that Peter would, indeed, rise to the occasion and preach quite a sermon for all who would listen.  He tells them of Jesus, of His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension.  At the end of the sermon, Peter calls them to acknowledge that everything being told to them about Jesus is true—and to believe.  Many did and Luke notes that 3,000 of those people were baptized and joined with them ‘that very day’. 

                But, consistent with the presumption of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit is for all, it was these people from all over the known world, speaking different languages, believing different things about worship, scripture, and God, that came together to become a community.  We get stuck on wanting a ‘common language’.  God tells us through Pentecost that the commonality that yields community is in the very gift of the Holy Spirit.  We gather to worship and be together in community because the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit who visited on Pentecost—places the invitation in our hearts.  It does not matter that many of our languages are different, Protestant-speak, Catholic-speak, never went to church-speak, female-speak, male-speak, old-speak, young-speak are all transcended and transformed by the same Spirit that calls us together.  And this is the presumption of Pentecost, that whoever we are and wherever we come from, there is room at the Table of Blessings. 

                The Pentecost lesson to the Church is this:  When we trust God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and we allow that same Holy Spirit to minister and speak through us, we will speak in languages that others understand.  It is not about needing to be understood, it is about being willing to be understood by those who need to experience what we have to offer.  We are a new community in a very old one—and Pentecost comes again every time we open ourselves up to the presumption of Pentecost—that there is plenty of God to go around, that the Spirit will enable us to speak in ways that others understand, and that Jesus, the crucified and risen, is the reason we gather this day and every day we gather.  We are blessed and we are blessing…over the next several weeks I will be inviting us to look at ways to become a blessing community—to reach out and share what we have experienced—to find new ways to bring blessings to ourselves, to each other, and to those who have not yet found this place or this Spirit. 

                May we be blessed in the knowledge that God reaches out to us and sends people to speak to us in ways that we can understand.  May we be blessed in being those whom God sends out to others.  May we be blessed indeed.  Amen and amen!

Can I Get a Witness? Sermon Preached on May 16, 2010

Scripture:  A reading from Luke Chapter 24:

Then Jesus said to them, "Remember the words I spoke when I was still with you; everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled."  Then Jesus opened their minds to the understanding of the scriptures, saying, "That is why the scriptures say that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.  In the Messiah's name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of all this.  Take note:  I am sending forth what Abba God has promised to you.  Remain here in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high."  Then Jesus took them to the outskirts of Bethany, and with upraised hands blessed the disciples.  While blessing them, the Savior left them and was carried up to heaven.  The disciples worshipped the risen Christ and returned to Jerusalem full of joy.  They were found in the Temple constantly, speaking the praises of God.  

                I took my title for this sermon from an age-old sermon technique perfected by many of my African-American brothers and sisters, who lovingly insert this question after a particularly significant pronouncement in a sermon.  Such as “Following Jesus can change your life!  Can I get a witness?”  Now, many times it is a rhetorical question, one which requires no answer, but sometimes  the answer cries out through the crowd with a “yes, amen, yes!”  Jesus does not ask the disciples if they are a witness, He tells them it is so.  Where does this leave us?  Now, most of us  don’t much like witnessing, some of us come from the very traditions that give witnessing a bad name , and many of us think that it is simply not for us—but Jesus tells us otherwise and today, we look at all that this means. 

                The departure of Jesus from the earth is a watershed event in the story of the disciples and, consequently in the movement that became the early church.  The disciples, in one brief moment, with a blessing from their Teacher, are changed into apostles—that is from those who follow to those that are sent.  And, in reality, the option to be merely disciples, to study at the feet of Jesus, abruptly ends at the close of these forty days of random, yet faithfully recorded times of walking with the risen Jesus.  Jesus, in the raising of His arms and the bestowing his final earthly blessing points the disciples away from the inward gazing that accompanies the soaking up of Jesus’ resurrected words and re-focuses them outward toward others—other people, other places, other tasks. 

                And so here we are, at Ascension.  It’s an awesome and awe-filled event.  Painters have tried to capture it for centuries—what we usually have is Jesus, arms up and outstretched, magically levitating up, up, up until he disappears into the clouds.  I don’t remember what I thought about this as a child, but at some point, those pictures must have come into conflict with what I was learning about the universe.  So, right from the jump, we are asked to suspend our critical minds, and focus on what Jesus was telling the disciples and, therefore, us.  It simply becomes, for most of us, unnecessary for us to argue about where Jesus actually went.   For where Jesus went is not the crux of the story—what He left behind is…

Throughout the centuries, we, as humans, have understood and portrayed the events of the life of Jesus according to our current level of understanding.  So, while we know that the three-story universe, that is, hell, earth and then heaven, is out of sync with the pictures we see from shuttles and space stations, it does not change the significance or meaning of the event.  Jesus was gone, really gone this time.  In Acts, the story we read in our Lukan passage is told again.  Nothing much is different except for the appearance of two beings dressed in white.  These visitors ask the question of the day, “Why are you standing here staring up into the sky?  Jesus is leaving you, ascending to heaven and won’t be seen again until He returns”.  This was enough for the disciples, they returned to Jerusalem just as Jesus told them to.

Let’s take a closer look at our Gospel passage today.  Jesus did four things in his final speech as recorded by Luke:  He taught them AGAIN.  To these disciples who always seem to need to hear everything at least twice, He says, “Remember the words I spoke when I was still with you; everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled."  Knowing how challenged both the disciples and we are concerning these things, he continues and “opened their minds to the understanding of the scriptures, saying, ‘That is why the scriptures say that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.  In the Messiah's name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”  AND He reminds them that they have already witnessed all of this. 

                And then he gives them the promise of the Holy Spirit—that which “Abba God has promised to you.”    Thirdly, he gives them specific directions: “Remain here in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high."  Finally, Jesus blessed them.  Taking them to “the outskirts of Bethany” He raises His hands and blesses the disciples.  In the midst of the blessing, He is “carried up to heaven”.   Just like that, He is gone.  Something is different this time though.  These disciples, notoriously slow in understanding, get it.  Luke records:  “The disciples worshipped the risen Christ and returned to Jerusalem full of joy.  They were found in the Temple constantly, speaking the praises of God.” 

                Some of us may merely breathe a sigh of relief—at long last, these disciples who we have watched struggle to understand who Jesus is and what He is about, finally understand and forthwith return to Jerusalem, full of Joy, praising God, and waiting in the Temple for the fulfillment of the promise.  These disciples, and consequently, we, understand that Jesus cannot stay on this earth.  We are ready for Jesus to return to God, and to move into the next stage of the Gospel.  No more limited by an earthly, even if resurrected, body constraining Him to be in specific locations, Jesus returns to God who will send the Holy Spirit who can and will be everywhere.  And here, is where Jesus asks us:  Can I get a witness?  Jesus calls us to be witnesses to everything we have seen, and everything we know.  And most of all to everything that is yet to come, no time for basking in the ‘good old days’ when Jesus was with us, time to move on and take it to the world, from Jerusalem to beyond.

                And so we find ourselves in that very place here today.  Jesus raises his arms, blesses us and is gone, leaving it to us to carry on, to carry out, to carry beyond these walls this good news.  Can I get a witness?  

                We know of people still lost to the good news that God loves us just as we are; can I get a witness?

                We know of people estranged from their families, searching for somewhere to call home, to find a place of safety and acceptance; can I get a witness?

                We know of young people, rejected from their families, bullied by their friends, longing for someone, anyone to love them; can I get a witness?

                We know of people just like us, living in lands where being ‘just like us’ is a crime punishable by death; can I get a witness?

                We know of people hungry for food, and for a safe place to live; can I get a witness?

                We know of drug addicts and alcoholics, suffering from unmanageable lives, looking for someone to show them the way; can I get a witness?

                We know of elderly people, alone and lonely in their homes with no one to stop by or care; can I get a witness?

                These, my friends are not rhetorical questions.  When Jesus asks the question, an answer is required and this very church is poised to answer all these questions and more.  What will our answer be?  Will we fulfill the call to be the living, breathing, moving witnesses in this place and beyond?  I believe that we can.  Will we work together to take the gospel of justice and peace and acceptance  beyond these walls?  I believe that we will. 

                This week the disciples wait for power from on high—we do not need to wait, we have already been given the gift of God’s spirit to empower, embolden, and turn our focus from looking to the sky.  Next week we will celebrate and remember the giving of that great gift—what better way to say “thank you” is there than to bring the gospel to someone who needs it this week—however they need it, in a touch, a call, a welcome, and invitation to come to this place…Jesus calls:  Can I get a witness?  And we answer: Yes!

Amen, yes, and amen.

A Holy Reminder--Sermon Preached on May 9, 2010

Scripture Reading:    John 14:23-29    (click to go to scripture)

                            

                Anybody ever tied a string around their finger to remind them of something?  How about put a note by the front door?  The old rubber band around the wrist, maybe?  We need reminding of things and Jesus knew that well.  And so, in this passage, one of several in John where Jesus is teaching his disciples in direct words of His coming death and his eventual leaving, Jesus gives them and us the promise of the Holy Spirit.  The verse that precedes our passage is a question by one of the disciples:  Judas, the other one, not Iscariot, asked Jesus, “Why will You reveal Yourself to us, but not the world?”

                Jesus responds, "Anyone who loves me will observe my teaching. God will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  Now, while most translations use the word obey, some of those who do the work of looking for the precise meanings of the Greek words for those of us who don’t speak Greek, disagree. They question whether or not “obey” is the correct translation for tereo, which is the word used by John here.  Brian P. Stoffregen, for example says that there are several words that can be used here:  “keep watch over, guard, keep, hold, reserve, preserve someone or something, keep = not lose, keep = protect, keep, observe, fulfill, pay attention to”.  He instead uses the phrase “hold dear” because he argues that if we merely translate the word as obey we miss the interconnectedness between the first and second halves of the sentence—that is, loving Jesus and keeping His commandments are so inter-related that we cannot do one without doing the other. 

                David Ewart tells us that “This response needs to be understood as John trying to describe [living in] unity - the interconnected relatedness - of Jesus and his followers. To be a follower is to have and keep Jesus' commandments / teachings; to keep Jesus' commandments is to love him; to love Jesus is to also be loved by Jesus; to be loved by Jesus is to also be loved by the one who loves Jesus - his [Abba God]; to be loved by Jesus and [Abba God] is to abide in them; to abide in them is to keep Jesus' commandments. (And remember that here "love" means fully devoted compassion.)” 

Now, before we throw up our hands and say, “this is way too complicated”, let’s break it down and see how it fits.  If-then statements help those of us who want logical steps even if those logical steps land us in a circle as they do here. 

If we follow Jesus, we not only know Jesus’ teachings, we keep or follow them.

If we keep or follow Jesus’ commandments, we love Him.

If we love Jesus, then we are also loved by Jesus.

If we are loved by Jesus, then we are loved by the one who loves Jesus, Abba God.

If we are loved by Jesus and God, then we abide in them.

If we abide in them, then we keep Jesus’ teachings.  

And so we are back to where we started, but somehow breaking it down like that helps me understand the steps.  What John is insistent upon our understanding is that it is all a part of the whole.  For John, you cannot take even one of these sentences out of the context and have the same reality.   John, the most complex of the Gospel writers is seeing things in a spiral, not a straight line and this challenges most of our contemporary, technological, cut to the point kind of thinking.  Even so, we seek to follow Jesus’ teachings.  Nevertheless, in spite of our good intentions, Jesus knows that we may need some help remembering to keep or hold dear his teachings.  On top of this, Jesus has been speaking to the disciples for awhile and He knows that they are confused about what is going to happen.  And so, the promise of the gift is given:  the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate who will come upon them once Jesus is gone.  

Jesus’ words about the Holy Spirit or God’s Spirit are not only interesting, they challenge us to think outside the box about living or abiding in God.  Jesus says that the Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter will do two things:  the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and will remind us of all that Jesus taught us.  The challenge here is in recognizing that Jesus is not saying that this is the end of the road for learning about God, that all that one ever learns stops when one leaves the recorded teachings of Jesus.  Jesus, himself, says to us: “there is more coming and the Spirit will teach you of those things.”  God will continue to be revealed through the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.  In the midst of new teachings, the Holy Spirit will continue to remind us of what we already know from Jesus.  And this is all part of the inter-connectedness of which Jesus speaks.

Then the passage continues into even more difficult territory—Jesus knows this and starts this portion of the emotional and mental journey by assuring the disciples that He is giving them peace—and not just any peace, but His peace—not from the world, but peace that comes from fully abiding in everything we have learned thus far.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  Jesus prepares us for His next statement and asks us to trust Him and not be afraid.”  He tells them He is going away—going to be with God, but going away, nevertheless.   

I have spoken to you before of sacred contradictions—of holding two truths that appear to be at odds at once and accepting the reality of them both.  We are headed directly into one such sacred contradiction and Jesus is inviting the disciples and us to embrace what seems to us contradictory, but for Jesus, is all a part of the larger whole—a larger whole which most of us struggle to see.  Simply put, He is going away, and He wants them to be happy—happy not just for Him, although He is returning to God, but also happy for themselves and ourselves, because with Jesus gone from this earth, both the disciples and we have the opportunity to do the real work of loving Jesus—of keeping His commandments—of taking the gospel to the rest of the world.  When He says, “if you loved me”, I believe that He is actually saying, “if you understood what it means to love me, if you had the concept of living and abiding in me and in God, you would be happy that we are moving into the next phase of what is supposed to happen.”

Rev. Suzanne Guthrie, an Episcopal priest who I once had the privilege of knowing, now lives as a spiritual guide to a convent of nuns in New York, has these reflections on our journey with Jesus today so far.  “Could the extraordinary circumstances of resurrected encounter have lasted forever? Could these men and women have remained in that first union of intimate and personal friendship with the risen Lord?... Winding through those last discourses in John is this message: You must go on. There’s more. You are not finished with your journey, you are not yet mature apostles. This is merely a resting place. …  Easter is not the end after all. Easter is not the final destination for the disciples… Nor is Easter the final destination of the church. Easter begins the transition between one reality and another. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit cannot take place in that outer garden where Jesus has not yet ascended to [God], where he has presence and voice, wounds open to the touch, where he is the risen Lord of a hot breakfast and a marvelous catch of fish.”

No, in fact, those resurrection experiences could not go on, for if they had, the story of the Church and the legacy of Jesus’ life and teachings would have come to a screeching halt right then and there.  So we are challenged to let go of Jesus’ earthly resurrected presence and prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit, this holy reminder of all that has been and guide into all that is still to come.  And finally, Jesus wants us to know(before it even happens) that everything that is about to happen is part of God’s plan—that God is in control.  The fact, let me repeat, the fact, that God is in control and that earthly events are moving to fulfill God’s plan is the source of the peace that Jesus promises.  And so, we move boldly, fearlessly, steadfastly into the next scene of God’s great story revealed to us in Jesus Christ—ever confident that this holy reminder will tell us all we need to know.  Amen and amen.             

The land of the Never Ending Wow!

Welcome, my friends to the Land of the Never-Ending Wow!  Before you decide that I’ve lost my ever-loving mind, come with me to that place of pure joy, of newness at every corner turn and constant astonishment at God’s working in our midst.    I’ve never preached from Revelation before, because I lacked the courage to move beyond the complicated and complex arguments surrounding the “true meaning behind this somewhat confusing and challenging set of prophecies”.  As I grow older, I no longer find myself entangled in theological conquests to know all there is to know.  I am content to know what I need to know at this moment and so, have approached this absolutely beautiful passage from the Revelation to John in that spirit and in God’s Spirit who reveals the truth of these words for our lives today. 

The author of Revelation is John, an apostle.  He writes down his visions and prophecies on the Isle of Patmos in the Agean Sea.  He sends his prophecies in letters to the early churches in what was then Asia Minor.  These churches are hardy, healthy churches, but they are facing persecution.  John’s prophesies are intended to convey that the victory has already been won, that Satan, as they described the forces of evil in John’s world, has already been vanquished.  John’s images defy our imagination, even with all the special effects available to film makers in the 21^st century, we would have a hard time capturing these visions.  One Bible commentator writes:  “John writes of what he sees and hears in his vision.  Sometimes he hears one thing but turns to see something altogether different.  Sometimes he sees multiple images of the same event as if he views it from different perspectives.  ..John’s apocalyptic images challenge the imagination.  …Many of the images come from the Hebrew prophetic literature of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.”  This commentary goes on to suggest that the ancient world, steeped in those prophetic teachings of the early prophets probably had much less trouble than we do grasping the significance of these strange sights and pronouncements.  I would agree. 

And, so, today we come to John’s culminating vision—this vision that proclaims that all is new.  John sees a new heaven and a new earth for the old heaven and earth have passed away.  Including both heaven AND earth, John’s prophecy calls us to see that EVERYTHING is different, and not just in some heavenly afterlife, but right here on the earth.  The voice that John has been hearing for some 20+ chapters now shouts:  Look, God’s home is now among God’s people!  God will live with them and they will be God’s people!”  This is as ‘earthy’ as it gets.  God is making a home with us, living in our midst, making all things new.  And that, my friends, is why I chose to bring this passage from the several I had available.  This newness that God is making is here in our midst, in our lives, in our communities.  And we, must simply look up and claim the newness that God has already promised. 

In researching this sermon I came across the work of a Celtic priest, John O’Donohue.  Some of you may already know of his work, but I read one poem and was hooked.  Not that he wrote about Revelation, as far as I know, he didn’t.  But he wrote beautifully of experiencing God’s newness.  Listen:

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding

For just a moment, put yourselves in this poem.  Like a river, we travel through life, with all its twists and turns—like a river through the forests, never knowing what is just around the bend, but daring to go forward anyway and fueled by the surprise that greets us just around a corner.  I can see myself, first in a deep, dense forest, then breaking free into a sunny, brightly lit meadow, before heading into a wooded canyon.  There are places where my riverbank is steep, cutting through harsh and untamed places in my life.  And there are places where my riverbanks are broad and wide allowing for peaceful travel past already resolved spaces and paths.  Fr. John O’Donohue died in 2008, in one online blog devoted to Celtic spirituality; one person posted this about him:  “John was that rare being who lived what he wrote and went wildly and dangerously fresh into each day.”  And so I thought, what a wonderful tribute—and how I would love for my friends to say that about me when I am no longer here—to go “wildly and dangerously fresh into each day.”

I want to share one more poem of this Celtic priest and poet before returning to God’s working among us and within us in this passage from Revelation.  This poem is called For a New Beginning: 

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

And so we return to this new heaven and new earth that God has made for us.  Let me repeat that—that God has made for us.  God calls us to “Look!” for all things are being made new by this same God who now lives among us.  The old, absent landlord God of the Old Testament is replaced with the God who lives on the same block as we do.  And this God, who came first to earth as Jesus of Nazareth, comes again in the Holy Spirit and indwells in the Wow! which informs every second of every day.  I turn the corner in my mind and see the beauty God pours into my life with new eyes.  And the Wow! is there waiting for me to notice.  Here is a simple story about such a discovery by Martha McCallum who at 86 described this experience:

“One morning I was sitting at my kitchen table, staring into space.  It was one of those windy days when the sun keeps coming out and going in.  All of a sudden, a sunbeam crossed my kitchen table and lit up my crystal saltshaker.  There were all kinds of colors and sparkles.  It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.  But you know, that very same saltshaker had been on that kitchen table for over fifty years.  Surely there must have been other mornings when the sun crossed the table like that, but I was just too busy getting things done.  I wondered what else I’d missed.  I realized this was it, this was grace.”

This, then, is the new heaven and new earth that God calls us to see.  And God says, “Look!”  And God goes on to say, “It is finished!  I am the Alpha and the Omega—  To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.”  God, living among us, making a home among us, being with us, says, just as Jesus said to the woman at the well, if you are thirsty for meaning, for hope, for peace—turn to the living springs of the water of life.  God calls us to believe in the ever-changing, ever more beautiful gracings of the gifts of the new creation.  We walk into that new world because see with new eyes—eyes made new by same God who says,  “I am all you need—the beginning and the end.” 

You may wonder where I came up with the title for this sermon—I was thinking about the meaning of the word “new”.  And from that I got to N E W= Never-ending wow!.  Sorta helps me remember what God is talking about—a world so new that every time I open myself up to experience the beauty of God’s working in our midst, it is “Wow!”  And if I am always open, the wow! is, indeed, never ending.  Wow, wow, and amen!