A New Heaven and A New Earth

A sermon by Rev. Larry Fry

College Avenue UMC

November 17, 2013

Very soon our children will again lift our spirits in a Christmas program.  “A Piece of Christmas” takes place on December 15 and you do not want to miss it.  As I repeat again, our children are not perfect, and we are not perfect.  But God blesses us by our participation.  God guides us in our journeys.

Let’s watch this young man who knows the books of the New Testament in order, better than I do.   

He also knows George Strait songs far better than most.  It is always funnier if you are not the parent. 

The whole Bible is a love story about God, to us, from God.  It is in the participation that we discover it is a love letter for us.  Over and over, God makes loving covenants with us, hoping we will be faithful.  Over and over we break the covenants and God works again to restore them.

Isaiah is, in my opinion, the grandest prophet.  He presents to us a glorious vision.  It is God’s dream and one that drives us.  Isaiah invites ancient Israel, and us, to move beyond all that is broken and dysfunctional in the old world.  God is, all day long, working for good in the world, creation a new heaven and a new earth.

A new existence is to be the center of God’s future.  It is a place where all nations, all people will have access to the goodness and guidance of God.  The vision is one of the most powerful of all the Bible.  Infant mortality was a big problem then and it is still is.  Courtney Fowler has alerted us and to other to the need for better Maternal Care in Third World countries.  The Church Ladies have made birthing kits so that some far away have a better chance of delivering a baby with less risk of infection.  In more developed countries children now have the blessing of incredible health care possibilities.  Even the pain of childbirth is eased by modern methods.  Fewer will die because there will be clean water and medicines.  These are some of the ways the United Methodist Church is in mission in 1000’s of places.

Here is pictured a better communication and closeness between God and God’s people.  There can be a closeness that God will address needs even before those needs are spoken.  This intense closeness comes when we know God’s intense love for God’s people.  The vision of God is a people with greater discipleship with vitality and courage and consistency and compassion.  This is the Kingdom of God.

The people in every troubled land want the same thing: a house to call home, some land to call your own, food and water and education.

The vision is of older people living long lives.  In our day of home health care, we see people living longer lives.  We also live in a day when we are cutting services to keep people healthy.  For example Shawnee County just cut the six home health care professionals from their budget.  The older adults served by them will more quickly now enter nursing care facilities. 

I am convinced that God is calling us to join in the renewing the universe.  And we get to help with that.  Our food packing event last weekend provided over 2,000 meals.  When they get to their destination their village will know greater health and joy.  Please look at the photos on our website and see the joy in the faces of our children as they got to help, even the littlest ones. 

Our church teachers help us become new by touching our lives.  Henry Adams once wrote: “A teacher affects eternity.  Teachers can never tell where their influence stops.”  A teacher’s influence lives on in the lives of those who follow.  Joe Ott sent out a quote with his report of the Harvester’s Food Distribution:  “If you want to touch the past—touch a rock.  If you want to touch the present, touch a rose.  If you want to touch the future, touch a life.”

Just behind this magnificent vision of Isaiah are two simple tenets:

GOD CAN CREATE: EXPANDING WHAT IS ALREADY HERE….TAKING THE GOOD AND MAKING IT BETTER.

The second idea is harder for us to accept. 

GOD CAN CREATE FROM NOTHING AND BRING ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.  THIS IS WHERE WE TRUST THAT IF IT IS GOD’S WILL IT WILL HAPPEN AND THE RESOURCES WILL BE THERE.

God wants us to see the kingdom of God where every village is a joy and every person is a delight.   The whole reason for our building expansion is to create a space where people get made new.

This past summer Penny and I headed to the Mississippi River hoping to see some more of Mark Twain.  When we got there we could not enjoy a river boat because the Mississippi was over its banks in some places.  Sandbagging was going on in many places.  I did read this week a Mark Twain story that fits.  My teacher Harrell Beck once told a story about Mark Twain.  He was notorious for his ability for swearing a blue streak.  His good Christian wife was not a fan of that part of his life but she put up with it for 30 years.  When they moved into a new house in Hartford, Connecticut she thought it was time to change his language.  The showdown come when he cut himself shaving and let go with a whole paragraph of serious swearing.  She walked up to him and repeated every word he said!  He was enough of a 19^th Century chauvinist that he was taken aback.  But then he smiled and said, “My dear!  You have all the words right, but you don’t know the tune!”

In a twist of understanding Harrell Beck was challenging us.  “I want to be the kind of Christian who gets the words right and knows the tune!  Because it’s the tune that the world hears.  It doesn’t matter how much you talk or show up at church, it doesn’t mater if have a fish on the back of you car---it is what people see in your lives every day.”  400 people have looked at our website and looked at the photos of the food packing event we did last week. 

I want to close with a video shown at a recent leadership conference for the Great Plains Conference.  The video is a video presentation showing Isaiah’s dream that was fulfilled in Jesus.  The world needs places where people can be made new.

The tune is Amazing Grace and several of you have commented that the only part of that song you have trouble with is the word “wretch.”  If you understand the origins of the song you know that one who wrote the lyrics was a captain of a slave ship.  He came to realize that to do so was a terrible sin, a wretched thing.  His life was changed by Jesus Christ and he eventually entered full-time Christian service.

This is the song Isaiah dreamed of and the song Jesus live and made possible.  It is our song as well.

Guiding Values Do Guide

Guiding Values Really Do Guide, Thank God!

Sermon based on the Beatitudes, Luke 6:20-31

Rev. Larry Fry, College Avenue UMC

All Saints Sunday and Harvest Sunday go together well.  Today we remember those who have gone before and then we claim our turn to live out our faith in Jesus Christ.   The definition of a saint is a follower of Jesus.  And what a gift to have the baptism of Gage!  In our baptism God commissions us to be saints…the ones through whom the light of God shines.  I am glad to be growing older because I get to know more saints.  Saints are those people who see the light of God in the world and invite us to look there too.

Matthew and Luke gather these sayings of Jesus about what it means to follow Jesus.  They are fascinating and difficult to understand.  Matthew places Jesus on a mountain offering these high and lofty guiding values so it is called the Sermon on the Mount.  It is to everyone.  Luke puts Jesus down on the plains, speaking to deeply committed disciples, putting those guiding values into daily action.  By this time disciples had enemies and people who misunderstood their commitment to Christ.   These guiding values were and are guides our living in the world.

Matthew’s version includes “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  That is easier to swallow than “Blessed are the poor.”  On the surface this sounds nuts.  Jesus is not saying that all people who are poor are blessed.  Poverty is a terrible condition.  Being poor is not a blessing.  The idea here is that someone who is following Jesus may be poor in things of the world, yet blessed with spiritual riches beyond measure.  Jesus, looking at his followers, said “Blessed are you who are poor.  Again, Jesus did not say, “Blessed all who are poor.”

I will try a paraphrase.  “Love God and your neighbor.  Don’t be discouraged if times get tough.  At least this way you know your need of God.  Not all of your friends are going to understand your Christian commitments.  Don’t give up because you are worrying about what others think.  God has not forgotten you.  God does not promise you a rose garden.  But even in the worst wilderness ever, God will help you grow a rose garden.  God will reward your faithfulness.”

Two women talked to me this week about a wilderness of a deep parental fear.

            One mother talked about the schools having safety week and how they

                        practice drills for tornadoes, fire, and active shooters.

                        When we think that our children are doing those we

                        are both grateful and we shiver a bit, praying that it will never

                        happen at our schools or any school, or airport.

I also ran into a woman who yelled out to me in the hospital.  I had officiated at her wedding and she wanted to tell me that they just had a boy.  She loved being a mom, but she was scared to death when she read about school shootings or when a child was harmed. 

God did not intend for people to be afraid when they walk into an airport.  God did not intend for any person to live in fear.  God did not intend for us to be stuck in twisted agendas and quarrelling or culture wars. God did not intend for people to be in such crushing poverty that it crushes the human spirit.  God did not intend for people whether rich or poor to be totally concerned about themselves with no compassion for others.  It is possible, says Jesus to be so into riches that it isolates you from the world.  If you are full of yourself and selfish desires…that as far as you go in life.  But all, rich and poor, can live sharing with the poor.

In Jesus’ time the Romans lived for wealth and pleasure, and kept working at it through violence, and oppression.  Jesus saw the poor crushed in poverty.  And he saw people who were rich and could help them, yet they did nothing.   He saw people putting selfish pleasure as their top guiding values and in that way their wealth became a barrier to know the Kingdom of God.

            Yet, Jesus gave to us a community of discipleship:

                        Where guiding values were very different

                        Where the joys of life were in love and sharing.

            He knew this community would not fit in and there would be struggles, but

                        new life would come in the middle of this caring life together.

One of the greatest parts of our church are committee meetings.  We have fun, we laugh, we listen to one another, we learn what God wants, we love one another, we lead the church to live out our guiding values in the world.    Instead of quarrelling, we listen and learn.

I was reading one commentary that reminded me of the Monty Python movie the Life of Brian.  Brian is delivering the Sermon on the Mount, preaching to a crowd gathered.  One woman yells from the back…”Speak up.  We can’t hear you.”  What did he say?  I think he said, “Blessed are the cheesemakers?”  What is so special about cheesemakers?  The man next to her said, “I don’t think we can take it literally…it refers to all manufacturers of dairy products.”  By this time I am silly with laughter.

In all of the silliness of that movie there is something that is very profound. The idea beyond the movie the Life of Brian is that Jesus offered truth.  It was the people who misunderstood and quarreled about the meaning.   In the Gospels, we see even the closest disciples missing the point.  The teaching is not off but the understanding and the application are off.  That is why church and small groups are so important…to maintain our life of learning and loving.  The saying of Jesus need the interpretation of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

Jesus challenged the early disciples and he challenges us to put God first and live these guiding values.  It is amazing to know that Jesus was talking about a community with the compassion that weeps when the world weeps.  Jesus presents a kingdom where all (each and every) are ultimately valuable to God.

The early Christians confounded many because they suffered and no matter how much they suffered, they somehow knew the joy of living for God now and knew have the rewards they would have in heaven.

I think of how my mom and dad, and my grandparents modeled the Christian faith for me and I am grateful.  Dad was the church treasurer and choir director for many years.  Every week he called choir member to remind them.  That was before email and you only had to dial four numbers on the rotary dial.  I remember their commitment to the budget of the church to make sure there were programs for me.  Those programs guided me into a life of faith and full-time service.  This church has met its budget and mission share for almost 30 years. 

Think of a world where lives and communities are guided by compassion and respecting the dignity of every person.  Compassion is the deliberate decision that that the wellbeing of another human being is a high priority of our lives.  No matter what they have done we still make a positive, proactive decision to do good things for them.

Think of a world where hospitality and spiritual growth were the order of the day.  Being a disciple means willing to learn and follow Christ with ever greater faithfulness.  It means to say to God, “Let me follow and learn.” 

It is my experience that the joys of discipleship are always greater than the troubles of being a disciple.   With Gage and Addison and Gavin a part of our church we now have 70 active children.  I want them to know what it means to be a saint.

I want them to know that joy that comes from knowing that God chooses us, claims us, makes us saints, so the love of God can shine through.