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.