This sermon kicked off the fall preaching series: What Do I Need from My Church." Each week we will answer that question. this series grows out of all the pondering we have done about how the church has been and continues to be changed by the pandemic.
“What Do I Need from My Church: To do a new thing” Sept 19, 2021, SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp; Isaiah 65: 17-25
Isaiah 65: 17-25
For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
18
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
19
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
20
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;[e]
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
24
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.
Introduction: We start the fall with uncertainty.
I do not need to go into great detail about uncertainty - we all know it and feel it in our work lives, in our personal lives, as we live out our daily routines.
Uncertainty about what rules apply where about masks and social distancing;
Uncertainty about what are the best practices to avoid getting sick?
Uncertainty about when and where and how we can connect with other people?
As a member, or visitor, or regular attender of St. Andrew, we face the uncertainty about how to attend, what to commit to, how to interact as a community of faith
The church faces uncertainty as well.
who is still out there whom we do see because they are on the livestream?
who has slipped away in time we have not been able to get together?
who has been so changed by the pandemic that their particular needs or worldview is no longer best served by st. Andrew?
In this time of uncertainty, or at least wondering what it means to be church, we ask the question: What do I need from my church?
The question is not asked with the understanding that the church’s role is satisfy our whims and desires?
the question is ask with the understanding that St. Andrew is part of the body of Christ, and as the body of Christ we are called to engage God’s people.
Each week we will reflect on one fo aspect of what we need from our church.
This week, we begin with we need our church to do a new thing.
Move 1: To do a new thing reflects what God does.
a. the prophet Isaiah spoke long before the pandemic.
1. he spoke God’s word to a people who were struggling.
2. People who knew what it was like to be exile
3. People who knew what it was like to feel uncertain about their future.
4. People who knew what it was like to feel powerless in their world and out of control.
b. Isaiah announces for them what God is doing.
1. God is going to do a new thing.
2. God is going to create a new heaven and new earth.
3. God is going to not just move into the future, but lead them into a future full of possibilities.
c. Two important aspects about what God is doing.
1. God has plans for the whole cosmos.
2. God plans for more than just the righteous remnant.
3. God’s new thing is not for a just a few people, but for the world.
4. When we contemplate what God is doing, it is not God doing a little personal thing just for us.
5. No, it is God transforming the world.
6. As St.Andrew seeks to do a new thing, it is not just about us, but about us and all of God’s creation.
move 2: when the church does a new thing, it models for us and invites us along to the process of doing a new thing.
a. Go back to march, 2020.
1. In just a day or two we had to move from a church that met in person for all its activities; gathered for worship; visited beforehand; shared coffee and cookies after worship to a church where we could not meet in person.
2. How do we worship if we cannot come together in person?
3. How do we connect?
2. St. Andrew, like so many other church, had to change, quickly, on the fly.
b. Primarily because we had little time and we had a bit of infrastructure to support on-line worship, we had a worship team lead worship from the Sanctuary.
1. AFter the first Sunday, we had to evaluate how to best do worship.
2. We heard early on from many of you about how much you appreciated the organ music and the soloists and how much being able to see the sanctuary and feel some normalcy in those chaotic days meant.
3. So we committed to worship on the livestream from our sanctuary each week.
4. Other churches made other choices.
5. Some churches went to Youtube worship that could be recorded in lots of different places. It gave some flexibility and opportunities:
if the sermon was on the 23rd Psalm, the minister could preach from a field with sheep.
liturgists could participate from their kitchen tables.
6. Our choice at St. Andrew lifted up our values of music and place, while using technology to connect us.
c. after Isaiah prophesied about God doing a new thing, the Israelites had their work cut out for them.
1. how to participate in the new thing God was doing.
2. Such is our task - how do we move forward, evaluating options, making choices, so that we can be part of what God is doing in the world.
3. As we do it together as a community of faith, it also calls us in our personal lives of discipleship to give ourselves over to what God is doing.
Move 3: Doing a new thing is about possiblities.
a. Zac Brown Comeback Tour “the last year hasn’t been what I wanted it to be, so we are having a comeback tour.”
1. Not comeback - new creation.
2. Image of Eden - right relationship with God and one another.
b. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
1. Hard to imagine that possiblity.
2. But following a God of new creation opens up to hard to imagine possibilities.
3. We know that God about whom Isaiah prophesied is the God of resurrection, who can turn death into life.
c. A few years ago I read Jill Taylor’s insights about recovering from a stroke: “I have been very fussy this time around about which emotional programs I am interested in retaining and which ones I have no interest in giving voice to again (impatience, criticism, unkindness). What a wonderful gift this stroke has been in permitting me to pick and choose who and how I want to be in the world. Before the stroke, I believed I was a product of this brain and that I had minimal say about how I felt or what I thought. Since the hemorrhage, my eyes have been opened to how much choice I actually have about what goes on between my ears.” My Stroke of Insight: A brain Scientist's Personal Journey, Jill Bolte Taylor (122)
1. We have been through a tremendous shock over the last 18+ months to our understanding of our world, our lives, and what it means to be church.
2. It has been can continues to be challenging - but it is also full of possibilities.
3. Possibilities God sends to us.
4. Possibilities we claim.
Conclusion: Lots of stories about the great Reformer Martin Luther. HIs theology, his insights, his work.
But, but one fo the stories told about him was that he became a monk after promising to do so when caught in a lightning storm.
Surely we have made promises o God - if you get us through this pandemic,…..
The God who is doing a new thing says, “Come on.”
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