“Going Out with Joy” Isaiah 55:12–56:2 Revelation 22:1–5 Preached at Trillium United Church Pastoral Charge Mono Mills September 10, 2017

Isaiah: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples. Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.” Seek God nearby;  call on God who is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to God, who will have mercy on them, who will freely pardon.

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares God.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,  so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me  empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.  Instead of the thornbush the juniper will, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for God’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.”

56 This is what God says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed. Blessed is the one who does this— the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

Revelation

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and God’s servants will be there. They will see God’s  face, God’s  name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

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Preaching, for me, is not about the minister getting up and telling you what to believe or how to believe, what to think or how to think. Part of preaching is about opening a text and helping find meaning and direction – preaching is about ministers being able to wrestle with their own faith and their own doubts, their fears, anger, and discouragement – openly with the congregation – because we do struggle, and sometimes we really just don’t know where to go with something. Where to find some hope, when hope seems to have been destroyed. How to find our way forward when suddenly everything seems so dark and history appears to repeat itself.

The texts for this Sunday celebrate God’s participation in creation in various contexts. In Isaiah and in Revelation the passages are contrasted to the sorrow of exile or the apocalyptic fear of early Christians, respectively. Do those sorrows and fears have something in common with our climate fears?

Today is to be a hopeful sermon about the new realm, the one we keep hearing about in the New Testament – where the realm of God is right at hand, right around the corner, all we have to do is seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly through this short life.

I saw a quote the other day, “Imagine what seven billion humans could accomplish, if we all worked together and respected each other.” John Lennon of the Beatles wrote the opening song, “Imagine" –

Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today.

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too.  Imagine all the people living life in peace.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one.

Lennon was strongly criticised for saying “no heaven, no hell’ and ‘no religion’, as if somehow he was making a hugely wrong theological statement.…. But I think Lennon was speaking in the sense of religious boundaries no longer hindering how humans work together – people able to accept other religions as part of the vision of creation, and work together for the benefit of all. What is heaven? What is hell? Are they places apart from this world, or are they here, and now? For me the Isaiah and Revelation text is that vision – that there’s yet work to do, but we are on the right path, slowly building bridges so we can come together as united humanity. The whole ‘vision’ is laid out in Isaiah – living water, water given for thirsty people, thirsty lands, thirty souls. In this vision, everyone, no matter who, no matter what faith or colour or gender or orientation – everyone, has a place in this vision – and that place is equal in every way. This ‘vision’ is really, for me, the full text of God’s vision of creation, and we, human beings, are to be co-creators in this vision.

The Revelation passage, the other ‘bookend’ is the vision accomplished – the new world come about. The old anger and hatreds and prejudices are gone, all the old ways are gone – a new way of being, of living, of relationship.

Some days, as we look around is, the vision seems to be getting further away. Hatred, bigotry and discrimination seem to be on the rise again, the threats of war echo – and the environment seems to be coming apart at the seams – devastating fires across the world, three hurricanes at once in the Gulf of Mexico, earthquakes and landslides. It can feel like the vision is fading like a mirage in the desert, and now we have to start the walk, all over again, to the promised land.

So where’s the hope? A colleague of mine, Kathy Donley, writes about the preaching of one of her African-American colleagues – that God makes a Way out of No Way. “After the sea has been crossed, after the people have returned from exile, after the abolition of slavery, after people of all religions and colours and genders and ways of life are truly part of the fabric of life,….. THEN we can see that there was a Way made out of No Way. When you are on this side of ‘No Way’, this side of the unthinkable which is happening yet again, it is entirely different to affirm with a whole heart, - a Way will be made out of No Way.” My heart tells me, even in the depressed times, that one thing – a Way will be made out of No Way.

As I was scoping some of this sermon on Friday, I started to cry. I cried for gays, straights, trans-gender, black, Asian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Latino – immigrant and refugee – for the deaths from the hurricane in the Caribbean, for the deaths from earthquake in Mexico, for the deaths of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, for the homeless and abandoned, for the hungry and the addicted. There are times when it’s truly overwhelming – and we feel helpless.

How to retain sanity? To work at Creation in this small space? My answer this week, was to go to visit a friend who was giving away plants which she can’t care for over the winter. I took some baking, sat with five other women drinking coffee, eating key lime pie, hearing about each other’s travels. I came home with a huge palm tree, two monster Boston ferns, and a hibiscus. Creating a garden inside where I can sit and listen to the fountain, and enjoy the green and the flowers – and just being. Because regeneration and rejuvenation of the soul is the only way to hold the vision.

Rev. James Eaton writes “…….. the Puritans were so effective because they believed everything depended on God but they acted like everything depended on them.” And James notes that the Rabbis say “Even if the Messiah comes, still finish your Torah study for the day.” So our part in building the vision is to do what we can wherever we can, and whenever we can, even if that’s carrying someone’s groceries, or taking some baking when they are ill, or helping with gardening. 

In Hebrew, the verb ‘to create’ is ‘barah; but in the Hebrew scriptures that word is only used about God. In our current theological understandings, that which we call God lives within each person – so my logic tells me that the only way the creation of the vision will happen is if we are truly the hands and feet and mouths and bodies which make it happen. There isn’t going to be some kind of magic event which suddenly makes this desert go away. The only way the water which quenches the thirst can be given is if we call get into the act together.

So in this time when it seems everything is going awry, we have a calling, today – right here. To commit to hope, to commit to going out with joy, delighting in our God who is the ground of everything we are, everything around us, and recognising that while we cannot solve all the huge issues around us, we can make a difference here in this neighbourhood, now – and that like ripples on a pond, the seemingly small things make a large difference. Every small act of goodness, every plant put into the soil, every tree grown, every person helped – even the smallest things can make a difference.  May we be instruments of creation, instruments of true shalom, the true peace which passes all understanding, in which all live full lives. Make us instruments of peace. Amen.