Rev. Maureen Frescott
The Congregational Church of
Amherst, UCC
November 17. 2013
Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke
21:5-19
“To Boldly Go
Where No One Has Gone Before”
Last
weekend, twenty nine teenagers and five adult advisors from of our Senior High
Youth Group spent Friday night through Sunday morning on retreat at the Barbara
Harris Center in Greenfield NH.
The
theme of our retreat was “Breathing Space.”
When
you hear the word retreat you may conjure up images of people spending hours in
contemplative silence and prayer, taking meditative walks and participating in
spiritual workshops.
This
was not that kind of retreat.
We
did make art collages and we spent time discussing how we might grow into the
person that God is calling us to be….but most of our time was spent creating
breathing space - space that our teens - and adults - rarely have in this era
of over scheduling and over achieving.
Instead
of doing schoolwork, attending practices, or earning money at their jobs, the
teens spent the weekend hiking through the woods, playing soccer with a giant
ball, navigating a high ropes course, building campfires, and staying up late
dancing to loud music accompanied by iPhone strobe lights. (Thankfully, I was not one of the
chaperones trying to sleep in that cabin).
This
was just the sort of unstructured fun time that many of our teens are lacking
in their lives. But the teens also used this time to do some pretty amazing
things.
They
spent over an hour sitting in the dark lighting prayer candles and sharing
their fears, concerns, and celebrations. They sat down to eat with teens they
didn’t know and took the time to learn each others names and what makes each of
them special. Sophomores invited freshmen to hang out in the “cool” cabin, and
freshmen pushed themselves outside their comfort zones again and again by
accepting invitations to be a part of the group.
We
gave the teens some breathing space and they filled it with friendship, fun,
and a willingness to let God create something new in their hearts.
But
to do that, they had to be willing to let go of something else.
If
you spend any time outside during November in New England it’s easy to see how
God makes space for something new by letting go of something else. The radical
changes in our natural landscape are testament to that.
We
may curse the hours we spend raking leaves and pulling dead pine needles out of
our plant beds, and we may lament the shortened hours of daylight and the
chilling wind that whistles through bare branches….but we know this withering
landscape is inevitable and temporary.
Whether
we dread or welcome the first snowfall and the long months of winter, there are
few of us who don’t delight when new life burst forth in the spring. The
colors, the smells, and the hope of warm days to come, are that much more
spectacular because they follow a time where everything in the world around us
seems to have withered or hidden itself away.
The
changing of the seasons serves as a wonderful metaphor for what God is doing in
our world. Breaking down the old to make space to create anew.
And
as we approach the season of Advent – the time in our Christian calendar where we
anticipate the coming of light into the world in the form of Jesus – we’ve
conditioned ourselves to hunker down in the dark days of winter, waiting for
joy and hope and new life to be born all over again.
But
while we may be accustomed to moving with the rhythms of the seasons in nature
and the rhythms of the seasons in our Christian calendar, the sudden shift presented
in our scripture texts this morning might leave us feeling out of sorts. This
shift that asks us to believe that the world as we know it must come to a
complete and catastrophic end for God to create something new.
For
many of us, apocalyptic visions are better left to science fiction writers and
Christian literalists, who imagine the world coming to a fiery and violent end with
only a chosen few escaping death and gaining entrance into the Kingdom of God.
Most of us on the UCC end of the Christian spectrum
tend to put more emphasis on the here-and-now than on the hereafter.
We might say we concern ourselves with what we
should be doing to make this world a better place, now and for future
generations, with God’s help, rather than worry about getting ourselves right
with God to ensure our personal survival during the battle between good and
evil that is to come.
But
whatever our theological beliefs are about how and when God’s peace will come
to reign over this world, there is truth in the understanding that growth and
renewal only comes when we make space for it to happen.
In
practical terms, the people of Israel in Isaiah’s time needed to clear away the
rubble of what was in order to build
what was to be.
Their
city and Temple had been completely destroyed by the Babylonians in the year
586 BCE. The people were taken into exile.
When
they returned to Jerusalem 50 years later they had to pick through the pieces
of what had been their homes and marketplaces and worship spaces, and clear
them aside. They had to gather up the broken dishes and burned scrolls and tattered
prayer shawls, and throw them on the garbage heap, letting go of the things
that were once so precious in their hearts.
We
can imagine any people returning to their homes after war or natural disasters
having to do the same. First you
bury the dead, then you bury the part of you that died along with them, the
life that you once knew that has forever been changed.
We
can imagine the people of Israel holding the grief of this overwhelming loss in
their hearts as they looked out at the Temple being rebuilt, one stone at a
time. It took 23 years to construct, and as new scrolls and new tapestries were
placed inside, and a new generation crossed the threshold to welcome God home,
we can understand why they saw this as the beginning of a drastically new era.
The
prophet Isaiah went so far as to envision a world where weeping would be heard
no more, children would grow to a ripe old age, and the wolf would eat with the
lamb. All around him was the rubble of pain and destruction, yet God was
creating something new and wonderful in the midst of it.
How
could he not see this as a turning point in God’s intention for Creation?
500
years later, the Temple was destroyed once again, and the writers of our Christian
gospels saw a similar turning point being played out for God’s people. The
stones that at one time rose up among the rubble signaling a new age, would
themselves become rubble.
God
was again allowing the destruction of something they held sacred, and hopefully,
they prayed, God was creating a space for something new.
In
our reading from Luke’s Gospel we hear Jesus predict the fall of the Temple.
He looked up
at the beautiful building where his parents had brought him to be named and
blessed just after he was born, where his frantic mother found him teaching the
elders after he had wandered away at age of 12, where he spent his adult years
preaching from the Torah and engaging in spirited debates with the Pharisees….he
looked up at this sacred Temple and he described a time when it would be no
more.
Jesus turned
to his disciples and said, “The day will come when not one stone will be left
upon another; all will be thrown down.”
That prediction
was not well received.
We might
imagine a someone raised in our church school and confirmation program,
returning to become an active adult and committee member, and then standing in
front of the building predicting how it and everything it stands for will come
crashing down in a matter of years so God can make way for something new.
Accepting change
is never easy. But new hymnals and new paint colors in the vestry are one thing,
drastic changes like the destruction of our worship space or the destruction of
the world as we know it tend not to sit too well with most of us.
Thankfully, we
have the option of reading these texts allegorically.
God
was indeed making space for something new, declared Isaiah and the writer of
Luke’s Gospel – That something new was an inclusive faith that tended to the
needs of the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized;
an
expansive faith that could not be held within the Temple walls but was meant to
reach around the world.
But while we
have the luxury of looking back at these texts and interpreting them outside of
their literal context, we should do it with the understanding that the
destruction and the suffering the writers speak of was all too real in their
time.
As it is in
ours.
People all
over our world are living with the
unspeakable horror of having their homes, livelihoods, and lives destroyed by
natural disasters, famine, disease, war, and violence. But destruction touches all of our lives
in many ways. We don’t have to live through a natural disaster to feel like the
walls are crashing down around us.
The loss of a
job, the end of a marriage, the diagnosis of an illness, the death of a loved
one, all of these things flood into our lives and knock us off our feet, and
the last thing we’re thinking of is the something new that God will allow to
grow in its place. We want what we had, not the future that is to come. No
matter how wonderful we’re told that future might be.
As I told the
children earlier, I am a huge fan of Star Trek.
Part of my
love for the show has to do with the vision of its creator Gene Rodenberry. Rodenberry envisioned a future world
where humanity has eliminated most of the causes of suffering that have plagued
us from the beginning. Disease, hunger, and war have all been eradicated.
National
boundaries have been erased and the earth has come together to be a part of the
United Federation of Planets.
Even the Klingons and the Vulcans have
agreed to put aside their differences and work together to establish peace
throughout the universe.
On Star Trek,
the Enterprise flies ahead at warp speed, seeking not to conquer but to explore
strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go
where on one has gone before!
When I hear
Isaiah’s description of a world where suffering is no more, where the wolf and
the lamb shall eat together, and children will grow up knowing no calamity, I
can’t help but think of Gene Rodenberry’s vision realized in Star Trek.
But the Star
Trek universe has its flaws.
Hostile life
forms still lurk in the far reaches of some galaxies - like the Borg whose goal
is to assimilate all other life forms and cultures, eradicating their
individuality and independence, which irks the freedom loving humans to no end.
And while some species like the Vulcans and the Bajorans maintain a rich
spiritual belief system despite their advanced culture and intelligence,
Rodenberry’s vision of humanity left no room for religious belief. Earth was
said to have evolved beyond religion, viewing it as primitive and divisive.
For
Rodenberry, we human beings have it within ourselves to create a new and better
world, without the help of God.
While I’d love
to believe that we have the power to create such a utopian world – and
eradicate disease, war, and famine – we’re still human beings with all our
imperfections and misplaced desires. We’re still going to experience loss,
grief, anger, guilt, envy, shame, and fear and all the other emotions that make
us human and cause divisions in our world.
I believe we
can work together to create a new world.
But we don’t
have the capacity to overcome all of our human limitations on our own.
We need to
make space for God to create something new in our hearts.
Every
time we let go of a prejudice, a grudge, a judgment, a fear, and choose instead
to nurture feelings of love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness, we’re creating
space for God to create something new in our hearts.
This
to me is the boldest challenge that humanity can embark upon.
Outer
space may be the final frontier, but the space we have in our own hearts is too
often left unexplored.
This
is where we encounter God, and the unconditional love that strengthens us for
the journey.
Isaiah
dared to envision a world where no heart is left unchanged by God.
Jesus
dared to do the same.
It
may be difficult for us to hear their predictions of apocalyptic destruction
and a radical reshaping of the world as we know it.
But
can we imagine a radical reshaping of who we are as God’s people?
Might
allowing something new to grow in our hearts, change the world in ways that we
could have never imagined?
Might
we boldly go where no one has gone before…
and carry forth God’s love and grace
every step of the way.
Amen.
