Sermon 12/31/17
Revelation 21:1-6a
The Beginning and The End
I had a hard time with my sermon
this week. We’ve heard two scripture texts this morning – a reading from
Matthew’s gospel, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and a text from the
book of Revelation, near the conclusion of the work, where we read that Jesus
is the Alpha and Omega, that God has made a home among us. Both of these texts
are from the lectionary, the schedule of scripture readings, texts intended for
New Year’s Eve or Day specifically. And I’ve wanted to use both of them. Only,
I had sort of two separate sermons, one for each, running through my head this
week. I wanted one sermon that could
draw on both texts. But instead, I had two good sermons – just two separate sermons, and I’ve struggled to
decide on which direction to go. See, the parable of the sheep and the goats
offered a nice way to follow up from my Christmas Eve sermon, and most of the
week, that’s the way I meant to go in worship. But from our Revelation text,
one phrase has stuck with me: “See, I am making all things new.” It’s the same
sentence construction that we find in our text from Luke’s gospel on Christmas
Eve, when the angel is delivering a message to the shepherds, “See, I am bringing
you good news.” Revelation uses this device frequently, twice just in the short
passage we focus on today. Like on Christmas Eve, the words here in Revelation,
spoken by Jesus, are meant to especially grab our attention. “See, I am making
all things new.” And so, at the last, I switched directions, which is why we
read our scriptures in a different order today than you see them in the
bulletin.
“See,” Jesus says, “I am making all
things new.” These are good words for a New Year’s Eve sermon, aren’t they?
Even if we aren’t the New Year’s Resolution-making-type, we often are quietly
thinking in terms of “fresh starts” anyway. It is hard not to. Come December,
it’s hard not to shove off any changes we need to make until after the New
Year, when we’re sure we’ll have more time and energy and willingness to tackle
new projects, new endeavors. It’s hard not to feel like we’re able to shake the
dust – or perhaps in our case, the snow – off our feet from the “old” year and
that we get to come to the New Year with a clean slate. Everything seems
possible. We’re hopeful. And of course, being hopeful is a good thing. But I
worry, sometimes, about the pressure we’re putting on ourselves to “fix”
everything we perceive to be wrong with our lives at the start of a New Year. I
worry that we’re setting ourselves up to feel like we’re failures when the new
year turns out to hold as many challenges and struggles as did the year before.
Pastor Emily Scott shared a
reflection on New Year’s Day that really moves me. She writes: “It’s New Year’s
Day. January 1 … This morning I took
down last year’s calendar and hung a new one in its place. Last week, I made a
new file in my drawer for my … financial documents [for this year]. And St.
Lydia’s has a new budget, a fresh sheet on the accounting page. Most of the
changes that take place as we shift from the old year to the new seem to take
place in document form -- a new, clean sheet of crisp paper, fresh and ready
for a new year.
“Accompanying all of this grand shuffling of papers and
calendars is the lie: the intimation that, just like hanging a fresh calendar
on the wall, we too can start over. Make a resolution. Decide that this year
will be different. Somehow reset our lives and start fresh. A different us:
[this year’s] version. Us version 2.0. This new us is fundamentally different
from the us we were [last year]. This new us springs energetically out of bed
and goes to the gym three times a week, or suddenly has no desire for
cigarettes, or alcohol, or other vices, or magically keeps the house tidy and
organized.
“This new us is shiny and new, and feels recently purchased,
like a new car, with a fresh, new us smell and sheen, a smile that is whiter
and skin with a healthy glow. This new us is even more photogenic than the old,
as evidenced by the new … 2.0 us that appears on facebook, always smiling
riotously and having just a little bit more fun than everyone else.
“This is the lie: That you can start fresh. That you can drop
off the old, unwanted, weatherworn bits of yourself at the Salvation Army and
pick up something fresher and more appealing. Something less complicated and
easier to live with.”
She continues, “There are two big problems that I see with
this lie. The first is that it has us thinking that deciding to change and
changing are the same thing. It has us thinking that jumping out of bed to head
to the gym three times a week is simply a matter of deciding to do it, and with
a little good old American stick-to-it-tiveness, we can revamp our lives
entirely.
“The truth is that our less positive habits are a bit like
lily pads on a pond: from above, they seem to float on the surface of the
water, but they’re rooted deep down, in the muck way at the bottom. Each
afternoon you get fidgety and make a trip to the snack machine, not because
you’re hungry, but because a growing sense of emptiness is blossoming within
you, and somehow food seems to fill it. You keep meaning to go to sleep
earlier, but find yourself browsing endlessly online, hours each night, paging
around, as if looking for something you’ve lost. You're trying to fill that
growing sense of lack, of emptiness. The truth is that changing our habits
means addressing their roots, and addressing the roots is tricky, because
there’s a lot that might get dredged up down there.
“The second big problem that I see with this lie, is that it
assumes that there is no light in us. Out with the old and in with the new! The
desire to “start fresh” with a shiny new version of ourselves implies that we
are in fact, disposable. And things that are disposable are worthless. Out with
the old and in with the new assumes that there’s something in us that needs to
be gotten rid of: eradicated.
“Perhaps you feel that there are portions of yourself that
you wish would simply disappear. Perhaps you’re wary of the long neglected
pieces of yourself that lie fallow in the muck at the bottom of the pond.
Perhaps you come before God, hoping that she sees only the pieces you’d like to
present -- the pieces that are shiny and polished and ready for public
consumption. As for the rest of you -- out with the old and in with the new.
“Here is the truth. Here is the Good News. God came to dwell
among us. God came to pitch a tent, and she pitches it deep down in the muck.
In the deepest, most forgotten corners of our hearts, the bits that we would
rather set out with the trash. It is those parts of us where God loves us the
most: wants most to dwell with us. God lives in the unwanted, weatherworn
places, a light that shines even in the places we experience as dark or
despairing.
“We can change, and do. Not by deciding to discard the
unwanted or undesirable pieces of ourselves, but learning to acknowledge and
recognize them. By allowing ourselves to gently explore the murkier depths of
the pool, and finding with surprise that there is a hidden light that pulses
even there, waiting to be uncovered.”[1]
The scripture tell us that new is possible again and again.
These words we read in Revelation we hear first in Isaiah and in other
variations throughout the scriptures. God is always up to something new, always
making us new, always the author of new life. That’s a promise. Where I think
we get confused is when we think about how
and why we’re made new. First,
we’re not the source of newness. God is. It is God who makes things new. We’re
invited to be part of the process, but God is the source. So often, we’re
trying to redeem ourselves, save ourselves. But though we are strong, the
source of our strength is God. We have a redeemer, a savior already. God is the
one who makes us new. Sometimes, we don’t like
how God wants to make us new. Sometimes, even though we say we want to be
made new, we really want to keep doing the same old things. Sometimes, when God
makes us new, it feels like we’re a lump of clay that was made into a halfway
decent bowl, but God decides to draw out from us something even more
awesome…but it means that first we have to go back to being a lump of clay.
Sometimes, we say we want to be made new, but we didn’t realize that that means
God is about to stir up all the muck in our life and shine a light on stuff in
our hearts that we never let see the light of day.
Second: Sometime we’ve turned away from God and we need to
repent. In that way, seeking newness, new life, is a good thing. Whenever we’ve
wandered away from God, of course seeking
new life by heading back in God’s direction is good. But we often get mixed up,
believing that we’re worthless, failures, beyond redeeming. We believe that our
only options are to start all over, start from scratch, or give up altogether.
We look at ourselves and our lives and we don’t see anything worth saving. But
our text from Revelation along with the witness of the whole Bible reminds us
that that is not how God sees us. We
are God’s beloved! God choose to make a home with us! We are God’s people! God loves us. So God wants the very best for
us. As Pastor Scott said, there is light
within us, even if it sometimes get buried under a lot of muck. God loves us
enough to want to make sure the light of Christ within us has a clear path to
shine forth. Again, we get to be a part of the process. In the days ahead, what
can you do to help God clear the muck? What can you do to be open to God’s work
in your life? What can you do to immerse yourself in the certainty of God’s
love for you? Our answers to these question are some goals worth our time and
energy, tomorrow, and every day after that.
Finally, remember this: The text tells us not I’ve made all things new but rather, I am making all things new. The work of God
in our lives is ongoing, not a one-time thing. In our Methodist tradition, we
call this sanctifying grace, or
“whole life grace.” God is never done with us. Rather, God, who loves to
create, who is always making all things new, God is moving in, living with us,
so that we can be even closer. Seeing that promised fulfilled is a blessing I’m
looking forward to this year, and over all of our days. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1]
Scott, Emily, http://sitandeat.typepad.com/blog/2012/01/a-warning-against-starting-fresh-.html.
Posted 1/2/2012.
Comments