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Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 65
17 “See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach[a] a hundred
will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the work of their hands.
23 They will not labor in vain,
nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.


So here I am again, in this tiny wooden fortress called the pulpit.

Funny place, the pulpit, a place where themes develop and ideas reappear, stories unfold and events are discussed. So, for example, it was October 2 that I suggested the measure of a candidate is not his ability to quote scripture, but his behaviour. On October 23, I suggested that anyone looking for Jesus on the trail would likely find him tailgating and listening to Trump supporters, looking for an opportunity to share a word of life. And just last Sunday, I shared the suggestion that 2016 is more like 430 AD, and whenever barbarian hoards appear, we must strive to leave the world a better place than we found it.

Today I have nothing to say.

Today I have nothing to say, except—imagine an election where 100 million people stayed home. What would be the result? Life is not a spectator sport, nor is politics, nor is a life of faith. More people voted for the American Idol in 2008 than voted in the general election, and only now can we see the full extent that reality TV has taken over everyday life.

Today I have nothing to say, except—that one of the burdens of doing an advanced degree in the United States is that I now have beloved colleagues in Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and even some blue states and they need our prayer. They are serving sharply divided congregations and sharply divided communities and they need our prayer.

Today I have nothing to say, except—the answer is always in the Bible. Every situation and every challenge we face appears in one form or another in scripture, and the task of the reader and the preacher is to make connections between the Word of God and the word on the street. We can do no other—if we trust in God to provide the way forward.

So, for example, we hear an extended poem and we ponder a vision and we try to understand the context of that vision. The prophet Isaiah and everyone writing in his name have taken us through the full sweep of exile, from the unheeded warnings of the early chapters, to the comfort declared for those losing hope, to the unexpected delight of return. This surprizing God has chosen a Persian king to lead the people back, and now—two generations later—the exiles must confront the reality of being home.

It was never going to be easy, and the dream was never going to match reality. The ruined city was rebuilt, but it was never the same. The great temple of Solomon was replaced ‘on the cheap,’ as more effort was spent (appropriately) on the walls of the city. Those left behind forgot who they were, so Ezra and others undertook the difficult project of reminding them. The place of great longing—the Zion they wept for—was their home once more, but it was diminished, and shabby, and any thought to “make Jerusalem great again” was largely unfulfilled.

So enter the prophet. Enter the prophet of God, not to offer local ordinance, but to cast a vision. The topic remains Jerusalem, and the people remain God’s people, but the vision is bigger and more profound than temple, and walls, and what mortals call Jerusalem. God speaks and says ‘there is more:’

See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.

This is more than what’s found atop a plateau in the Judean mountains, more than the region between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, more than even the land itself. This Jerusalem has no walls and no gates, and extends far beyond what we can see to become a world made new:

I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.

What follows is a litany of a world without war: children will grow to adulthood, people will live to old age, those who build a home will long enjoy it, those who plant will reap the harvest. No one will be “doomed to misfortune: they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.”

But even this vision is too small. The prophet shares a final word, this time a vision of God’s peaceable kingdom, where nature will be at peace with itself (Newsome) and shows the very heart of God:

The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain.

The New Jerusalem is an idea, a hope in the heart of God, a hope that says “thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We are people of that hope, given the blessing and burden of carrying it forward. We carry it with us through time and the various trials we face, knowing that there always remains something larger, something more tangible than what the world can see.

This may also be the moment to share the secret of what I call ‘scripture for preachers,’ words from Martin Luther King Jr., words that Dr. King gave to everyone but words that seem to fall more heavily on the preacher. They say, in fact, that Dr. King had about ninety sermons, more-or-less, and that he reworked them as the situation demanded, always speaking to the moment.

I say ‘scripture for preachers,’ because we need help to find that place between ancient words and the present day, between the Bible call and what we say, between the city we serve and the New Jerusalem of Isaiah 65.

On March 25, 1965, Dr. King spoke in Montgomery, Alabama, at the end of the march from Selma into history. Historians call this sermon “Our God is Marching On!” but most know it as “How Long, Not Long.” In his message he describes the meaning of 8,000 marchers, the power of non-violent resistance, and the response they met on the way, how “the brutality of a dying order shrieks across the land.”

He shares the question his congregation asks: “How long will it take?” How long to reach the vision of a society at peace with itself? He asks for them again, “how long?” and the answer is “not long.” And then he shares a quote: “How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

May we continue to dream of the New Jerusalem, and may it soon come into sight, through God alone. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 6:26 AM