New Is Life

August 2, 2015

In this summer of “the people’s lectionary” our readings are drawn from a variety of sources. This morning, listen for a word from God in this passage from Anne Lamott’s Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers:

“If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there. We become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you're dying. You're saying: Leave me alone; I don't mind this little rathole. It's warm and dry. Really, it's fine.

When nothing new can get in, that's death. When oxygen can't find a way in, you die. But new is scary, and new can be disappointing, and confusing - we had this all figured out, and now we don't.

New is life.” 

The word of the Lord.

As I look around this morning I just want to say: wow! And thanks! And help!

That’s my reaction upon walking into this beautifully restored space, and it’s my prayer, as well.

Look around. There’s so much to say, “wow!” about: both old and new aspects of this space make me say, “wow!” So, as you look around this morning, what wows you?

*****

I don’t think we give enough importance, most of the time, to wow! But, seriously, that ought to be our first response upon opening our eyes at the beginning of each new day, and among our final thoughts upon closing them at the end of the day. Wow! The sun came up! Consider the dawn of creation, some 13-billion years ago – give or take a billion: what are the cosmic odd that the stardust that is you or me should have come together just so that you could witness the sunrise this morning. If that doesn’t make you say, “wow!” then, well, then I am deeply sorry for you.

The beauty and grandeur of creation ought to fill us with awe and wonder. It should fill us with Wow!

Beauty on a smaller scale should similarly fill us, and as I stood in this room Thursday morning after the movers loaded in this new furniture, I sat for a few moments looking around at this space, and just said, “wow.”

Partly, that was in response to the beauty all around me – the craftwork in the new furniture, the bright warmth of the new lighting, the simple loveliness of new flooring, and, of course, the beauty that has been here all along – the windows, the ceiling, the grace of the space itself.

But more than the physical beauty all around me, my “wow” came in response to thinking about the people who have filled this space with their own beauty for all these years.

Thinking of them, I am filled with gratitude:

·      Gratitude for the good folks who began this whole Clarendon Presbyterian Church enterprise way back in the 1920s. We remember them with the stained glass hanging in the frame in the new window.

·      Gratitude for the faithful folks in the middle of the last century who put their time and talent and treasure together to build this sanctuary, and then to all those who cared for it for so many years.

·      Gratitude for the worship planning team in the first decade of this new century who first cast a vision for creating a worship space for the 21^st-century.

·      Gratitude to those of the present community who have seen us through the design and construction phase of the renovation. (If you’ve been a part of this – attended a white board meeting, served on the sacred space team, offered thoughts and suggestions along the way, please stand.) Thank you, one and all.

Most of all, though, my heart if filled with gratitude to God who has been faithful, present, and inspiring the people of God in this place for almost a hundred years now, and who will be faithful still through all our triumphs and trials in the years to come.

There will be both, of course. That is the nature of life. So, for the trials to come, we say, “help us, O Lord.”

Some of the trials will be large and painful: loved ones will struggle with illnesses, we will face grief, each of us will come to the end of our days. Faith does not promise freedom from suffering and struggle; it promises, rather, that we do not suffer nor struggle alone, and thus we pray, “help us, O Lord, in our sorrow.”

Many of the trials will be less weighty, though still difficult. As we witness today in Susan’s departure, there will be leave-takings and transitions. We hope that these will be good good-byes, but we also know that’s not always the case. So we know that conflict, too, is a part of community life, and we pray, “help us, O Lord, in our times of disagreement.”

Sometimes – perhaps right now for some – times of trial come with change, and thus we pray, “help us, O Lord, to live well in the midst of change.”

We pray always to the God who, as the prophet Isaiah reminds us, is always about to do a new thing in our midst. We can look around ourselves this morning and perceive it. God – doing something new right here, right now.

“But new is scary, and new can be disappointing, and confusing - we had this all figured out, and now we don't. New is life.” 

Let us journey together, then, into this new thing that God is doing, trusting, as always, that the God of the present moment has given us enough for the day: bread for the journey and a well-spring for our lives. Let us gather at this table on which we center our lives, and share the bread life and the cup of salvation. Amen.