2021.09.12 Sermon

Scripture - Selections from Isaiah 43
 
Readier 1: 43 But now thus says the Lord,
    he who created you, O Jacob,
    he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
    and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
    and the flame shall not consume you.
 
Reader 2: 5 Do not fear, for I am with you;
    I will bring your offspring from the east,
    and from the west I will gather you;
6 I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
    and to the south, “Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
    and my daughters from the end of the earth--
7 everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made.”
 
Reader 3: 8 Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes,
    who are deaf, yet have ears!
9 Let all the nations gather together,
    and let the peoples assemble.
Who among them declared this,
    and foretold to us the former things?
Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,
    and let them hear and say, “It is true.”
10 You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
    and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
    and understand that I am he.
 
Reader 4: 16 Thus says the Lord,
    who makes a way in the sea,
    a path in the mighty waters,
17 who brings out chariot and horse,
    army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
    they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18 Do not remember the former things,
    or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild animals will honor me,
    the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
    rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21     the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
 
Reflection 
In the early part of the 19th century, Methodist missionaries visited Casco Bay. The story goes that the island matriarch was removed - “excommunicated” - from the Congregational church when she joined the Methodists. They held class meetings and built a small meetinghouse. There were 19 members in 1814 - members of the Hamiltons, Bennets, Curits, Hutchinsons, and other families. Most of those 19 members were connected to the Hamiltons. I bet that some of you in this room can trace your family back to some of those people who started something new over 200 years ago. 
 
God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it?
 
Things change and evolve. Families move on and off island, children are born and grow old, elders pass from this world to live on in memory and story. Legacies are forged, a heritage is fashioned, and roots deepen to nurture and feed the growth that buds on the tips of leaves and that pushes out the bark of the widening trunk. It is doubtful that any one of those people part of that first Methodist class meeting 200 years ago envisioned where we’d be today - but the seeds of this beginning have been nurtured from generation to generation - always blossoming, growing, changing, and dying - passed down in songs and story and ritual, some forgotten, some adapted, some fresh and new.
 
God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it?
 
The community that first heard our passage from Isaiah was a community in transition - they were the descendents of those who had been taken away from Jerusalem when the Babylonians conquered Judah. They were a people who had grown up in a foreign land, but who had heard the stories of how God had brought the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt - a people that had passed through the waters and experienced the challenges of settling in a new land. The people hearing these words would have most likely understood the reason for their exile as God’s judgment upon their ancestors and struggled with what faithfulness as God’s people meant. 
 
God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it?
 
God led the Hebrew people out from slavery and formed them into a new kind of community before entering the Promised Land - in this way, God did a new thing among them. That was part of the Israelites’ story. And now, in our text, we see God’s desire to gather the exiles back to Jerusalem and yet again fashion them into a new kind of community - and that all the trials and struggles they endured through their time of captivity - the waters and the fire, the uncertainties and anxieties, the disorientation and wonderings - God was yet present with them...and was making a way for the next phase of their life together. 
 
God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it?
 
I think about that with our own journey - about how God’s new thing worked in an island matriarch to start a class meeting here over 200 years ago...about how we are the heirs of the love and labor of the various incarnations of church here on this island throughout the generations - about how the church is never about individual people or pastors but is always about A People, living and breathing and working and loving together - A People bound and journeying together, open to being made and remade in God’s own image - A People claimed in the waters of baptism and who covenant together for the work of God’s unfolding kin-dom in this time and in this place.
 
And that’s where we stand - at the threshold of something new -- even as we inherit the legacy of the church past -- knowing that we have been entrusted to partner with Christ in the work of peace and justice -- knowing that we do so to pass the seeds of hope and love to those who will receive it 200 years from now.
 
God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it?
 
Part of being able to perceive God’s action in the world is through remembering - remembering that we are baptized - that we are God’s people, that God has fashioned us, claimed us, that God has redeemed us, called us by name, that we belong to God...and because we belong to God, we belong to each other. We have gone through the waters of baptism, we have been sealed with the flame of the Holy Spirit. We are not held back by obligation to the past even as we give thanks and acknowledge our history - but we are not bound by it, proclaims our God. 
 
And so as we are here as a people - even though we’re not in the same space, ready for God’s new thing - even though we may not know fully where that leads yet - to remember that we are baptized, to reaffirm our commitment to God and to each other, 
 
 

Today we come to the waters,
to renew our commitments in each other's presence
to Christ who has raised us,
the Spirit who has birthed us,
and the Creator who is making all things new.