This year the Evangelical
Lutheran Church
in America
celebrates 25 years of ministry, and as part of this year-long celebration the
church has picked the theme of “Always being made new” with the theme verse
which we just happened to read today from Revelation 21:5, “See, I am making
all things new.” I’m not going to pretend like this isn’t an intentional
message for a church that has sometimes struggled to be proactive in
anticipating the future. We are being made new every day, but as a church both
nationally and locally some of that newness has been challenging. Locally, our
churches have had our share of new and difficult challenges in the last
twenty-five years. In fact, the one thing I have heard perhaps more than
anything else since taking over this call a year and a half ago is that we have
been in need of a new start. A year and a half later, some
of my newness has worn off, which means with every passing day it’s a little
harder to focus on always being made new, to be the church which Martin Luther
called “semper reformanda”—always reforming.
Of
course, there is an underbelly to this idea of always being made new; I know some people have a bone to pick with this theme. Always being made new does not
mean we do not honor the past; it does not mean newness for newness’ sake; and
it does not mean that new is equated with “better” and old with “useless.” We
are made new not because new things are inherently better but because, left to
our own devices, we make poor choices and are in need of a word of forgiveness
every single day—newness every day.
I understand the
concern about all things “new.” Christians are rightfully skeptical of the
advertising culture that screams, “New this!”
and “New that!” You get the newest
smart phone and it’s practically obsolete by the time you bring it home. You
get on Facebook and suddenly Facebook is so 2010. You get on Twitter and then
Twitter isn’t cool. And guess what? Snap Chat and Vine and Instagram are going
to be so last year by, well, next year. We worship the “new” because the newest
thing is the thing we haven’t gotten bored with yet. Everything else is so old.
This
is absolutely not what new creation
is about. We use the term, “new creation,” a lot in church—or at least I do, because
I find it to be a useful way to talk about the ultimate purpose for the
universe. Cultural expressions of the Christian faith have
given us this vague idea of heaven as the ultimate
purpose for creation, which is fine except that our visions of heaven have a
lot of preconceived notions that may be unhelpful. New creation is far earthier
than our traditional visions of heaven. New creation is not angels strumming up in the clouds but the
presence of God making everything new on this earth, creating a new earth and new
celestial bodies in a physical place that looks like this except without sin
and sadness and death. New creation is here and not yet; this world but
changed. Most importantly, new creation is not new for newness’ sake. The
newest iPhone off the assembly line is doing absolutely nothing to bring about
new creation. Our world cannot develop new creation on its own; it is
completely reliant on God to bring it about.
Our
challenge with new creation is simply to keep our hands off and leave it to
God... but we are absolutely terrible at keeping our hands off these things. Each
of us has things in our lives that we consider “new” and “old;” heck, we even
have people we consider “new” and “old." New things are exciting
and invigorating; old things ground us to a tradition and offer us wisdom that
has passed the test of time. New things are also sometimes shallow and
self-serving, while old things can hinder our ability to live into a better future.
We are a people who are always being made new, even as we are a people grounded
in Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever. Nothing changes—everything
changes.
OK,
this sermon is in the danger zone of doing what far too many preachers and
thinkers do, which is to lift up a contradiction and then go home to watch
football. So here’s my point: God is making all things new, so that you and I
do not need to worry about the ends of our little schemes and plans. God is
making all things new, so that you and I do not need to worry about constantly
filling our lives with other new things. God is making all things new to remind
us who is God and who is not. And finally, God is making all things new so that
our ideas of what is old and what is new are all put to shame.
The
thing to notice about Revelation’s account of new creation is that the actor in
every instance is God. God is the Alpha and the Omega; God is the one wiping every
tear from our eyes. Not us. Most of you are nice people. Many of you do very
good things for others, giving your time and money and resources to those who
are in need. Some of you sacrifice more than any of us know for the sake of
others. That’s great. To you is given the kingdom of God,
but
it is not by your own doing. The yardstick of salvation is far too high for any
of us, no matter how generous we are, to reach. When the rich man in Luke’s
Gospel is told to give away everything that he has and he goes away sad because
he has many possessions, that is the difference between our idea of newness and
God’s new creation. The man is held captive by things that can buy him newness, but that newness is not real. The man—like all of us—can
never give enough away to get there. Whether it’s money or our history or our
immediate pleasures, all of us have a stilted idea of the ultimate purpose for
our lives.
So,
here we stand, fighting the same old battle between what is new and what is
old, between the past and the future. The ELCA selected this theme of “Always
being made new” in part because, like all institutions of this world, the ELCA
is concerned with what is to come. So are we all. So are those who are bent on
gazing into the past to make sure we will be remembered, so are those that want
to blow up our history to create an unencumbered future, so are those who are
so turned in on themselves that they don’t actually care about the church but
only their own immediate gratification or legacies. But new creation, in spite
of our insistence on talking about it in future terms, is fundamentally about
the here and now; always being made new starts with God’s presence in this
moment. This moment—right now. This moment is the product of many moments
before it that are now the past; and this moment will birth a future that is
built upon our experiences today. But all we ever really have is now. We have a God who promises to be
here, now. If you aren’t trying to meet God in here and now, how can you
possibly expect to see God in some uncertain future? Here is where new creation
starts.
So,
I don’t care if you are the type who thinks that the past is what makes us who we
are, or the type who is overly concerned about where we are going; God promises
to be present in this moment. As a church, one of our most significant troubles
is that we spend so little time being present right here and so much concerned
with what has been and what will be. I’m willing to bet most of you--if you are ever present in worship--come with things in your head that are to come: grocery lists, television shows,
dates, appointments, medical concerns, sports, relationships; and most of you also call to mind things that have been: past mistakes, grudges, people who you have upset and people who
have upset you. These are the things we bring to worship every week, things
that linger with us. It’s why we confess and forgive at the beginning of this
service—so you can let go of all those silly things you brought with you—all
the history and baggage you brought with you and all the worries about the
future.
None
of that matters here and now. Instead, I invite you to be present in this place
and time. If we can meet each other here and spend this time together, then we
can begin to hear the common concerns we all
have about both the past and future. If we can do that then we can begin to
experience new creation, to always be made new, and to be a church not obsessed
by a need to save itself but by a desperate need to be the body of Christ as
Jesus would have us be. Then, we can remember that we are not the ones who save
ourselves; new creation is not our job. Instead, we are to lay aside our
Protestant work ethic, forgetting our schemes and devices, and trusting in the
God who is the only hope not only for the church but for all of our lives,
Jesus Christ, come to dwell among us, wiping every tear from our eyes—the purpose
for all of creation.
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