Sermon preached by the Reverend Nicholas Lang

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The 25th Sunday after Pentecost - November 18, 2007

This Gospel, taken at face value, is scary. Some of the realities in our time, mentioned therein—nation taking on nation, earthquakes, famine, viruses without apparent cures and a host of other dreadful circumstances, not the least of which are the continued threat of terrorism, a shaky economy and sky-rocketing energy costs— corroborate for us the gloom and doom picture that this text presents.

The morning news brought tales of woe once again—that the city of Atlanta has only four months of drinking water available and a service station manager in Detroit shot and killed a competitor who was about to lower the price of gasoline. For those motorists, for example, on the bridge that collapsed last summer, sending cars and passengers into the deep Mississippi River, leaving others hanging on for dear life, it must have seemed like the end of the world. Here in Connecticut we began to worry about the infrastructure of our own bridges, several of which received poor marks on their last report card. The integrity of our infrastructures across the board are a concern for us—on a local level here in Norwalk that was a point of contention in our recent elections and in Washington it appears that, in terms of the infrastructure of our government, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Whether it be the solution to local flooding or the quagmire of the war in Iraq, I think we can all agree that we need something new.

Old approaches and paradigms, former passé strategies, and previous programs don’t seem to work in many areas of life. Here in church, we have made our mantra for the past several years “Doing Church Differently.” We did that because we also realized that we needed something new, a different paradigm, something fresh. And it has worked.

United Methodist Minister, Jim Harnish, in his book, You Only Have to Die , told this story of the revival of a once-dying city parish to which he had been assigned: “How well I remember the board meeting when I told them, ‘I’ve got some good news for you tonight and some bad news. The good news is that despite what anyone thinks, this church can grow. After nine months with you here I can promise you that there are some things we can do that will make a difference.’ One of the board members asked, ‘What is the bad news?’ I responded, ‘The bad news is that we can only be born into a new, fresh congregation if there is some death. The good news is that there can be growth, the bad news is that it won’t be painless.’ As providence would have it, it did grow, but not before something died in order that something new might be born.”

Perhaps our anxiety about national and local infrastructure, like the angst of any congregation facing the need for change, can help us understand the reaction of the audience to whom Jesus was speaking in the first century. The temple whose demise he foretold stood at the heart of Jerusalem. It was the most prominent and sacred structure in that city. It also occupied the center of their culture. It was a symbol of God’s dwelling among the Hebrew people. What’s more, hardly anyone living in Jerusalem did not have some kind of connection with the temple from a commercial point of view. It brought traders who sold sacrificial animals and craftsmen who provided various ritual objects. More than 20,000 people were employed there by the priestly hierarchy. Scores of pilgrims visiting the temple created a huge tourist industry. How could such a significant edifice and the very foundation of their lives be subject to destruction? If this focus of their religious, cultural, and economic strength is demolished, what would be left for them?

As in many instances, his listeners were not able to understand what Jesus was trying to tell them. Jesus was talking about a new relationship and covenant with God—one built on love and not just regard for the Torah. He was trying to tell them that old ways needed to make way for the new. They did not get it. And, in our own day, our minds flooded by images of tragedy and violence and destruction, it is easy for us to miss his message as well. Whereas the Hebrews—and likewise even we—might construe this Gospel text nightmarish, I believe that God would have us see it as the forecast of a dream. For it paints us a reality beyond what is. What is now is not what God will bring in the fullness of time. This Gospel and the reading to the Thessalonian community are meant to encourage and support us as we hope, wait, and endure together until the realm of God is firmly established and we are all living in the new heavens and a new earth.

In the interim, and as we plod along doing our best to remain cheerful and trustful, God wants us to have a foretaste of that kingdom in the here and now. God wants us to at least stand on the threshold of a “new world.” In order to do that—just as in the case of the congregation of the dying church to whom that minister was sent—we have to let go of an old one.

The year is rapidly winding down and we are on a fast track to the holiday season which some of us may be eagerly anticipating and which some of us may dread. It can be a time of deep reflection as well as celebration, an opportunity to look forward or to look backward, a season of joy and delight or one of sadness and regret.

I wonder if there is any circumstance or situation in your life that is crying out for something new to happen, a new strategy, a fresh start, an innovative undertaking. I wonder if on the horizon you recognize the need to dismantle some “temple” –some infrastructure that you have built as a means of manufacturing a sense of security—in order to make room for newness to come into your life. Some would call that the work of God.

How often, and even very recently, do I hear that someone has been laid off from a job, sometimes after a good number of years, usually the result of “demon” downsizing. It is an experience that can well drive a person to a depression, especially at this time of the year. Yet, in so many instances, when I speak with someone who has endured that frightening experience six months or a year after, he or she will tell me that being laid off or having to resign was one of the best things that ever happened to them. The old world had to die and a new world had now been born. And there are many other ways in which that experience manifests itself in our lives.

Perhaps even our way of observing Christmas is an example of an old strategy that does not work for us. I’ve been thinking about that over the past few weeks—the way we are sweet-talked and enticed by tradition, by society, by economists, by advertisers to spend and charge and buy. So, inspired by one of our members who has decided to do Christmas differently, I am not exchanging gifts this year. Instead, I am going to make a contribution in honor of those I love, and for whom I would be buying gifts, to the Women’s Crisis Center in Norwalk, a safe haven for women and their children who are victims of domestic violence, and which is an often overlooked community in great need. Perhaps, in some way—either by modifying your giving or restricting your spending, you might join us in this or choose another way to relieve human suffering.

We live in a time when old approaches, former strategies, previous programs don’t seem to work in many areas of life. Conventions and habits can be restrictive as well as reassuring. What we see as our “temples” of security and self-protection can become our prisons. Still I believe in the power of God to make all things new—whether it is the infrastructure of our nation, our city, our church, or our lives. That is the good news I offer you this morning.

Sometimes the undoing of the old world can be difficult, even painful. God can and does intrude in order to bring us both the destruction of the old and the raising up of the new. If we will allow God to do it, God will come into our lives and make a way where we don’t see any way. Where we may think nightmare, God proposes a dream. Where we see an ending, God sees a beginning. Creation is not something that God did once and for all, but rather something that God continues to do everyday, all around us, and even within us, if we are willing to let something go in order that something new might be born.