But now thus said the Lord--Who created you, O Jacob, Who formed you, O Israel; Fear not, for I will redeem you; I have singled you out by name, You are Mine. When you pass through water, I will be with you; Through streams, They shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, You shall not be scorched; Through flame, It shall not burn you. For I am the Lord you God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as a ransom for you, Ethiopia and Saba in exchange for you. Because you are precious to Me, and honored, and I love you, I give men in exchange for you and peoples in your stead. Isaiah 43:1-4

Since we all deal with change again and again, I have included my sermon from Sunday. Please read this Isaiah passage above (from the Jewish Study Bible translation) and think about where you have been forced to acknowledge and deal with change in your life. What new life has grown out of change? What is your philosophy or theology of change?

First Sunday after Epiphany
January 7, 2006
RCL, Year C

Memorial Church

But now, thus says the Lord, the one who created you, O Jacob, the one who formed you, O Israel; Do not be afraid, for I have rescued you; I have called you by you name. You are mine! Isaiah 43:1

In the name of God, who walks with us through the water and fire. AMEN.

Change is a constant for Second Isaiah.
The portion of the Book of the prophet Isaiah which we read as our first lesson is generally called Second Isaiah.
Second Isaiah wrote during the end of the period of the Babylonian exile of Israel. The Babylonian Exile covered some 60 years from the first deportation in 597 b.c.e. to the return to Jerusalem in 539.
When the leaders of Judah trudged off to exile in 597 b,c,e,, there were many questions:
Why has this happened to us?
What is our future now?
Where is God in all of this?
Somehow the Hebrews made a way in a new land.
They adapted to Babylonian ways.
They married and raised a new generation of children.
After fifty years, living in exile became the new normal.
Then, just when they all were getting used to Babylon, another change happened.
Cyrus, King of Persia, defeated the Babylonian empire.
And then announced that all Babylonian captives could return to their homes.
New questions abounded for the exiled people.
How can we go back to our old ways?
Our children no longer know our old ways and even our ancestral language.
Why should we go back to a place few of us have ever seen?
Yet, slowly but surely the Hebrew people went back to Jerusalem.
And it was a new Jerusalem that had changed—some things beyond recognition.
The temple would have to be rebuilt.
But, just as in the 40 year journey to the Promised Land so many years before, the Hebrew people knew—they just knew—that God would led them to the next place. That they could pass through water and through fire, and all would be well.

The Prophet Second Isaiah writes in chapter 43, verse one that God has “formed” Israel. The Hebrew word used to mean “formed” is the same Hebrew word used in Genesis 2 when God “formed” the human to live and work in God’s garden.
Just as God formed Adam, God formed Israel.
Indeed, God forms us again and again in our lives.
And as we are continually formed, we are continually called to change again and again as we work toward the Kingdom of God in our midst.

At our mini-Vestry retreat on Thursday night and Friday, I read a portion from the book Christianity for the Rest of Us; How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass.
Diana grew up a Methodist on Harford Road in the Hamilton neighborhood of Baltimore in the 1960s.
Her book talks about how the neighborhoods as many of us knew them in the 1950s and 1960s have changed.
When she was a little girl, Hamilton was populated by hard-working families-many of German ancestry—almost all of whom were Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists.
There must have been some Episcopalians—since Church of the Messiah located there as well.
Diana was a Hochstedt—her family owned the local flower shop.
The entire family worked at the flower shop.
Each day at noon, everyone would close the shop for an hour, walk across the street to the grandparents house, have lunch and, an hour later, cross back to the shop for the afternoon.
>From Diana’s house, it was a mile to St John’s Methodist Church.
Within that mile was school, work, play, family, friends.

Of this time, Diana writes: “We all knew our place in the world. It wa a world of boundaries, rules and roles. Social class, race, ethnicity, birth order, and gender determined everything. We believed that God had made it that way ... . In the early 1960s, I knew what would lie ahead: marriage to a high school sweetheart, children, and working for my cousin Eddie in that same flower shop.” (Christianity for the Rest of Us, pp. 16-17)

Of course, as you all know, things changed on Harford Road—for all unanticipated and for some, unwelcome.
Some people left; others arrived.
All feeling exiled from what was to what is.
In some ways, Diana’s childhood village vanished—her family flower shop is now an office supply store. The azaleas gracing her mother’s lawn have been torn out and replaced with a concrete parking pad.
The bakery, the movie theatre, the drug store fountain, the Kresge’s department store—al gone.

But in its place is a new community.
The once all-white Hamilton Elementary is now racially diverse.
In place of a largely family-oriented neighborhood, now there is a near equal split of married and single people, gay and straight.
There are not just one or two racial groups, but many.
Hamilton, like many urban neighborhoods throughout the country, is a symbol of change—there is a new world emerging.
We all know there is change—and while we want to know the future—what the new Jerusalem will be like, what Hamilton is becoming—we really have no idea.

The Church, the Body of Christ, is just like the Hebrew people or like the neighborhood of Hamilton.
There is always change—which feels like an exile from what is known and loved.
And just as sure as there is change, there is always a new normal just around the corner. It’s a pattern as old as Genesis.
Somehow it always just seems to catch us by surprise.
And when we are caught by a surprising change—we often do one of two things.
We get caught in bemoaning the lost past.
Or we obsess about what is going to happen in the future.
And what the lesson of all of Holy Scripture—from Genesis to Exodus through all three Isaiahs and the prophets and Jesus and the Disciples is THIS: We are asked to leave the past behind, to live in the present and place the future firmly in the hands of God. In her book The Gift of Change, in a chapter entitled WHAT WILL BE, Marianne Williamson recalls how much she can obsess about what life will be like in the future. She believes that “every point in life’s journey is inherently preparing us for our future in ways that the rational mind cannot possibly comprehend. . . We think we have to lead when all we really have to do is follow.”

Marianne remembers a time when she was visiting New York with her daughter. Of this time she writes: “We were having a wonderful time, and then she turned to me and said, “Mom, I’m so excited about going to Boston next week, I can hardly stand it!” Of this time, Marianne says, “I didn’t want to rain on her parade or make her feel invalidated for wanting to go to Boston. But I did muse about how the ego works: always making us think that where we’re going next week will be better, what we’re doing at the next job will be more right for us, and so forth. Joy can be found only one place at one time: right here, right now. Regardless of where we’re going to tomorrow, it’s important to bless where we are and enjoy the fruits of today. The truth is, almost any experience can be miserable if you’re good enough at making yourself miserable. And almost any experience can be enjoyable if you’re good enough at practicing joy.”

Williamson says that “sometimes we think we can’t relax about the future because we need to know what it will be first. I’ve known people who seemed to think God should send a letter, telling them exactly where to go and what to do. Such as:
“Dear Gloria, this is God. I’ve chosen Kansas City for you, where you will live for six months starting this November and where you will work. After that, you will move to Newport Beach, where you will meet your soul mate. You’ll be rich, successful, and happy. And then, after a long, long time you will die.”

Gloria and the rest of us wonder why God doesn’t do this—and then if God could, could God send the letter Federal Express?

But Williamson believes and I do as well and I think Holy Scripture backs this up that “we’re told so little about the future because there’s so much to understand about the present. God is about NOW. He doesn’t spell out the path ahead; rather, He spells out the path within.” (quotes from The Gift of Change, pp. 119-121)

Of course, this sermon comes to you on the heels of a Christmastide surprise that calls Stewart from our midst to a new place.
For both Stewart and for the Memorial community, there will be a sense of exile.
There will be sadness for the change to come.
But the change will come.
It is God’s call for Stewart and God’s call for us.
To live into the future—knowing that God will be with us all as we make our way into something we can’t see or know just yet.

But as we walk forward, we are called to be together in the present.
We are blessed in the next four weeks to have the opportunity to give thanks for the life together that we have had.
We can still experience the joy in one another’s presence as we are NOW.
What will be will be.
For now we can celebrate and love one another and say goodbye as we walk into the future—changed but always held in God’s loving care and call.
Let us pray:

Assist us, Lord, in living hopefully into the future. In the face of change, help us to set unnecessary fears aside and to recognize our potential for creative response. Help us to develop a reasonable optimism when confronted by “the new” and to guard against our own defensiveness. Be with us as we remember and celebrate former times, and keep us from unreasonable yearning for them, which takes us from the work you have set before us in our time. All this we ask in the name of your Child, our Savior, Jesus Christ. AMEN. (Prayer written by the Rev. Linda C. Smith-Criddle in Women’s Uncommon Prayers)

In Christ's Love,