The theme for this Thirty-Third Sunday  in Ordinary Time is “LOOK AHEAD WITH JOY”.  The text is from the Prophet Isaiah:

Pay close attention now:
I am creating new heavens and a new earth.
All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain
are things of the past, to be forgotten.
Look ahead with joy.
Anticipate what I am creating!

Let us pray. . .

In his introduction to the Book of Isaiah Eugene Peterson writes, “For the Prophet Isaiah, words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth and beauty and goodness.  Or, as the case may be, hammers and swords and scalpels to unmake transgressions and guilt and rebellion.  This prophet creates visions, delivers revelation, and arouses belief.  He is a poet in the most fundamental sense—a maker, making God present and that Godly presence urgent!” 

Now I don’t know about you, but in the pain and pandemonium the of the past two weeks—from the bombing of Fallujah to the ballot boxes of the farm-belt, from the volatility of the Middle-East to the violence of the Sudan,  I need a prophet-poet to arouse my belief anew.  I need a maker—someone who can make God present and that Godly presence urgent once more.  For if I am to be honest with myself, let me tell you how this passage from Isaiah really reads in my head and in my heart this day.

Now I don't know about you, but in the pain and pandemonium the of the past two weeks-from the bombing of Fallujah to the ballot boxes of the farm-belt, from the volatility of the Middle-East to the violence of the Sudan, I need a prophet-poet to arouse my belief anew. I need a maker-someone who can make God present and that Godly presence urgent once more. For if I am to be honest with myself, let me tell you how this passage from Isaiah really reads in my head and in my heart this day.

Pay close attention now-God declares:
For heaven and earth have gone to hell in a hand-basket.
Troubles, and chaos, and pain are things of the present-
to be sensed in the now!
Look ahead with trepidation!
Anticipate with fear the coming future.
For sounds of weeping fill the streets of the city,
and cries of anguish float upon the evening air.
Babies die in their cradles
and old people have their lives cutout from under them.
Houses are built-only to be left in ruins.
Fields are planted-only to be left dry and fallow.
Children are snatched out from under their parents' arms,
and it is forgotten too quickly that they are plantings blessed by God.
People call out and there is no answer,
a dying breath receives no response!
The wolf devours the lamb,
and the lion consumes the ox-
for hurt and hate have taken up permanent residence
on the Holy Mountain of God!

Anticipate what God is creating? Isaiah asks!
Look ahead with joy?

That is such a hard thing to do when you feel as if the world is falling apart around you, when you feel as if your efforts for peace, and justice, and hope have left you cut off at the knees, and when you feel as if your heart will break if you see one more naked beating or you hear one more nationalistic boast!

Anticipate what God is creating? Isaiah asks!
Look ahead with joy?

That is so very hard to do when you feel as if you are an alien in your own country, when you sense that your thoughts and your theology are somehow abhorrent to the status quo, and when you feel as if your heart will break if you hear God's name evoked one more time for acts of violence, or aggression, or hostility!

Anticipate what God is creating? Isaiah asks!
Look ahead with joy?

That is so very hard to do when you feel as if you are a lone voice in your work-place, or a lone voice in the national Church, or a lone voice in the face of imperial power that would too quickly strip you of your very right to speak!

Anticipate what God is creating? Isaiah asks
Look ahead with joy?

But that is exactly what we MUST DO, that is exactly what we HAVE TO DO this day, if we are to make the daring claim that we are followers of Jesus the Christ! If we are to be stewards of his ministry in this place and time, then we must realize that it is in fact faithful and just to raise questions about our country's so-called right to be a super-power with a quasi-religious aura. We must realize that it is in fact faithful and just to raise questions about our nation's propensity to wield its fist of military might in preemptive and pre-selected ways. We must realize that it is in fact faithful and just to raise questions about national policies and practices that concentrate wealth and health and hope in an ever-smaller elite. We must realize that it is in fact faithful and just to raise questions about why so many religious folk are bowing down to a god of political torture, and domination, and control. And while many respectable Christians may wince at such words-what they REALLY should wince at is the over-worn phrase "God Bless America" every time it leaves their lips! For what kind of God would bless a country that perpetuates fear of the coming future and dread of the yet-to-be? What kind of God would bless a country that fills foreign streets with weeping and causes anguished cries to float upon the evening air? What kind of God would bless a country that bombs babies in their cradles and old people in their homes-a country that has forgotten too quickly that all life is a planting blessed by the Divine? What kind of God would bless a country that consumes the weak and devours the poor-all-the-while allowing hate and hurt to be the order of the day?

Anticipate what God is creating? Isaiah asks!
Look ahead with joy?

We are suffering today-in our country and I dare say in the Church-not simply from greed, and injustice, and rampant violence . . .but from a lack of imagination! For lack of vision, we are perishing fast. This is why you and I need Isaiah's words-why we need his prophetic vision, why we need this prophet who creates abundant visions, and delivers rich revelation, and arouses abiding belief. For ultimately what Isaiah is up to is making God present and that Godly presence urgent in our lives once more!

Harvey Cox, at the conclusion of his book Many Mansions, puts this another way when he writes, "The destruction of our present world requires us to put all our questions not in the form of "What will happen?" but rather "What must we urgently do?" We must not wait imagine-less for God to deliver us into a new era in which we no longer need to project our inmost terrors onto the heavens or onto other peoples and nations. WE must NOW take the initiate, not just to predict the future-including the future of Christianity-but to shape it!"

Today, as a community known as First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, we need to live and to work and to witness as if an alternative vision IS possible! We need to refuse to hang our heads in grief-for instead we must look ahead with joy-ever anticipating what God is creating in our midst! Even when the possibility of real change seems dark and dim-especially then, especially now, we need to believe that change is possible and we must be willing to bet our very lives and our very livelihoods upon it!

You do not need me to tell you that we stand today at a crossroad-and critical choices will need to be made in the days to come. Those choices are at heart religious insofar as they will reveal our most fundamental values and our deepest moral sensibilities. The road we take as a faith community will determine the kind of people we will become and the nature of the society in which we will live. In short, the decisions we make-our stewardship, our leadership, our protests and our promptings-will decisively shape the quality of the life of the Church and of our country for ourselves and for our children and for our children's children yet-to-be. For the poet Prophet whose words make truth and beauty and goodness come alive, the poet Prophet who makes God present and that Godly presence urgent, says to us this day:

Pay close attention!
I am creating new heavens and a new earth.
Look ahead with joy!
Anticipate what I am creating!
No more sounds of weeping in the city,
no more cries of anguish!
No more babies dying in their cradles
or old people who don't enjoy a full lifetime.
No more building houses that outsiders take over!
No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates.
People will not work and have noting come of it!
People will not have children snatched out from under them-
For they themselves are plantings blessed by God!
Wolf and lamb will graze the same peaceful meadow,
Lion and ox will eat straw from the same trough of equity!
And neither animal nor human will hurt or kill
on the Holy Mountain of God!

Thanks be to God for such a vision! AMEN