January 11, 2026

New Things

Why are we here?

Why do you and I come to this place?

What are we looking for?

What are we finding?

 

If the truth be known, we are probably here for a lot of different reasons.  Some are here searching for meaning, for a connection with the transcendent and eternal.  Some are here out of force of habit – it’s where they’ve always been.  Some are here because they have friends here, and this is a good place to feel connected and share experiences.  Some are here because it’s a place to play a different role than anywhere else – to be a leader for a change, or to be a follower for a change.  There are probably a dozen other reasons.  But I would like to challenge you to consider that maybe we’re intended to be here primarily to participate in a genuine community of faith that helps us encounter the holy, and find some kind of connection to the Almighty Lord of Hosts, and in that encounter to be redeemed, re-inspired, and renewed in order to be agents of transformation.

And now I have the hardest question yet: do you think that’s happening?  Is it happening for you – for us as a congregation?  Are we finding deep and meaningful community here?  Are we finding sustaining faith?  Are we finding that Lord Almighty?  Are we being refreshed and re-created?  Are we being re-motivated to engage the world around us with the love of Christ and the hope of the gospel?

I rather guess that if those questions were asked of any group of believers at any time in history in any given place, the answers might be quite mixed.  And I suspect the answers might be quite mixed in this place at this time.  Why?  Because you and I and all of the good, church-going people have a pernicious tendency to worship the wrong things.  We fall in love with rituals; we cling to traditions; we sanctify institutions; we deify conventions of behavior, and canonize rules of order.  It’s not just you; it’s not just me; it’s a basic part of being human.  But it gets in the way of our ability to discover the Divine Spirit who refuses to dwell in the gilded boxes of our traditions, but moves through human experience like a mighty wind disrupting our agendas.

I think that’s why Jesus associated himself with the radical known as John the Baptist.  John was doing something new.  He was taking people down to the river and dunking them in the water in an act of repentance.  Nobody had ever heard of anyone doing such a thing.  There was a Jewish ritual of purification that involved water, but it was nothing like this.  John was doing a new thing.  And he’s the guy Jesus chose to begin his ministry with.  It was John’s innovation – his strange baptism – that Jesus chose to inaugurate his divine work.  But then, everything about Jesus’ ministry was brand new.  He butchered one sacred cow after another.  He drove the money changers from the Temple, attacking a time-honored tradition.  He and his disciples worked on the Sabbath.  He forgave people their sins.  In many respects, he redefined the practice of religion in his time.  Do you suppose that he did so in order to establish a new set of sacred traditions and rituals for people to cling to?  I don’t think so.  It’s my bet he did so to try to get across to us that it is those very traditions and rituals that get in the way of an authentic engagement with both the Lord of Hosts and the world.

The prophet Isaiah reported the word of the Lord: “my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.  See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.”  Isaiah relates these words almost matter-of-factly, but these “new things” that seem to be the habit of eternity often stick in our craws.  Personally, I’m very comfortable with the way things are.  I find it very easy to do the same things each morning, each week, and each year.  It somehow makes life more predictable.  I have a bowl of Grapenuts three mornings a week for breakfast. On Wednesdays and Saturdays I have two eggs with Canadian bacon and toast.  On Mondays and Thursdays I have blueberry waffles.  And that’s just the beginning of the list of my personal rituals.  And I also like my religion to be like an old slipper, you’ve worn it a thousand times, you know it fits, and you don’t even have to think about it.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of the Lord keep getting in the way of my comfort.  I find that the words of Jesus and the themes of scripture keep calling me to embrace new things.  But the tricky part of this is that there are innovations going on around us all the time, and it’s somehow up to us to figure out which are the new things of divine intention, and what are the transient fads.  I remember a wedding I performed probably forty years ago.  Somehow, I let the couple talk me into doing the wedding they planned as a seventeenth century costume affair.  It was held in the open air on the grounds of an old mansion that was something of a castle.  The bride and groom and all the attendants wore period costumes, and there were lute players, etc.  You get the idea.  After the ceremony everyone gathered on the grounds while the court jester made the rounds passing out matchbooks with the names of the bride and groom on them.  I took mine and stuffed it in my pocket.  A little later someone asked me if I had looked at the favors we received.  I said, “You mean the matchbooks?”  He said, “Yeah, take a look.”  So I fished it out of my pocket and opened it.  Inside was a condom.  They were passing out condoms to their guests.  I don’t know if they expected this idea to catch on, or if they were just trying to be different and outrageous.  But my point is that not everything that’s new is necessarily divinely inspired.

So how do we know what are the Lord’s new things and what constitute the fleeting popularity of those who are trying to be outrageous?  For a little light on the question I turn to that great theologian, Abraham Lincoln.  I’ve lately been watching the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War and Lincoln.  He said, “The will of God prevails.  In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God.  Both may be, and one must be, wrong.  God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.  In the present civil war, it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party . . . and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose.  I am almost ready to say that this is probably true . . . that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet.”¹  Lincoln was grappling with the same question as us.  How do we know if what we are trying to give birth to in any moment is on the side of the angels?  It seems he finally came to the conclusion that it’s hard to know, but that we as a people have within us the best tools that are available to make the determination, so one simply has to put a marker down and try to effect the change you believe in.

And the ultimate test comes after the smoke clears – sometimes long after.  One only can see clearly the tracks of divinity by looking back at the outcomes of history.  Lincoln seemed to acknowledge that as well.  He said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.  I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing or all the other.  Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it . . . or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States . . . .”²  Well, you and I have seen “the glory of the coming of the Lord, he [has trampled] out the vintage where the grapes of wrath [were] stored.”  This nation did become one thing, and not this nation alone; legal slavery has been virtually abolished from the face of the earth.

What does all this mean for you and me?  It means that we have been given our marching orders.  We are not offered the comfort of withdrawing into stale routines, and we are not afforded the luxury of deciding it’s too complicated – too hard to know what the right path is.  This church has been struggling to know the way forward.  What is the Spirit of the Lord urging us into next?  Clearly there are challenges aplenty for us.  But whatever the path forward, the church must be a vehicle for trying to discern the new things the Lord is doing, and trying to embody that change.

There are new things that need to be given life in our time.  What are they?  Let us as a church strive together to keep seeking the leading of the Spirit and may we have the courage to follow.  We will be holding our annual meeting in two weeks.  I urge every able-bodied member to attend and participate.  Who knows, maybe if we are bold enough to relate our dreams, share our visions, and hear each other’s hopes, we just might see the tracks of the Lord walking through our midst and leading us to a new place – we just might find a common and compelling vision that begins to feel like the guidance of the Spirit.  We just might be blessed enough to discern the new things that the Lord is about to do among us.

     ¹1 Abraham Lincoln, “Meditation on divine will”, September 1862, in Letters and Addresses of Abraham Lincoln,  H.W. Bell, 1903, p. 257.

     ²2  From Abraham Lincoln’s acceptance speech, given on June 16, 1858, after accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for U.S. Senator.