“A New Name”

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. God of all time, you are God of the past, God of the present, and you our God who has secured the future. Continue to hold us, and care for us, and continually re-make us, so that we might experience the joy of being yours, of being your new creation. Word of God, bring forth your message for our lives.  May it bless, heal and guide us in your Truth.  Your Word gives us new life.  In it we rejoice. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. Amen.

It is a new day, a new year. We have crossed through the hectic but powerful and meaningful time of Advent and Christmas day. We are now here in 2006. Can you believe it is 2006? Me neither.

This is the lectionary text for the day, and it is such an interesting choice that those who pick the lectionary made, that it deserves some mentioning. It includes parts of two chapters, as you can tell by looking in your bulletin. Sometimes that signifies weirdness in the breaks of chapters and verse numbers. Often the readings are a solid theme that shows how the original numbering system lacked. But today that is not the case. Today, the lectionary pickers are the ones that are odd. There are two specific themes in today’s passage, and they switch where the chapter does.

That said, here now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Isaiah. Listen. Isaiah 61.10-62.3

61.10  I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

11  For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

62.1  For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.

2  The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give.

3  You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

When I lived in Orlando, I had a delightfully peculiar friend and roommate named Mike. We both worked with the youth group in a rather large church, I was the Senior High Ministries Director, and he was one of my best volunteers. He was a tall, athletic person, who still hasn’t forgiven Jimmy Carter for taking away his opportunity to be an Alternate on the 1980 Olympic Swimming team. We were on a skiing trip with about 175 Sr. Highs, and he and I both had hurt our knees. Our last ski day was to be January 1^st, but it was clear that neither of us were going to be able to ski that day. We were going to have to stay in the lodge, which isn’t as fun as it might sound. So, we came up with the idea for something revolutionary. We would watch football all day, which before the BCS you could do on the New Years, and we would eat something every hour on the hour. The diet could start the 2^nd. It sounds easy, but around 3.00, it becomes a battle of will, mind over stomach. And so, Oral Edification Day, as it is still known, was born.

The next year we weren’t on a ski trip. My day began around 9.00 or so, I do miss those days in which sleeping in was possible. I was in the shower, when the bathroom door opened, and these words came out. “I’ve peeled it for you.” Then over the shower door came an orange, from our backyard. “It’s 9.00 on the dot, better eat something, or O.E. day won’t be right.” Anytime a 6’5, 250 pound man comes bounding into the bathroom while you are in the shower, it is a jolting way to start the year.

New Year’s Day is supposed to set the tone for the whole year. Melissa’s family has long had a New Year’s Day tradition as well, and while not as crazy as Oral Edification day, does involve unusual food. They eat what they call a “Traditional Southern New Year’s day Meal”, though I have lived in the south for over 30 years, and have never heard of this meal outside of 65 Pine Lake Drive. They have collard greens, because eating green things assures you good fortune and money. They eat black eyed peas and ham jowls, because eating gross things assures you good luck. I guess if you can survive eating that kind of junk, you must be calling upon good luck. Tomatoes are eaten for, well, no one knows why tomatoes are eaten. Maybe because something edible ought to be on the table at some point.

But again, the point is the same, a new Year is in part about turning a New corner, a New Leaf, and expecting new and excitingly different things. When I was 8, I had a friend who believed that whatever you did on New Year’s Day was what you got to do every day of the year, if you wanted. So, he wanted to go to Star Trek, the first one, which was out at the time. I know many of you are Trekkies, or Trekkers, or whatever. But on January 1, 1979, what I did was fall asleep. I guess there was a disconnect for me and what we did on New Year’s Day that year.

Which brings us to today’s scripture.¹ I said there was a break in the reading, right at the chapter break. The part in Isaiah 61.10-11 is about salvation. Salvation is introduced as a present reality in the life of the writer. Salvation is the gift of righteousness in which God has clothed Isaiah. And righteousness, in this section, is known as a quality arising from worship. We can notice in verse 11 how the images shift to creation, the earth and a garden, and how righteousness is no longer a present reality, but a future hope for the prophet. The text moves from his personal salvation to a confession of hope that salvation will one day be completed, found in the metaphor of righteousness springing forth before all nations. Salvation moves beyond ourselves, past our personal piety and beyond our private relationship with Jesus to a confession about God’s transformation of a new creation.

The 62^nd chapter is also about salvation, but it begins with a complaint, rather than thanksgiving. The complaint is that salvation in Jerusalem should be more evident than it is. The absence of God’s salvation is described as divine silence. God is all too silent, and Isaiah can no longer bear it.

The core of the message is that Jerusalem will experience a reversal, will experience a new corner, a turn, and it will be symbolized through a name change. Name changes are not new for God, nor are they small deals. Just ask Abram and Sarai. Or Simon who became Peter. A new name is a sign that God is making someone into a new creation, the old will be gone, the new has come.

New Names, New Years, New Orders of Service for Worship. We’ve got all sorts of new things going on here today. One of the things that marks healthy, strong churches is that they are always aware that the best time in their history is just around the corner. With a church whose history dates back to 1830, it would seem an easy temptation to think of a particular time as the golden age. “Remember back when so and so was doing this, and we had this going on, and that happened, and such and such?” Sure, we have plenty of memories and stories here, and I have heard some of the most colorful stories and even some of the off-color ones too. But one thing we do well here is that we keep our focus on the present and the future, where God resides with us, and where God leads us. Let us continue that wonderful practice as we forge ahead into the New Year, and who knows what exciting new things to which God is leading us. May we be blessed with the righteousness, both private and public, that God imparts. May we be a new creation. Amen.