For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.
(Isaiah 65:17-25)
Will the year 2011 at all resemble the description from Isaiah?
Yet the passage is our joy, our vision, our hope for the coming year. The words are a call to us, God's people, by the grace which God bestows in abundance, "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God", to do our part, as best we can, to bring to reality the vision of the Kingdom of God.
In the words of Archbishop Óscar Romero, who was murdered for his efforts:
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Jane, you are wise. Can't kick the "estasblishment" in the nuts, and expect the "establishment" to reward you.
ReplyDeleteCynthia
Cynthia, exactly.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to use my real name, it's June, not Jane. Just saying. :-) However, my grandchildren and others call me Mimi, so I answer to two names.
June,I am a secretary at a local Episcopal church.All of the Episcopal churches in our city are trying to set up facebooks or blogs. At a city wide meeting they refered to a blog from Great Britain as what not to write. Several of us checked it out.The guy in Britain is very negative. How does he get away talking about other churchmen as he does?
ReplyDeleteCynthia
Cynthia, local meaning where I live?
ReplyDeleteTo which blog in Great Britain do you refer?
Cynthia - that's a pretty name...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, where were we, Jane? Or should I say, "June"? Or was that ... "Mimo"???? ... Oh yes, Oscar Romero. Wise and cheering words that make it possible to get on with whatever small things we each of us can accomplish in our tiny corners of the world.
ReplyDeleteMay 2011 consequently be a little closer to Isaiah's description than it otherwise would be, by the grace of God.
No, Cathy, I don't answer to Mimo. My evil twin answers for herself.
ReplyDeleteMay 2011 consequently be a little closer to Isaiah's description than it otherwise would be, by the grace of God.
Amen!
Mimi, your evil twin is not doing her job properly then - the whole point of being an evil twin is to pass all responsibility for your evil deeds by sleight of hand to your good sibling.
ReplyDelete