Making All Things New
Read the Sermon
MAKING ALL THINGS NEW
The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 9, 2024
When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21)
For years now I have had on my shelves a funny little book that I take down from time to time for consolation. The book is called Bad Days in History, by Michael Farquhar. For every day of the year it gives you a short synopsis of some truly awful or unfortunate or even amusing event that occurred. If you think that things are not going your way, read a few entries of Bad Days in History, and you’ll feel better. I promise.
Take, for example, May 29th, a day I read about just a week or so ago. May 29, 1913 was an especially bad day for the great composer, Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky’s new orchestral work and ballet, The Rite of Spring, was set to premier in Paris at the Theatre Champs-Elysees. Stravinsky had labored for some years on the piece, and he already had a successful reputation with the particular dance company that would present it. What could possibly go wrong? Well, The Rite of Spring was different. It was shockingly modern and revolutionary. The notes were said to pulverize and pummel the audience, not soothe them.
What is more, the choreographer of the ballet was a dancer named Vaslav Nijinsky, who brought to Stravinsky’s pounding notes not graceful performers in tights, but clog-dancing jumpers in peasant garb. Soon into the very first piece the packed house began booing, hissing, shouting, and throwing things. The theater manager had to turn up the lights to restore order. The reviews the next day were scathing. The Italian composer Puccini thought the music was as cacophonous as the choreography was ridiculous. It is “the work of a madman,” he said. The premiere was a complete flop. Many assumed that Stravinsky had gone out of his mind.
Strangely, one-hundred years later, critics today recognize The Rite of Spring as a bold, trailblazing piece that accomplished a creative leap in music and art. Orchestras regularly include the music in their concerts, and dance companies are eager to attempt Nijinsky’s original choreography. One never would have imagined it in Paris on May 29, 1913, a bad day in history for Stravinsky, and lovers of graceful, classical ballet.
Today is not a bad day, but rather an especially good day in the history of Grace Church. In addition to our parish picnic, we are on the brink of an endless summer. Most importantly, though, we will hear the surprising tally of our capital campaign on the very day we said would be its culmination. So it is a good day. Nevertheless, when I first read through the Scripture readings appointed for today, it struck me that what we have here are a number of people having especially bad days.
First up, Samuel, a prophet of the Lord and Judge over all Israel who sounds much in the mode of the booing, hissing ballet audience in Paris. Samuel did not like the music he was hearing. The time was approximately a thousand years before Christ. For decades Samuel had been the leading figure to remind Israel of their identity as people in covenant relationship with Yahweh, and to call them back to faithfulness whenever they strayed. Israel was not technically a nation at the time of Samuel. They were a confederation of tribes with common roots in the Exodus. They came together in common worship of Yahweh, and in times of emergency. But now Samuel was advancing in years, and it was time to be thinking of who would come next. Samuel’s sons had proved themselves to be inept and corrupt. So the people began to wonder if the old way of organizing themselves could still address the needs of a new day. Perhaps it was time for something different.
Specifically, instead of a prophet presiding over a loose tribal confederacy, the people wanted a king ruling over a nation. The request was more than a matter of orderly succession planning. Palestine was becoming an increasingly populated and complex place. Surrounding peoples had organized themselves into kingdoms, and they were stronger and quicker because of it. Against such foes a tribal confederacy could easily be put down or wiped out altogether. Consolidating themselves around a king was a matter of survival. What is more, if Israel were ever to be a light to enlighten the nations, perhaps first they would have to become a nation themselves.
Samuel didn’t like the idea of a king at all. It was a bad day in history when the people said to Samuel, “Give us a king to govern us.” In today’s Old Testament reading (1 Samuel 8) we hear his magnificent blast against the inevitable evils of a big, bloated, bureaucratic government. A king, he warns, will tax you into oblivion. He will take your sons and daughters, he will take your crops and herds, he will take, take, take and leave you with nothing. “You’re out of your mind if you think a king is a good idea,” might be a fair paraphrase of Samuel’s words. Samuel makes valid and understandable points. But I also hear in his complaint a knee-jerk resistance against a new form. Samuel was caught in the tension between identity and relevance. In the end he proved himself to be more adaptable than his initial booing and hissing suggested he would be. He would serve as a bridge – albeit a reluctant bridge – between the old ways and the new, between the tribal confederacy and the monarchy. It’s as if he decided that Yahweh might indeed be calling Israel to a new, larger, riskier, more complicated presence and ministry in the region.
Next in the lineup of those having a really bad day are certain factions of the crowd in today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (3:20-35). Mark describes the scene as taking place at the home of Jesus. We don’t know what Mark means by use of the word home, whether it was a place Jesus shared with his mother, brothers, and sisters, or a place he shared with his disciples. Nevertheless, everyone seemed to be nearby, including great crowds of people who were eager to be near Jesus. Why? Because Jesus had been curing the sick, cleansing the lepers, and casting out demons. Those who were lame leaped up at this word and practically began clog-dancing. All good things, one would think.
Strangely, these new manifestations of God’s power met with opposition. The scribes who came down from Jerusalem didn’t like the new music at all. They sat on the sidelines booing and hissing and declaring that Jesus must be possessed by Beelzebul. “Only by the prince of demons could he be casting out demons,” is how they reviewed his performance. Jesus silenced the scribes with a brilliant rebuttal that he concluded with a warning against falling into the unforgivable sin – blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Quite simply, it is to name the works of God as evil. If you think that healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and raising the dead are evil deeds, well, then you are in the mode of rejecting, even attacking any new thing, any good gift God sends down from heaven. You are at cross purposes with God. Make a life orientation of such a mindset and you’ll find yourself so deep in the habit that you can’t repent and be healed. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable not because God can’t forgive it, but because the person committing the sin can’t or won’t repent. They plug their ears and shout that they won’t listen, they won’t listen, they won’t listen to anything new.
Resistance to the new works of Jesus came from more than the usual roundup of Biblical bad guys. Among the unhappy crowd were members of Jesus’ own family. Today’s reading from Mark gives us an intriguing look into the family of Jesus: his mother Mary, his brothers, and his sisters. What comes clear is that they were anything but on board with the direction Jesus was taking with his life. Does your family have troubles? Well, then, read on in the Gospel of Mark for consolation. In what can only be described as a bad day in holy family history, Jesus’ kin came to pull him out of the crowd, by force if necessary, because people were claiming that he had gone out of his mind. Jesus’ brothers and sisters probably were annoyed with this older sibling of theirs and his new found celebrity status. I can almost hear their thoughts. He should get a job and a haircut. Maybe trim the beard. He should ditch the disciples, and pitch in with the family carpentry business.
Eventually, it seems that certain members of Jesus’ family were able to transcend the constraints of their blood relationship, and trust that God was indeed playing a new song through Jesus. Mary was active and present throughout his ministry, even at the foot of the cross. James, the brother of Jesus, became an early bishop in the church. For James it would take nothing short of the resurrection to convince him that God was bringing the great story of Israel to a climax in his earthly brother. Frankly, the witness of James has always moved me. I have two brothers whom I love and respect, but if one of them were to declare himself the Messiah I would not give up my day job without a resurrection.
Did I just say resurrection? I did. In today’s reading from 2nd Corinthians (4:13-5:1), the Apostle Paul declares that the resurrection of Jesus is central. It is not only our greatest hope, but also the interpretive key to what God is up to in Creation. The resurrection allows us to trust that God is working his purpose out in history, even making all things new through the days we might call bad. We of all people should know that God is able to transform the terrible things that happen and the discordant notes we hear, and use them for good. God doesn’t will or plan or in any way cause evil. But God is able to transform it. Indeed, we call the day of Jesus’ savage execution not bad, but Good Friday. Why? Because we discern in the self-offering of Jesus the love of God accomplishing a great, creative leap for human nature. Out of Good Friday comes Easter Day, and in the risen Jesus we see a new creation, even your destiny and mine. Today and every day, the invitation to you and me is to trust that God is able to raise up that which is cast down, and make all things new.
To be sure, not every new song stands the test of time, not every movement is of God, and not every pioneer is blazing a trail toward righteousness. But every so often someone comes along who changes everything. Then we face the choice of whether to cling to the old or embrace the new. As the Summer Olympics in Paris draw near, I think of a man named Dick Fosbury, a high jumper at the 1968 games in Mexico City. In the early 1960s, high jumpers attempted to clear the bar using tried and true methods: either the Western Roll or the Straddle Technique. The conventional wisdom was that the modes of high jumping had been fully explored. Now it was just a matter of doing the same old thing better and better.
When Fosbury was on his high school track team, he began experimenting with a new technique by which he flopped over the bar backwards. Local sports writers covering high school track and field meets were not kind in their reviews of the new method, calling Fosbury “the world’s laziest high jumper,” and writing that Fosbury clears the bar “like a fish flopping in a boat.” Soon the derisive moniker “Fosbury Flop” attached, and in college Fosbury’s coach persuaded him to return to the Straddle Technique. But Fosbury pressed on, perfecting his new method and achieving greater and greater heights. When he won the gold medal at the 1968 games, no one doubted any longer that he had taken a great creative leap in track and field. Since then, nearly every successful high jumper has followed his lead, and used the Fosbury Flop.
Likewise, God is working his purpose out, even through our flops and failures. By faith we can reckon our bad days in history as slight momentary afflictions that prepare us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, was despised and rejected on Good Friday, yet on Easter Day he opened to us a new way of being human. His resurrection reveals God’s will for all humanity: that we should mount up with wings like eagles, that we should run and not be weary, that we should walk and not faint.
Indeed, our destiny is to dwell in that kingdom where God raises up that which is cast down, and makes new that which has grown old, and brings all things and people to their perfection, from this time forth, even for ever.