Making a New Thing With All Your Heart - April 7, 2019, Lent 5C

Because we live on this side of the empty tomb we have the ability to see the new thing the Lord did in Christ Jesus and yet still, we still stand with our arms folded, hardened to the possibility that this new thing really changed the world. We find it hard to believe the new thing the Lord has done is still changing the world.

Jesus told his disciple in orders to experience the newness of what the Lord is doing we are to assume the posture of a child. Meekness in the sense that we are open to joyful possibility and not despair caused by the current state of society or the church. Jesus invites to open ourselves to experience the fullness of new creation. We find it hard to experience the new thing promised to us by G-d through the prophet and realized in Jesus Christ because the institutions charged with cultivating and nurturing our childlike openness have at some level fundamentally failed. Doctrine and polity have taken the place of promise and experience, the surprise of the new thing the Lord has promised to all of creation.

Whether we opened ourselves up to what the Lord has promised or we wait decades to do so, the invitation to all is still the same. Jesus told his disciples to taste and see. The invitation is extended to everyone. And once you taste and once you have seen the new thing the Lord is doing the childlike wonder and joy reenters your life. You, we are radically changed. When we taste and we see, we embrace G-d’s new thing like a child, seeing the fullness of what G-d makes possible. Viewing the world with possibility changes the way we see the calling G-d has given each of us. Childlike wonder opens us to seeing the bread and the cup as an invitation into full participation int he new thing G-d did through Jesus Christ and continues to do today.