Something New!
Isaiah 43:16–21 Psalm 126 John 12:1–8
Preached by the Reverend Kathy Peters
March 21, 2010

“Behold, I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43: 19) Even the wild animals, the jackal and the ostrich, even the whole of creation will honor me and declare my praise. Can you not feel that praise as the earth comes out of the sleep of winter? The sun is warm, the birds are soaring, the robins are scouring the thawed ground for grubs and nourishment, greens shoots are pushing up even through the decaying leaves of last fall, look very closely and see that the trees are budding and the waters of spring are gushing everywhere you look.  “I am about to do a new thing” says our God! Isaiah so often the prophet of judgment and doom offers a word of comfort and hope to a people in exile, far from their home, cut off not just from their homeland but from who they are and how God wants them to live. When things seemed to be the worst they had ever been, God sent these prophets to sing a new song to lift the spirits, expand the imagination, and solidify the hope of the people. (adapted from S.A.M.U.E.L.  ucc.org 3/21/10)  Behold,  Isaiah offers that same word of hope to us. Are we willing to perceive it? Are we willing to sign a new song?
The psalmist shouts:  When God restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; God has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.  (Psalm 126: 1-2a, 3) Behold, God has done great things for us. Do we dare to rejoice?
The good news of Isaiah and the psalmist is that hope resides in the power of God. Our basis of hope is trust in God. That trust that comes by recalling the old stories of God’s actions in creation and exodus, and then declaring God is about the work of a new creation and deliverance: deliverance from all that drags us down and away from love. Lent draws out this trust by inviting us to enter the stories of God’s actions in and through Jesus, and then following the way taught and revealed by Jesus. (adapted from John Indermark in Congregational Life; Seasons of the Spirit Lent 2010 p. 69)

So how might you be doing on your Lenten journey….complaining much?
Have you become more positive, more hopeful, more grateful, more open to following the ways of love that Jesus teaches us? Has it been too hard? Is your bracelet more often left on the dresser at home than on your wrist as a reminder of a different way? Did you ever pick up a bracelet? And what about the second half of this Lenten discipline….did you remember that there was a second half………many random acts of kindness in your day? We are reminded by Jesus “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)  Could anyone pick you out as a disciple?
In The Seeds of Heaven, Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “To be where God is — to follow Jesus — means going beyond the limits of our own comfort and safety. It means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as our own possessions. It means sharing the life we have been given instead of bottling it for our own consumption. It means giving up the notion that we can build dams to contain the bright streams of our lives and letting them go instead, letting them swell their banks and spill their wealth until they carry us down to where they run, full and growing fuller, into the wide and glittering sea.” (as quoted in Homiletics march 2010 p. 34)  How extravagant has been the love and life that you have shared so far this season?
From the gospel of John we hear this story of extravagance:
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”  (John 12:1-8)
Mary sees the big picture. She recognizes who Jesus is, and what lies ahead for him, and she acts on it.  Judas, at least in this telling, has no real concern for the poor, like so many he pays lip service to giving and sharing while his real concern is his own welfare. And Jesus must know he's a marked man. The religious leaders are in a panic. We've got to put a stop to this, they say– people will believe in him, believe in his call for a different way of being and that will provoke the powers that be – the Romans – to come in and destroy our holy place, our nation, our way of business as usual – we'll have to raise the terror alert to orange at least, maybe even red – "So," the text says, "from that day on they planned to put him to death." (adapted from S.A.M.U.E.L.  ucc.org 3/21/10) Because you see it is not so much that Jesus died for our sins but rather that he died for a new vision of what justice for all ought to look like and he invites us to participate in that new and yes risky vision. Mary’s gift of perfumed oil is an invitation for us to cover each other with beautiful things as a sign of that new vision of a just world and that we have hope in each other. What extravagant oil might you dare to pour out?
“Behold, I am about to do a new thing” says the Lord!  Hear this good news and trust that all of this does not depend on you. The Rev. Mary Luti in preaching the final sermon at this past weekend’s conference reminded us and I remind you that while we are called to action we need always to remember and know who is calling us…… “God is our hands and feet! Luti declared.  It does not depend on you…thus says the Lord…….I know the answers even as I know the questions…..trust and know that I am God!”
“Behold, I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Do you not believe that new ways are possible? Are you open to all that our God wants for us?
Bend low o extravagant God of Love, oil the hinges of our hearts so that they might more easily open to you and the possibilities of love, gently pry open our eyes and ears that we might expand our imaginations to perceive new roads and pathways  on this journey of life. Open our mouths so that we might laugh and rejoice and sing a new song of praise.   Amen