March 28, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
This past week we received word from my home church in Boston that my third-grade Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Beatrice Wyatt had passed. She was the one who made us memorize 1 Corinthians 13 before we can receive our Bibles. Mrs. Wyatt’s passing reminded me of others who were at this church when I was growing up. The one who still triggers some of my strongest feelings is Deacon Rilee—life deacon at my home church. Deacon Rilee can be credited for preventing this church from growing because of his deep commitment to the past. He wasn’t opened to inviting more college students to church when our surroundings became largely housing for students studying in Boston. He resisted calling a Chinese pastor when many Chinese American families including our own started to fill the classrooms and youth group. It is perhaps too harsh to blame Deacon Rilee for his positions when that’s probably all he knew about ministry. Why do a new thing when where we’ve been and where we are now is all that we know!
Emphasis on the Past
The Isaiah passage for us this morning is God speaking through Isaiah to a people who are in exile from the land promised to them by God. Although captives in Babylon, they were still able to practice the Sabbath and follow the law. Each year as they celebrated Passover in Babylon, they found their faith invigorated as they remembered the rescue that God provided at the time of the Exodus. Celebrating Passover reassured them that even in exile they were still God’s people.
While Isaiah, prophesying in the name of the Lord, invokes the Passover and reminds them how God saved them by parting the Red Sea and letting Pharaoh’s army drown, he also tells them to “Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past.” God then said, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” By reading Isaiah 43, we see that God wants his people to see something else. Is it possible that too much emphasis on the past is keeping them from seeing what is going on in the present?
As finite human beings, we are only able to know God through our senses and human experience. For the Israelites, the main event that defined who they were and still are today as a people was the Exodus from Egypt. They remember this by celebrating the Passover. Through these specific human events, Israel comes to know God.
God is not absent from these aspects of human life, but God is not subject to them either. We try to express our human understanding of the Holy God even though we know that whatever words or explanations we come up with would fall far short of ever describing who God is.
Paul Tillich explains that we see God mediated by someone, something, or some situation. Without these concrete examples, we can’t recognize God with the finite abilities that we have. But the confusion is that as human beings, we have a difficulty sometimes to separate the object, or situation, or person that is the concrete example of God from God himself.
The problem with such confusion is that the mediating concrete example is not God. It is a means by which God is made known to us. Any item (the Bible, the cross, our sanctuary) can become an idol if it points to itself instead of beyond itself to the truth about God. We end up worshipping that which is an example of God, not God himself.
By the time I was in high school, my home church had declined significantly in numbers and the memory of our glorious days of the past was fading. When things are not going so well, like being laid off or a loved one is ill or dreams are dashed or a church is in decline, it is more difficult to assume that God is still with us. So we look back to the times when we are convinced that God was with us. It is not unusual for us to retreat from our current reality and remember how special that past time was, how meaningful every moment seemed, how aware we were of God’s guiding presence actively involved in our lives.
Nothing is wrong with such an approach unless it dictates what we understand to be possible with God. Instead of being open to God’s activity in creating, sustaining, and fulfilling potentials, we only yearn to replicate the past. We say that God can only be recognized as the God who acted in the past, and the more closely the past is reconstructed, the greater certainty we have that it is God.
Isaiah speaking on behalf of God declares, “I know that you know me from the past salvation events that I have performed—when I made a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down and they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick.” But now I’m telling you to not remember the former things or consider the things of the old. “I am about to do a new thing.”
New Things
In the life of our church, there appears to be concerns that seem to suggest that we may be putting too much emphasis on the past that is keeping us from seeing what is going on in the present. I would like to address these briefly and invite you to continue with these discussions.
When it comes to the issue of the future of Redwood Glen, I wonder in our adamant conviction to continue the legacy of Chung Mei Home for the Chinese Boys that we may be putting too much emphasis on the past that is keeping us from seeing what potential there might be in the present. I’m not saying that we give up on our position or that we stop trying to work toward an equitable and just solution, but we need to also be open to what God may be doing today. Perhaps God is doing a new thing that we need to hear.
When it comes to the very volatile and controversial issue of same-sex marriages that are in the news everyday that has divided politicians, communities, churches, and families, I wonder in our adamant conviction to traditional values and familiar family models that we may be putting too much emphasis on the past that is keeping us from seeing what God is doing in the world today. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for strengthening families and covenantal relationships but I’m also deeply committed to the protection of civil rights for all Americans too. Perhaps God is doing a new thing that we need to hear.
When it comes to our church’s decision to plant a new worship service that is scheduled to begin on June 20th that has generated questions and concerns about limited resources, scheduling problems, and the projected disappointment of not worshiping together in the sanctuary, I wonder in our attachment with our familiar schedule and places that we are placing too much emphasis on the past that is keeping us from seeing what God wants to do with us in the present. Perhaps God is doing a new thing that we need to hear.
Mary Doing a New Thing
The Gospel lesson for this Sunday comes from John 12:1-8 when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with costly perfume. She did this because she knew that Jesus’ way is leading to newness. In the previous chapter, John 11, Jesus raised Mary’s brother, Lazarus from the dead. This was something entirely new.
But the Scriptures said that even the people who witnessed with their own eyes the miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection failed to believe in Jesus. And more than failed to believe, some sought to kill Jesus. When the Romans heard that Jesus was performing many miraculous signs, they feared that Jesus will destroy their empire. Caiaphas, the high priest that year said, “it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” So from that day on they planned to put Jesus to death. They were afraid of the new thing happening before their eyes and chose not to believe.
Jesus was doing new things but neither the people who witnessed these miracles nor the authorities who feared these many signs were able to see new things coming. They were too much in the past to see that God was about to do a new thing.
Jesus came to Bethany to the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for Jesus. But things look differently to Mary this time. Mary, like the others, has been taking in all of the miracles with her senses. She sees Lazarus, her brother, sitting alive at the table with Jesus! She asks herself, what does this mean? Jesus is her friend. They have talked, walked and eaten together. But in a moment of understanding, Mary put away all of the past events that she had with Jesus and came to the realization that Jesus is not exactly from “here”—not from “now.”
More than any words that she had heard, more than any lucid dreams that she may have had, Mary grasps the newness of God’s future salvation entering her and it was so real that it filled her with hope and joy. Mary must have wanted to keep Jesus there with her and her family. But she knew that it was enough to know that he visited them and touched them with new life.
What Mary saw then was Jesus as the Lamb of God. She takes a pound of perfume, worth a whole year’s wages to a day laborer and pours the perfume on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. Mary saw what Judas could not see—that soon Jesus will be doing another new thing that brings promise and salvation to the whole world.
Meaning of Lent
The season of Lent is a time for us to reflect on how by placing too much emphasis on the past prevents us from hearing about something new. It’s a time to reflect on the realities of homelessness and alienation as experienced by the prodigal son and the older brother so that we may know that the world can be transformed into a homecoming of rootedness and belonging because of the compassionate father. It’s a time to reflect on the present pain and grief that can be followed by joy and peace. Lent is a time for us to confront our present unbelief, allowing the fragrance of the perfume to fill our house—to evoke the word from God in Isaiah that God is present today and is ready to do a new thing.
Some of us here may still not believe that God is about to do a new thing and instead would rather be emphasizing the past.
There’s a story about a young man who found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk. From that time on he always kept his eyes fixed downward whenever he walked anywhere. In the course of his lifetime, he ended up accumulating 29,516 buttons, 54,712 pins, 12 cents, a bent back and a miserly disposition. During this time, he lost the opportunity to see the radiance of the sunlight, the shine of the stars, the smiles on the faces of his friends, and the blossoms of the springtime. He missed out on all the new things that God was doing in the world because he was fixated in the past.
Some people think that God is not big enough to bring about the good news of peace and reconciliation in the world.
When South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke at Yale University in 1995, he began his lecture to nearly two thousand people with this outline. “I want to give you seven reasons for the miraculous changes in South Africa.” The first reason, he insisted, was simply, “God.” After he elaborated on five political, sociological, and economic reasons why the end of apartheid happened without bloodshed, he concluded with the seventh. “God,” he said. There was no other description possible, first and last, but that God was doing a new thing in that place and that time.
God is About to Do a New Thing
Isn’t it true that ultimately it has never been about us and all about God? What God is doing in the world is always new, and it requires human beings to perceive it in its various manifestations. Isaiah tells us that God is always acting in the world, perhaps by providing a road through the desert, carving waterways through the land parched from the lack of rain. The wildest beasts, the jackals and the ostriches will celebrate what God does because God is providing a way for his people that they have never seen before. This is all new for us and unless we are willing to put less emphasis on the past and be open to hearing a new thing, we may not know that God is making all things new!
As God’s people, we are called to praise God. Isaiah 43:21 says the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. Just as Mary gave praise to Christ as she lovingly prepared for his eventual burial by pouring costly perfume on his feet, we give praise to God because we have come to enjoy God and to take delight in being with him. Let us in this season of Lent not remember the former things or consider the things of old that prevent us from seeing that God is indeed doing a new thing in our lives, in our church, and in the world.
Thanks be to God!
Let us pray.
O God, we kneel in humble confession of trying to limit you with our finite understandings of how great and omniscience you are. Forgive us for trying to confine you to our own human boundaries when you are doing new things of reconciling enemies, healing the brokenhearted and creating innovation all over the world. Teach us to trust in your power to save and lead us to believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and King. Amen.