These early days of 2007, this day of our annual congregational meeting, this first Lord’s day of a new year gives us an opportunity to hear some things with an ear toward renewal. We hear again the resolve to get in shape, to be more diligent at our jobs, and more disciplined in our spiritual lives. We promise ourselves to do the best we can for the people and places we love. We resolve that we will be better church members, and even more, better Christians. We hear with renewed ears some things that remind us of what is important to us, and in the church that means that we hear again that we are called by the love of God given to us in Jesus Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

The people who first received the words we heard from the prophet Isaiah were people returning from the long years of Babylonian exile. The prophet writes to let the people know that as they move toward the safety and haven of home, there are some things for their ears to hear so that their spirits will be renewed. I believe that if we listen carefully, we might hear some things too.

They may have had great lives in Babylon, perhaps they fished in the Tigris, and basked in the sun on the shores of the Euphrates. They built houses and went about their lives. All the while, they kept the memory of home in Jerusalem. They knew that home is more than the walls and roof of a house, it is an attitude, a sacred connection to a place.

We have seen the same longing to return home among some of the people who have been exiled from their homes in along the gulf coast of Mississippi and Louisiana.

We saw it last week. I was struck as I watched the services for President Ford that from the time he left St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in California where he lived for thirty years, he was on his way home. His journey made moving stops at the Capitol and at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, and as stirring as it all was, the journey was not complete until he entered and left Grace Episcopal church, the church of his marriage and his parent’s funerals and three of his children’s baptisms. It is in Grand Rapids, where signs and citizens welcomed him home that he rests.

Home is a powerful place and that is where the people went when their time of exile was over. It is time to go home. All of the reasons they were in exile are over. The time of forgiveness has come. "Comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins (Texts for Preaching – Year C. Louisville. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, p. 94).

"A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken’" (Isaiah 40.1-5).

I believe that we can hear God’s word of assurance today. We make choices every day that can honor or dishonor God. We honor God when we honor the humanity and the godliness in all of us, and we dishonor God when we do not. What we say, how we respond, whether the looks on our faces portray care or contempt are all the ways we honor or dishonor God.

But through it all, we belong to God. So we hear as a word of trust and assurance that we do not have to live overwhelmed by fear. God has claimed us, God calls us, God loves us. Human beings lost in sin and sickness of the soul may do their best to hurt us, to reject us, to disown us, but thanks be to God, God never will.

We can hear the assurance of God, and we can stand confident in the presence of God.

We need presence because we know rivers of fear and fires of doubt. We know about waters rushing and flames reaching, we feel their force and fierceness, but they do not destroy us. I know, of course, that too much fire and too much water present us with real life-threatening situations. I nearly drowned when I was eight, we how quickly a fire can consume a building of enough breathable air. Fire and flood are real, Isaiah’s audience knew it too.

"The reference to ‘waters’ and ‘rivers’ not only recalls the threats presented by the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14-15), but also the ancient chaotic waters that were thought to surround the heavens and earth (Genesis 7.11). The ‘fire’ and ‘flame’ of more recent memory represent the horrors of military destruction, such as the inferno that destroyed Jerusalem and sent the prophet’s generation into exile (2 Kings 25. 8-17). Not even those terrors are capable of undoing God’s people, because God will be with us" (Texts for Preaching, Year C. Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press 1994, p. 94-95).

The good news is that the water rises high, but it recedes, the fire burns hot and threatens us, we are not consumed. Why? Because God is with us. How much is God with us? Enough to for us to feel God’s presence when we are in danger of being overcome by forces lined up against us, and when we are in exile, away from what connects us so intimately with God. God will find us and bring us back.

We have the presence of God and the promise of God because we have the affection of God. God loves us, cares for us, delights in our joy, grieves in our sorrows. God loves us enough to seek our company, to call us from the four corners of our separation and brokenness, to invite us into God’s wholeness.

Feeling scattered now? Listen again for the word of love and care and hope from God, listen for God to call you by name because you are God’s beloved. Listen with the ears of one whose all sufficient faith and unending love can help connect with God who seeks us out.

And, remember why God seeks us. It is so that we can reach out for God when God reaches our for us, so we can, when we hear our name called, answer and give God the glory that is God’s due, so we can trust in God’s unconditional promise, presence, and love and act in ways that are worthy of all God has given us.

God gives to us the ability to face the present and the future with courage and with strength as we face adversaries and difficult days.

Then the adversaries were nations with weapons to occupy and dominate. For us, our adversaries are no less dangerous. They are apathy, when we don’t have enough energy to care; defeatism, when we convince ourselves that we are beaten and are tempted to quit on ourselves; and a deep spiritual hunger that has not yet been satisfied.

Here we are struggling to get out of those ruts and boxes that keep us contained. It must feel like we are street mimes climbing out of boxes and fighting against winds that no one else can see. You know why they can’t be seen? They are not there. There is no box, it doesn’t exist. There is no wind, it is all in our minds. What there is an invitation to go forward.

How shall we go? We go forward by letting go and not getting caught up in the old things (v.18). This is not a call to erase our memories, we simply cannot forget the things helpful and unhelpful that brought us to these points in our lives, nor should we. We indeed want to remember the people and the events and the places that have formed and shaped us. What we do not want to do is to get stuck in the past. "I am about to do a new thing" (v. 19).

It was good then, it is different now, it will be better then. On a hot summer day a fan creates a little breeze while we are in church, central air is better. On a cold day (one is surely coming) a space heater works, but central heat is better. God has done great things for us, but we haven’t seen anything yet.

Something is coming, do you feel it? I felt it last week when we gathered in the parlor and people were so excited about what can happen this year that they could not keep still.

Something is coming as we listen with renewed ears and hear with thanksgiving the voice of wisdom and experience that is in such abundant supply here. It is coming as we listen and hear, and support new leadership as it emerges in ways that show us that God is doing new things through them. It is coming as we listen for greater clarity about what each of us can do here and then go about doing it.

God is about to do a new thing, and will bring life where there was none, and real life giving water to soothe our souls and energize our spirits. I love a brief story I read last month about a sister congregation. First Christian Church in Oakland, California has according to the latest Yearbook and Directory of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) about 90 members, with 25 people in worship. By all accounts they were a dying church until they saw the new thing God wanted to do in them, and by their faith in Jesus Christ, they responded to God’s call.

They brought together about 250 Disciples from several congregations for a Miracle Day, a day of worship and work that helped them to refurbish their building. Last April, they called a young leader Sandhya Jha to be their pastor. She says, "a lot of people over the past 10 years had been saying the church was as good as dead and needed to close its doors."

But they did not. "People had given up hope for First Christian Church in Oakland but fortunately, the ‘small but mighty congregation hadn’t given up in God…or in themselves. They share their building with other congregations, they have hired a person whose job is to maximize the use of the building. They are discerning how best to reach out to the unchurched young adults around the church. Just before Thanksgiving, they named their identity as: nurturing tranquility and peace for all generations, in a world of chaos and violence; creating a sense of family in a profoundly disconnected culture, and shaping opportunities to experience the subtle and powerful aroma of the Holy Spirit (www.disciples.com).

God is blessing First Christian Church in Oakland, and God is blessing us by being with us as we seek to be renewed and faithful and we are here to declare that God is good (all the time), and all the time (God is good).

How shall we do it? We can keep clear our identity as a congregation committed to being a church that knows God, builds relationships, and does justice. You will hear about some plans at our annual meeting, but I want you to hear one more thing now. The Holy Spirit of God, present in Isaiah and present in Acts is yet available to us. It is that Spirit that lets us know by the power of its movement in our lives that if we listen we will hear from God, and an empty tomb, and a spirit that gives us this word of assurance:.

"God has redeemed us, claimed us, called us by name. We are precious in God’s sight. Surely our God will strengthen us to face times of difficulty. There are no safe hiding places in life, only the assurance of a relationship with a God whom we can trust in life and death. Our God forgives and empowers. God blesses us with a peace that is more powerful than any outward circumstance. The power, promise, presence, and love of God are eternal (Gathered in Love. Lavon Bayler. Cleveland. United Church Press, 1994, p.33).

Thanks be to God. Amen.