Sermon Series Title: Something New

Well, if you’ve been following along at all with the Artemis II mission, the voyage of the spaceship “Orion,” named “Integrity” by the crew, you know that the 10 day journey to the moon and beyond — came to a successful end on Friday. 

And I almost missed it. When they launched on April 1st, I was at community group and folks were talking excitedly about this mission. I had no idea it was even happening. And yet somehow in the span of nine days I’ve found myself completely captivated.

In part by the fundamental fact that human beings can leave this Earth, travel hundreds and thousands of miles into space, suspend themselves in space, trust every calculation, every movement, every person —  circle the moon, and arrive safely home….

I mean, the scale of it is incredible.

But this week, post-Easter, the pull I’ve been feeling hasn’t been entirely about the scale of this mission –– but about the grounding I feel in witnessing what collaboration at this scale opens up. Something about this mission, this team, situated in *this* moment feels like it represents something new:

There were sooo many firsts. The crew alone:

• Victor Glover, the first Black astronaut to go to the moon.
• Christina Koch, the first woman to travel to the Moon.
• Jeremy Hansen, the first non-US citizen a Canadian astronaut to go to the moon.
• And Reid Wiseman, the first oldest person to travel beyond low Earth orbit. I’m sure he loves that first next to his name!

This crew is the first to  achieve the greatest human distance from Earth, breaking Apollo 13’s record.

The first “free-return trajectory” around the Moon, (they use the Moon’s gravity to “slingshot” back to Earth rather than relying on its own engines (less energy, less pollution).

And yes, these firsts matter.
Not just for the history books (if we’ll still have them)… but for the widening of the story still being written, the story for all of humanity going forward.  Somewhere this crew reminded me that something new and good is still possible — when we come together.

Being here last Sunday on Easter felt a little like that  — close to 500 people filling this sanctuary. A room full of stories and voices, generations and laughter and singing and contemplation.  A vibrancy of color, and kid energy, something alive and good and real — new life. hope. breaking through — resurrection! 

And I also know that by Monday and definitely by Tuesday, in many ways I came back down to Earth pretty quickly. It’s April in Boston and on Tuesday it was snowing, and sideways wind-ing, and dark and stormy.

And yet maybe that’s where resurrection actually meets us, where something new begins.

Not just in the moments that take our breath away, but in what it asks of us the very next day.

In those first days after Jesus’ resurrection.
Herod was still king.
Caesar was still in Rome.
The chief priests were still chief priests.

The empire still ruled. 

Jesus rose, but the systems that crushed him still stood. 

And we too, today – are still living with the insanity of leadership that seeks to use power to churn chaos and wield death as a hobby, that threatens war and violence in the same breath as “God’s name”. . . 

We are still navigating a world that often feels like it is unraveling more than it is being made new. 

And I’ll admit, part of why I found myself following this Artemis mission wasn’t allll awe —- it was a kind of escape. What would it be like to just step off this world, and up into a new world — for a while? 

But the longer I stayed with it, a reminder I didn’t know I needed surfaced, that we are still living inside a beginning….and we are the ones who get to shape what comes next.  And I don’t want to miss it. 

This crew, as elite as they are in some ways, reminds me — of us. That we are still people who reach….who live for, believe for, long to do something beyond us… something new.

We’ve learned how to reach the Moon — and we are still learning how to live on the Earth. And maybe that’s the deeper tug here, not only to travel beyond this world, but to bring that same curiosity, that same courage and sense of possibility into how we live with God and with one another.  INTO the making of the kin-dom of God, here and now. Earth-side.

Over the last 50 years, since the last journey to the moon, we’ve learned how to get there again — and get there better with advances in technology and science. 

But maybe even more than that, we’ve learned how to go farther, together.

And we can’t lose sight of that. Because collaboration (although risky and vulnerable), is what keeps us alive. And for these astronauts it’s not for the mere prize of victory gain, or ego-driven status. It’s for the love of this Earth, for this humanity, for the curiosity and belief that there is more to be discovered, that there is life beyond what we identify as life that can propel us forward. That there is always something new even at the edges of where we imagine. 

And that’s what we are leaning into, together this spring. We’re beginning a new series today, called: “Something New.” 

Because we believe in a loving, life-giving, creative, God. A God who isn’t finished creating this world — or with us. A God who keeps inviting us to discover that the sky and the galaxy is not the limit – to what shared life with God and shared life with one another can become.   

So in these days after Easter , after the promise of resurrection has been proclaimed, after we in our best efforts echo the refrain,

“Christ is alive, Christ is risen indeed”

in these days, when we wake up in the same world. A world that bombards us with images and words and realities that tries to convince us that death still has the final world. That nothing really changes.  Let us give ourselves to the life and the way of Jesus. So that  together, we live like life is still possible, and make it so.

What I love about fixating on this Artemis mission is that what is underneath the amazing feats of precision and coordination — is a kind of artistry on display, a rare type of beauty. Not just in the images we’ve seen of the earth and the Moon — but in the risk and vulnerability of a group of people really working together, TRUSTING one another  to participate in whatever way possible to shape what CAN BE possible. Even before it’s defined.

And maybe it’s that tension — between what we can see and what is still unfolding — that the disciples were trying to navigate as well. And it’s hard to imagine what could be possible when you are tired, grieving, and confused, overwhelmed.

For many people in Jesus’ time they were holding onto a promise that God would send a Messiah, a king, a deliverer. One who would free them, restore their people and bring justice. And for many that was tied to what they would have called “the end of the age”  — this kind of apocalyptic end of the world as it currently was. And the beginning of God’s reign fully realized. So to believe that resurrection had happened would have meant believing that this new age had already begun. 

No wonder that the earliest disciples struggled to make sense of it. Jesus had risen, but no one else had… They were expecting in some ways a FULL/complete transformation, but they got jussst the beginning.

Jesus doesn’t really resolve the tension for them, but he does give them a way to live inside of that reality — he says, “follow me — and go and do likewise”! Ha! Not exactly a detailed plan… It’s unfinished and leaves room for them to make something — create a way of living together . In Jesus’ world, creativity wasn’t separate from life, it was how life — everyday life —  was made possible. Artists were craftspeople (tektons) — builders, weavers, potters, bakers — people who made things for communal life.

Recently I’ve been getting our bread from a little in-home bread-maker that I can walk to and I’m undone. Every Wednesday morning it is the highlight of my LIFE, to stroll up on his porch and get my warm fresh loaf.

And it’s such a small thing, but it’s also not. It’s someone choosing to make something that feeds other people.

A way of being together –and it makes me want more of that… 

• More ways of living where we’re not so sealed off from each other.
• More ways of making sure people are fed, literally and otherwise.
• More ways of showing up, of sharing what we have, of building something together that helps us all stay alive.

And maybe we don’t always call it this, but this work of building lives and communities where people can belong and flourish, that’s creativity. It’s art.

Not just in studios or on stages, but in how we live.

And recently, I’ve been helped by the words of Pádraig Ó Tuama, theologian, poet, conflict mediator), because he gives language  to this kind of life we’re talking about, he says: 

“Creativity is not just confined to those who are painting, or dancing or making poems or music. It is also the making of a community: a health care system; an education; a way of keeping people sanitised; a way of keeping people sane.

Art is found in made things and in many made things — a transportation system in a city; a living wage for workers; negotiations to make border crossings safer; putting garlic in olives; sprinkling sea salt on fresh bread — and it is in the vulnerability and risk of cooperation that we find ourselves alive. I continue to hold to the idea that speaking words of beauty reminds us of the possibility of language. And especially in weeks when we hear the impoverishment of speech from many quarters, it is good to bask in something uplifting, to remind us of the power of language to do that most risky thing: to make something new.”

And when we look at the life of Jesus, we begin to see this kind of artistry as a thru-line. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of invitations in scripture to live a solo- life and carry it all on our own — but there’s a lot of invitations INTO this  kind of “making of community” way of life. A life that can create a world where bodies are cared for, people are fed, where people make a liveable wage, where dignity is upheld, where minds and spirits are tended,  where no one is left outside of the kin-dom of God. 

This is the art of the kin-dom of God.  It’s lived. It’s real life now as it is — unto something more.  

And when we look back at the life of Jesus, we see more than parables and miracles and teachings, right? 

Let’s look at scripture — we are going to move through a lot of scripture. So I’m not going to name every book, chapter and verse I’m referencing, but I want us to follow the movement of Jesus.

Because there’s a pattern within, 

That gives shape to a new kind of world that I think is always emerging ….even still… 

Jesus moves through villages, and people bring him the sick, the broken-hearted, the weary…
and he stops. He touches them, talks to them. Often their health is restored. But what we notice is that also their belonging and their place in community is restored. 

In one instance he tells a story about a man left for dead on the side of the road, many of you might know this as the Good Samaritan story. Where a stranger (an enemy even), stops, kneels down, binds his wounds, lifts him onto his own animal, and pays for his care.

And the invitation here isn’t just to be one good person in a hard moment. It’s not yours alone to notice, to fix, to fund, to carry. I think it’s an invitation to step into something we do together? It’s to become a people shaped by care. A way of life shaped by care.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said,

“ yes we are called to be the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. . . . the deeper call is to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that people are no longer beaten and broken and robbed in the first place, along life’s highway.”

And that can only be communal work.

And there are countless stories of Jesus feeding and sharing food with lots of people — not just as a demonstrative act of Jesus’ miraculous power, but as an invitation to a different way of living. At one gathering, on a hillside  thousands of people are hungry–and the disciples that are with Jesus start to panic. The sheer numbers, the sheer need is overwhelming and they say,

“Send them away, Let them fend for themselves. Let them find their own snacks!””

And Jesus looks at them and says how about:

“You give them something to eat.”

I imagine that proposal landed for the disciples like Jesus was asking them to go to the moon. But that is the kind of imagination and creativity he invites them into — as he puts it in their hands.  

And as the disciples step into it, we see that no one is sent away. No one eats alone. There is enough. More than enough. A kind of abundance that feels like it miraculously appeared out of nowhere —- 

or maybe….it appeared…. from everyone.

And then there are the stories in scripture of those cast to the edges of society — isolated, suffering in body, mind and spirit. Pushed outside the boundaries of belonging. And Jesus doesn’t avoid them.

• He doesn’t tell them to get tougher, try harder, to fix themselves.
• He sits with them.
• He draws near.

There is the man alone among the tombs, whom Jesus restores to himself and then sends

“back to his home.” 

The woman who had been bleeding and untouchable for years, Jesus calls

“daughter”

and is brought back into the community.  

Zacchaeus in the tree, a chief tax collector, welcomed down (by Jesus) and brought to the table.

A woman at a well, drawing shame and water by herself – becomes the one who gathers others.  

Over and over, those who were isolated are seen, touched, known and restored to belonging.

What can look like a series of individual stories or miracles — is actually something much larger…  Jesus isn’t just healing bodies.  –He is showing us how to live together, reweaving people back into community — reconstructing a way of life where care, belonging, and love are at the center.   

And you can hear it in the language he uses, 

“Love one another as I have loved you.”
“Feed my sheep.”
“Let your light shine..”
“Care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger…”

So many verbs – this is a way of life to practice.

And THIS, like Padraig O’Tuama says,

is how we keep one another sane.. Not by escaping, but by staying here together, held in the gravity of love. 

Jesus shows them this most clearly on the night before his death, when he kneels down, and washes his friends’ feet. And he says:

“this is what love looks like.”

A community where care is not beneath anyone. Where dignity is held in the bend of our hands.

And this is the kind of life resurrection makes possible. A refusal to accept the world as it is, as if it cannot change. Because every time we choose one another — every. single. time. — we are changing the world. Making something new. Together we become the change-agents within our ordinary orbit.

It can look like a text message you almost didn’t send — bringing in your neighbors trash cans — staying in a tenuous conversation, asking for help, showing up when you don’t want to — that is part of the work. 

And the thru-line in all of this  — is that this isn’t only something we do, it’s who we are! You and me — WE, are actually God’s living art in the world .

In the book of Ephesians, Chapter 2, verse 10 we read, 

 “We are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.” 

In other translations it reads,

“We are God’s handiwork, masterpiece…

in Greek it means —

“We are his poiēma”

…it’s where we get the English word: Poem.

A unique, created expression of divine artistry meant to contribute to a better world.

We are God’s poem. God’s work of art.

From the very beginning we are told that humanity bears the image of God — the imago dei. God could have placed the image of God anywhere,  in the sky,  in the moon — but instead, God placed it in us. 

In our human bodies. In one another.

Which means,  we don’t just look up to find God.  We look to one another. 

Which means, the “good works” — of shaping a world of care and connection is already within us.  

I look around this room and I see so many of you making and making and making something new — simply by the way you are alive in this world. 

• The way you care for neighbors, known and unknown.
• The way you imagine new uses for space—turning hotels into homes for those without one.
• The way you advocate for better schools, and show up for children—your own and others’.
• The way you recognize that the work of justice belongs to all of us.
• The way you show up for each other—here, and beyond Reservoir.

The work and the art of loving.

And we are all so familiar with how much we need that love  (personally and as a nation) — because there are ways of living in this world that can’t make something new. Hate can’t create. War can’t create. Lies can’t create.
They take and destroy.
They are not life.

It’s why belief in

“resurrection is an act of rebellion against the evil, corruption and oppression that can so easily swamp us” (Paula Gooder, cac.org),

make us feel less than human. But resurrection is an invitation to stay human to one another.

The crew of Artemis II — each and every one of them has captured at points for me what it means to be human. Not what it means to be an astronaut in space — but human.

Christina Koch said right before launch,

“There is one thing better than the fulfillment and meaning of working hard to achieve a dream: Loving people with all your heart.”

Victor Glover said in his “space sermon” —  

“As we continue to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos, I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries there on earth. And that’s love.”

Jeremy Hanson —

“Our purpose on the planet as humans is to find joy and to find the joy in lifting each other up by creating solutions together instead of destroying.”

 This crew, they are POETS — living poems.

There’s a tradition among astronauts where they bring something with them into space. A memento, a reminder of earth, a photo of someone that has inspired them.. 

This mission, Reid Wiseman — carried with him the name of someone he loved — his wife who died of cancer in 2020. The mother to their two daughters.

Her name was Carroll. She now has a newly named crater on the moon The crater straddles the boundary between the moon’s near and far sides, and can at times be seen from Earth.

And I heard someone say:

“There is now a place on the moon that is bright—  because someone was loved enough to be carried all the way there.” 

Love, carried farther than it has ever gone before. 

And most of us will never travel to the moon. But every one of us carries something just as powerful. We too, carry love. The deep, steady, creative love of Jesus that goes with us into every room, every conversation, every ordinary moment of our lives.

And when we start to notice it, we see it everywhere. In the vastness of space, in neighborhood interactions, in circles of grief and celebration — like the ones we shared here today. 

And maybe this is what it means that we are God’s living constellation, a people through whom love takes shape in the world.

I probably will still dream about what it might feel like at times to step off this world — but I know the invitation of Jesus is not to escape this Earth, but to learn how to live within it. With a love that keeps going — circling back, reaching outward — farther than we ever thought possible, together.