Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached for the last Sunday of the Season of Creation: Mountain Sunday on 8/26/18 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was from Isaiah 65:17-25. Ray and I are fans of science fiction. Many are familiar with is the apocalyptic style of science fiction. You know the type, death and destruction everywhere from a deadly disease or another kind of catastrophe. Humanity and the entire earth are on the verge of extinction. Only a few people remain and they must try to survive and eventually rebuild their broken world. That’s a negative type of apocalyptic story. However, in Isaiah, we have apocalyptic literature full of joy and life. It is not about destruction, but rather about something altogether new that God is doing. God had allowed destruction when God’s people were disobedient, exemplified in the people of Judah being exiled to Babylon for several generations. However, God brought them back from exile and promised not just a new Jerusalem, but...

Here are some thoughts on this Sunday's text. This is our last Sunday of the Season of Creation, Mountain Sunday. This was sent electronically to the people of St.Timothy Lutheran Church. Isaiah 65:17-25 1 7 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies  at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall no...