What a Wonderful World

Isaiah 6:1-8

One of my lasting memories of the 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans took place not in the Superdome, where the Super Bowl will be played later today, and where our week was filled with inspirational speakers and incredible worship experiences, but in a lowly bus, as we returned to our hotel after a day spent clearing trails in City Park.

Our bus driver was a New Orleans native, and as he drove, he shared his experience of Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New Orleans nearly four years earlier.  Our driver said he wanted to leave us with a gift, so in the final minutes of our drive he sang, so beautifully raw, the entirety of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”  It was his testimony to the goodness of God — luminous goodness incapable of being extinguished by even the worst of circumstances. I’ll never forget it.

I see trees of green, red roses too.  I see them bloom for me and for you, and I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”  I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed days, dark sacred nights, and I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”  The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people going by.  I see friends shaking hands, saying, “How do you do?”  They’re really sayin’, “I love you.”  I hear babies cry; I watch them grow.  They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know, and I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”  Yes, I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”

Songwriters: George David Weiss, Bob Jr Thiele. For non-commercial use only.

Our bus driver that day joined with the angels of Isaiah’s vision, in our first reading for today, to proclaim, “The whole earth is full of God’s glory.”

He joined with the psalmist, in our psalm for this morning, “sing[ing] [God’s] praise.”

Our bus driver didn’t dismiss the hurricane’s devastation nor the scourge of racism and corruption that it revealed.  He acknowledged the harsh reality of insidious sin, but he didn’t stop there.  He ended with thanksgiving.

Yes, I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”

There is much in these days to lament, to protest, to challenge.  There is much in our lives that breaks our hearts and fills our minds with doubt.  And yet, the earth is still full of God’s glory.   Can we trust and proclaim this good news?  Do we have everything we need?

On Friday, at a time when colleges are facing profound challenges, Brad Chamberlain became the 12th president of Luther College.   He shared a message with the community in which he said, “Some say that hope is not a strategy, but I believe it is a choice.  A choice to see not only the world that is, but also the world that might be.  It is an active response, a faithful response, a courageous response to act for the sake of the possibility of the world that might be.”

What might the world be when we gather to worship each week, alongside siblings throughout the world, and practice confessing our sins, acknowledging our own captivity to sin and our powerlessness to free ourselves?

What might the world become–what might we become–when we join with Isaiah and Simon Peter in getting honest with ourselves and with God?

A live coal is held to Isaiah’s lips; his sin is blotted out; and when God asks, “Whom shall I send,” Isaiah replies, “Send me!”  Simon Peter, aware of his sinfulness, begs Jesus to get away from him.  Instead, Jesus comes closer.  He tells Simon Peter to not be afraid and gives him a new job, a new purpose for his life.  Like Isaiah and Simon Peter before us, God’s word of forgiveness unlocks our hearts and minds, and we are set free to respond wholeheartedly to God’s call.

Do we have everything we need to proclaim the good news of God’s love for this whole world?  Are we equipped to share the good news that God is in the business of transformation, working through bus drivers, musicians, students, teachers, young and old, you and me, to make this world what it might be?

Yes.  We do.  We can join with Paul, whose letter to the church in Corinth was our second reading for today.  Paul’s life was radically transformed by an encounter with the risen Christ.  He went from persecutor of the church to proclaimer of the good news of Jesus.  And in this letter to the church in Corinth, he clearly attributes this transformation in his life to the work of God: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”

By the grace of God, we are who we are, forgiven and freed to love our neighbors as ourselves.  By the grace of God, we are who we are, followers of Jesus, proclaimers of good news. By the grace of God, we are who we are, beloved people who, in response to God’s call, say, “Here we are; send us!”

Send us to choose hope. Send us to give thanks for this wonderful world, full of your glory, O God, and still becoming. Send us to speak truth to power. Send us to stand up for the most vulnerable among us. Send us to offer hospitality to friends and strangers.

Send us to give generously, to pray without ceasing, to love as we have so steadfastly been loved by you.

And when we fail, touch us with your living, burning, refining mercy.  And when we fear, call us to you.

What a wonderful world.  What a wonderful God.

Amen.