Excerpt from Isaiah 43:14-21

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  See, I am doing a new thing."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

It is axiomatic that people often resist change.  Lyman Beecher, the great Puritan preacher, was minister of the Congregational Church in Litchfield, Connecticut, in the first part of the nineteenth century.  During that time a debate arose in the congregation about whether they would install a wood stove in the meeting house.  Before then they had never had any heat at all in the meeting house.  If it were cold, you would come to worship thickly bundled.

Some in the congregation thought a wood stove would be an improvement, but others were dead set against this new technological intrusion in their sacred space.  Eventually, the pro-stove contingent prevailed.

The first Sunday after the stove was installed some of those who had opposed the installation of the stove complained that the meeting house was too hot for them.  The men started taking off their jackets and loosening their collars.  Some of the women were furiously fanning themselves, trying to stay cool.

Lyman Beecher got into the pulpit and said, "You will notice that this is the first Sunday we have had our new stove.  And next week we will put some wood in it and start a fire."

So, yes, people often resist change.  But that is a particularly strange stance for people of faith.  After all, we worship a God who declared, "See, I am doing a new thing," the same God who accepts us just as we are but also offers us transformation.

Prayer

God of transformation, do a new thing in my life and in our life together.

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Lillian Daniel, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.