Galatians 6:1 –10

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

It is a beautiful vision - this dream we have for America!

Many people don’t realize it, but when we sing that last verse of “O Beautiful For Spacious Skies”, we are singing about a dimension of our nation that we do not yet see. No one in their right mind would say that cities like our own Knoxville gleam as brightly as alabaster, or that the streets of our cities, towns and villages are undimmed by human tears. America today reflects all the imperfect reality of human life. But the song calls us to dream the dream of the patriots who long ago saw something reachable even beyond the difficulty of their own generation. It calls us to lift our eyes beyond the present moment to see something beyond the years – a bright, shining, gleaming America whose cities are wonderful places to live, where all human needs are met, and tears are wiped away from every eye, and people stand shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand as brothers and sisters from sea to shining sea!

It is a beautiful vision – this dream we have for America! It is the same vision shared by human beings everywhere – in Israel and the occupied territories, in Iraq, in China, in Somalia, Nigeria, Japan, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and Denmark… All people everywhere dream of alabaster cities gleaming, undimmed by human tears!

And we dream it because it is the dream God placed in our hearts when He created us! It is, in fact, the dream the prophets of old spoke about when they prophesied the day when God makes all things right and the world becomes the world as God created it to be. It is the very vision Jesus was talking about when he came into Galilee proclaiming, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

That’s the dream within us – that our nation, and our world, will one day become…heaven!

Now, I know that some here today think that heaven is something else altogether. A place where dead people gather - “up there somewhere”. A place of clouds upon which people bounce for eternity. A place where the recreation is pretty much limited to playing harps and singing in the heavenly choir. Even worse, some people think that heaven is a place where there is no beer.

And for many people, heaven is not a place they want to get to in a hurry. I mean, how much cloud bouncing and harp playing can you do – especially without so much as a nice cold beer to wash it down? I have some friends, in fact, who seem to feel that the ONLY reason they would ever want to go to heaven is because it beats the hell out of the alternative!

But that “heaven” is the heaven of fairy tales, and not the heaven of the Bible. The heaven of our faith is not “up there”, but “down here”! The heaven Jesus and the prophets proclaimed is the world as we know it transformed into the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. It is a world whose alabaster cities do gleam undimmed by human tears, and the good are crowned with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

And I don’t know about you, but I can’t get to that heaven fast enough!

But is it really possible? Can America become a true reflection of the kingdom of God? Can this broken and torn world we live in REALLY be transformed into the world as both we and God dream it to be?

I believe the answer to those questions is a resounding, “YES!” This world can and will become the kingdom of God because God has promised it!

And the proof is found in the life of my little grandson Ryan!

He was here for this past week, you know. That’s why Sandy and I look so tired this week! We discovered once again that raising kids is indeed a young person’s sport! Oh, how we admire Peter and Melissa, and all the young parents out there! Raising children is more than a full-time job. In fact, it is more than a job! It is, I think, a vocation – a calling – a sacred responsibility.

More and more, I see our Ryan as a miracle-in-the-making, and at the heart of the miracle are his parents. Many of you know that Ryan was a preemie – just 3 lbs., 1 oz. at birth. Melissa suffered severe preeclampsia, so the baby had to be induced at 31 weeks – 9-weeks early. As soon as Ryan came into this world, he was rushed off to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit where they fought to save his life. His mother was rushed back to the medical floor where she was pretty much fighting for hers. And in the meantime, our son – Peter – was caught in-between the two. He spent part of the time tenderly caring for his wife. And then he dashed upstairs to tenderly care for his tiny son. And then he returned to his wife. And then went to the baby. Over and over again, the process was repeated.

You know, I remember when Peter was born back in 1975. He came out of the womb looking sort of gray and blue and gooey, but then the doctor suctioned his airway, and nurses cleaned him up, and he began to scream. And as oxygen filled his little lungs, before my eyes I saw Peter turn from his dusky birth color to a brilliant pink. It was more beautiful than watching the dawn of a new day spreading across the sky. And I knew I was witnessing a miracle!

And all those many years later, when his own son was born and Peter needed to be for his child and his wife something he had never had to be before, I realized that I was witnessing another miracle. Before our very eyes that night, Sandy and I saw our little boy become a man!

Life is full of miracles like that, you know – miracles of transformation. In nature. Among people. Especially in grandchildren.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Ryan is how his emerging life reflects the character of his parents and his larger family. He’s a very polite boy, who not only says, “Please?” when he asks for something, but says the word in sign language, too. His mom taught him that. And Ryan is a funny kid. He has a great big belly laugh and finds humor in just about anything. That’s a Singley family trait, you know! And he’s a musical boy. Of course, his father is a music teacher, and his mother has her own dance studio. That kid is full of melody and rhythm! I wish you could have seen the parade we had! It started out in our kitchen with a couple of pot covers for cymbals, and the cardboard tube from inside a roll of paper towels as the horn. And around the house we marched, playing patriotic tunes, and when we got tired of the house, out the door we went and down the street! Maybe you were the ones who drove by our parade, wondering what in the world that was all about. Who’s that bearded guy playing the cardboard tube horn? Who’s that little kid marching behind him, stark naked but for a loaded diaper, and banging pot covers to the beat of the music? Well, that was us! Ryan and his crazy family.

Sandy snapped a picture of that parade, and when I saw it, I realized that once again, before my very eyes was a beautiful miracle. For there was that little 3 lb., 1 oz. very sick baby, now transformed into a lively little boy with a song in his heart, a laugh in his belly, and an imagination too great to contain. Ryan is becoming a Singley!

It’s one of those miracles God asks us to believe in, this miracle of transformation. And it’s a miracle that God invites us to participate in!

In the letter to the Galatians, St. Paul is appealing to the little band of Christians in that region to not succumb to the temptation to turn their faith into rules and regulations. There were some in the community who taught that, to be a true Christian, you had to not only believe in Christ, but also comply with all the requirements of the Jewish law. And some people fell for that, spending their lives chasing after an acceptance they could never achieve.

But Paul tells the Galatian Christians there is a better way! It is the way of accepting God’s acceptance of us as a gift freely given through Christ, and then freely embarking on a journey of discovering the “new you”!

What Paul means by this is that, because of what Christ has done for us, we have a new family heritage, and just like parents pour the character of their own lives into their children, God has poured the character of His life into us!

You now have the personality of God in you! Through Christ, you have been genetically reengineered to be like Him! And just like an acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, or like a grandchild reflects the characteristics of her family, the children of God have within themselves the very character and nature of God.

And one of the greatest joys of being a Christian is discovering the many things of beauty of the new “you” God has made!

The other day, Pat Ouderkirk taught our grandson Ryan a song. It was the number 16 hit in the top 100 of 1958. Do you know what the song was? It was David Seville’s “Witch Doctor”:

“I told the witch doctor I was in love with you!

I told the witch doctor you didn’t love me too!

And then the witch doctor he told me what to do

He said that:

Ooo eee ooo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang

Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang!

And our little Ryan took off into that song like he’s known it from birth. Ooo eee walla walla ting tang! Okay, so he didn’t get all the words right. He’s only 2 and a half! But the joy on his face that came from discovering a new song in his heart looked like a miracle from God.

And God has placed a song in you, too. God’s own nature. God’s own character. God’s own personality. Paul describes some of God’s family traits in Chapter 5 - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And at the end of the letter Paul urges us all to go and learn to sing those songs – to go and discover those gifts within ourselves, and to bring them to life in our relationships with others and the world. For when we do, Paul promises in verse 8, it is like sowing the seeds of heaven, and “you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”

And that brings us back to our original question:

Can America become a true reflection of the kingdom of God? Can this broken and torn world we live in REALLY be transformed into heaven?

And the answer is a resounding, “YES!”

For as followers of Christ like you and me receive our true family heritage, and discover all the new family things about us, and go into the world to live out the new personality that we have received - Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Generosity. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control - and as we sow these seeds in others and in the world around us, we are sowing the seeds of heaven!

You know, they say that the most beautiful color in the world is the red of the taillights taking your grandchildren home! While there is some truth to that, I see it a little differently. I think the most beautiful color in the world is the sight of children like Ryan Peter Singley growing into true expressions of their parents’ goodness, love and character.

And the same is true of the children of God.

Go into the world this week, and discover the new you! Go and sow the seeds of heaven!