Enya, the Irish vocalist, has a new album– new CD.

It is called "Amarantine" which according to the liner notes means

"Love is."

Here are the opening words of the title song "Amarantine" --

     You know when you give your love away

     it opens your heart,

     everything is new.

I think that is the experience both Peter’s mother-in-law and St. Paul are having in today’s scriptures.

And...it is the invitation given by God through the prophet Isaiah.

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

...Lift up your eyes on high and see...

See God.

Let yourself be awestruck.

Give your love and loyalty to God.

Who will open your heart and make all things new.

New.

We hear that Jesus and the disciples went home with Peter and Andrew.

Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. Jesus touched her and healed her. Then the fever left her and she began to serve them.

We hear that and we say, "Great, the woman has to get up and make the meal. What’s so new about that? Sounds like the same old same old to me."

Yes. She probably did serve them a meal.

But there’s more and the Greek does support this. She served them as a deacon...diakanos. Her actions were about much more than providing a meal. It was about sharing and supporting the ministry of Jesus who was teaching, preaching and healing. It was about being part of those who were spreading the good news. It was about being a disciple.

It is about being a servant.

St. Paul, writing to the new churches in Corinthian, tries to tell them what it means to give your love to God and have your heart open so that all things are new. He finds himself, the most educated of men, unable to boast about himself. Everything is now about the risen Christ and how he can get other to hear this good news...he will make himself weak to win the weak.

He will walk in another’s shoes.

He will eat what they eat, wear what they wear, work as they work.

Why?

So that when he speaks, they will trust him and listen.

Paul understands that the message of salvation he brings is so important that he cannot leave it to chance that if he speaks others will listen.

So he becomes a slave, a servant. And finds freedom.

Paul, formerly a Pharisee, and a man under the law is now a slave and servant who feels great freedom as he serves his Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a synergistic, upward spiral...

Every round going higher higher....

Look again this afternoon at those first 12 verses of Psalm 147.

          All the people praise and awesome God.

          God who rebuilds, heals the brokenhearted,

          counts the stars, gives rain to the earth, and even hears

          the cries of the young ravens....

          And God takes pleasure in the worship and dedication of those

          who fear him– those who know God is awesome

         and worthy of honor and glory and praise and worship....

God takes pleasure in those who become his servants.

You could almost come to believe that the poet

Wallace Stevens has captured a great truth in his work

when he writes:

     The river is moving.

     The blackbird must be flying.

 Isn’t that fun?

Is it cause and effect?

     The river is moving.

     The blackbird must be flying.

Does he suggest that somehow the blackbird

causes the river to flow?

That the freedom of flight is linked to the power

of the moving water?

Our faith is like that verse.

All of our life begins and ends in God.

God sustains us and gives us strength.

Yet somehow, the blackbird in us moves it all toward fulfillment.

Too much poetry for you?

Even if the poet was born and raised right over in Reading?

How about the scene from a movie?

Billy Bob Thornton’s character, Joe, welds together an elaborate sculpture in a harsh 2005 movie about lost love and the search for redemption. No one understands his work which is made by piecing together bits of junk he’s cleaned up in the yard. It sits by the driveway of his Ozark Mountain home until the day that a preschool child sees it.

She walks right up, climbs it easily and sits in the tricycle at the top.

She puts her feet on the pedals and is off. . .

Free. Covering great distances.

Music. Poetry. Movies.

Let’s go back to scripture.

Because those wonderful lines from the book of the prophet Isaiah describe the same thing:

          The Creator of heaven and earth gives power to the faint

          and strengthens the powerless. ...

          Those who wait for the Lord...

          Those who serve the Lord...

          Shall renew their strength,

         they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

          they shall run and not be weary,

         they shall walk and not faint.

These are words of comfort.

They are given so that we will know that our relationship

with God/ and in God is one of goodness and truth

which will bring us to the new place— a new place that we will call "home".

And along the way there is great freedom.

The eagle rises into the sky and soars,

covering distance, riding on the wind,

setting direction with a tip of the wing...

Trusting in God who created the wind, the wing and him.

Trust God.

Try out your freedom.

Soar. Serve God and others.

AMEN.