Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year?

In daylights,
In sunsets,
In midnights,
In cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in a life?

I wish I could sing this for you. However, I’m not a singer and we can’t afford the copyright license. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure a year in the life? Here’s another question, which ought to be put into song: Six hundred twelve thousand minutes. Six hundred twelve thousand minutes. How do you measure fourteen months of lockdown? Fourteen long months worshipping via the internet. Fourteen long months locked away from one another.

Fourteen long months and only now, the end is in sight. With jabs in our arms, we approach the second summer of this pandemic with hope in our hearts, because the end is in sight. Here in Canada, our government is promising that all of us will have received our second shot before the end of September. See you in September. See you when the summer’s through. It’s gonna be a long lonely summer…Sorry, no more song lyrics. Instead let me offer you a refrain which we’ve been hearing, in all sorts of forms, whether it’s over Zoom or facetime or even in news reports, over and over again we hear people expressing our longing to return to “normal.” Young people are seeing visions, old people are dreaming dreams, of what our lives will be like, soon and very soon…sorry, sorry, I can’t seem help myself. It is as if a SPIRIT of freedom was injected into my arm with that first vaccine and I can’t help myself, I feel like singing in the rain, just singing in the rain, what a glorious feeling, I’m happy again. You have no idea how lucky you are that the songs which keeping popping into my head are covered by copyright.

As we begin to peer into our future, it is impossible not to look longingly back over our shoulder to life BC, Before COVID and hope against hope that soon, soon, we will be able to get back to “normal.” Now, I am well aware of the current trend of correcting those of us who are longing for normal life to return, by declaring, “Normal wasn’t working before, we can’t simply go back to normal.” I’ve said this myself on more than one occasion, but bear with me as I attempt to make an argument for our return to normal life!

To explore what a return to normal might look like, we will have to go back beyond Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, beyond the BCs, Before COVID and Before CHIRST, some 13 point 8 billion years ago to about 3 minutes after the big bang, when the Cosmos itself was but a newborn. In those early minutes of Cosmic existence, science tells us that the only things which existed were particles. When suddenly, like only 380,000 years, a mere blink Cosmic in history, suddenly, like the rushing winds, particles began to bond with other particles to form atoms. Now, one of the astonishing things about atoms is that the atoms possessed qualities which the individual particles which bonded to form the atoms did not possess. Particles bonded to make something completely new. Particles bonding to other particles doesn’t simply create a pile of particles but something new. Imagine the vast Cosmos made up of particles coming together to create atoms, which eventually begin to coalesce to become molecules.

Fast forward, incredibly fast, to 3.8 billion years ago approximately 750 million years after the Earth was formed, when molecules come together to make something new, as the first cells appear on this beautiful verdant planet, we call home. Particles beget atoms, atoms beget molecules, molecules beget cells, and cells beget, well you name it! Like comes together with like to create something altogether unlikely, something altogether new. 13.783 billion years of making all things new and humans finally begin to evolve.  We are a new thing. After 13.783 billion years of newness, a mere 5 – 7 million years ago, some apelike creatures began to evolve and just 200,000 years ago, something completely new emerges, something which possesses qualities not present in earlier models, for we homo sapiens are so very new; brand spanking new things.

Now fast forward, very fast to about to just about 5,000 years ago when recorded history begins and we can hear tell of one new thing after another new thing being, imagined, envisioned, and created, for newness is baked into our DNA. The Cosmos itself is all about creating the new! There is a FORCE in the Cosmos which continuously allures in order to create something new. Some of our ancestors named this FORCE, RUACH, WIND, BREATH, SPIRIT. This SPIRIT continues to allure, compel, inspire, attract, the intricate particles, atoms, molecules, cells, creatures of the Cosmos together to create something new. In all these 13.8 billion years the Cosmos has not gone back to the way things were in the past. History may repeat itself, but the Cosmos moves on into the newness of reality. Over and over again, in face after face, creature after diverse creature is born, unlike any creature born before it, no two creatures possessing exactly the same qualities. We cannot go back because everything old becomes new, again, and again, and again. Newness is an eternal quality of REALITY. Newness is, if you will “normal.”[1]

There is no going back. Yes, sometimes newness involves reaching back and reintegrating, something which was good that was left behind, which newness needs in order to keep becoming. Please notice I said reaching back and reintegrating. I did not say replicating. Reintegrating something good which was lost, creates something new. At other times, new involves letting go of things which aren’t helpful or are destructive so as not to recreate something which cannot evolve into goodness. Newness both includes and transcends what was. But newness is always part of our REALITY, I’ll say it again, newness is normal. Even these past fourteen months, which have felt for many of us like suspended animation, a time when everything we had come to accept as normal life was set aside to avoid the pandemic, even these past fourteen months have seen the creation of something new, as this enforced time out has caused us to rethink how to move into the future.

Ways of life have been challenged as new ways of living have emerged. Just as surely as the FORCE, the RUACH, the BREATH, the SPIRIT continues to allure, compel, inspire, attract, the intricate particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and creatures of the Cosmos together to create something new, we who are longing for freedom, cannot resist the motion of the Cosmos, a new thing is born. Lifestyles, systems and organizations which insist upon returning to the way things were are not in the Cosmic sense of things “normal.” For new is normal.

So, where does that leave us, here as we begin to envision emerging from these six hundred twelve thousand minutes of lockdown? On this Pentecost Sunday when the church celebrates the birth of a new Way of being in the world, I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul which on this very day will be read in churches all over the world: Listen to how Paul described the nature of REALITY to the church in Rome: “We know that from the beginning until now, all of Creation has been growing, groaning in one great act of giving birth. And not only Creation, but all of us who possess the first fruits of the SPIRIT we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free.” (Rom.8:22-23)

That inward groaning as we await the birth of the new is an expression of our own future’s birth pangs as our fears and hopes to coalesce into dreams and visions of new ways of being in the world. Something new is about to be born. Let us dream dreams of life, not like life was, this wouldn’t be normal, for it goes against everything that the Cosmos is was or ever more shall be. Let us dream dreams of life as it is emerging, new life, life beyond our fears, beyond the limitations of our histories, life measured not in minutes, or years, life as the song says, measured in LOVE. How about LOVE? Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure a life of a woman or a man? Remember the LOVE…Sing out, give out, measure your life
In LOVE…Seasons of LOVE…Seasons of LOVE…ah I wish I could sing it! LOVE which continues to allure, compel, inspire, attract, the intricate particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and creatures, that’s you and me dear friends, LOVE is calling us to create something new. LOVE which even now is swirling in and around us, inflaming us, exciting us, always inviting us into something new. THANKS be to ALL that IS HOLY! Amen.

VIEW the full PENTECOST WORSHIP VIDEO below

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[1] I am indebted to Rob Bell for his insight about “new” being normal which I either heard or read during this long lock down. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to locate exactly where, I only remember that it was Rob Bell. So credit where credit is due. Rob Bell’s insights begat this sermon!