Happily Ever After
based on Isaiah 65:17-25
Rev. Randy L Quinn

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
Isaiah 65:17-25

If nothing else, the story of Princess Diana reminds us that there are no fairy tale endings in life. And yet some people face life as if it were a fairy tale. They dream dreams and set goals before marching off into whatever “happily ever after” awaits them.
For some people, marriage seems to be the pivotal point in their dream, when the “happily ever after” begins.
For other people it’s a college diploma that defines it.
For still others, it is the day the last child leaves their home.
My guess is that it doesn’t matter at what stage you are in life there is some goal or some dream toward which you are working. There are some people who see the achievement of that goal as the beginning of their “happily ever after.”

But we eventually learn that we don’t live in a fairy tale world. It may have started out “once upon a time,” but the “happily ever after” takes hard work and effort in order to be happy and there is always an end to the “ever after.” We all have hopes and dreams, but at some point in life we learn that some of those dreams will never become reality. They are just fairy tale wishes.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop dreaming. In fact, I believe the day we let go of our dreams is also the day we begin to die.

We may lower our expectations so we won’t be disappointed, but then life becomes predictable. We may set goals that are so easily achieved that we become bored with life. Rather than celebrating the wonderful way God created order out of chaos, we begin to worship the routine and tradition, living in fear of change and losing sight of the new life God is dreaming about. Eventually we begin to read about the promises of heaven as the only place where “happily ever after” exists, something that can only be achieved after we die. And in the process we lose all hope.

In Winnie-the-Pooh, Pooh and Piglet take an evening walk1. For a long time they walk in companionable silence. Finally, Piglet breaks the silence and asks, “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” answers Pooh. “And what do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, ‘I wonder what exciting thing is going to happen today?’”

When our dreams become too small, our lives have less meaning. Without any dreams, we begin to lose hope. And the fairy tale becomes a tragedy because we let hope expire.

That’s why the promise claimed by Peter at Pentecost is so important for the church to claim and reclaim. He quoted Joel who said that even old men would dream dreams (Joel. 2:28; Acts 2:17).

It’s also why I think it’s important to hear the verb tense when we read Isaiah’s vision of the new heaven and the new earth in our text today. God is ‘creating’ it in our time and in our world (Is. 65:18). It is present tense as much as it is future tense. This is not the “happily ever after” of some afterlife. God is creating something new in our midst, in our lives, in our church, right now.

In other words, our dreams may need to be adjusted or altered, but we place limitations on what God can do when we limit our dreams to the mundane and the routine. I believe God is calling us to continue dreaming so we will experience the “happily ever after” God has planned for us.

Part of the un-spoken agenda at our Church Conference this evening is to ask about the dreams we have for the future. What do we believe God has in store for us? What is possible for God to accomplish through us in the coming year? If we’re like Pooh and are just looking for the next meal, we may miss the wonder and delight of what is possible. If we’re only concerned with reducing the expenses so we can meet our budget, we may close our eyes to new ways we can nurture life-changing relationships with God, with one another, and with our community.

I believe our task tonight is to seek and search for God’s dreams as we look to the future. I believe it’s a time to dream dreams, big dreams, holy dreams, and maybe even impossible dreams!

Last Spring, Dr. Larson went to Haiti to provide some medical assistance to the people who were suffering there. When I saw the pictures of the devastation that was still evident months after the earthquake, it was hard to see how one person could make a difference. It would be discouraging, so discouraging that some people would have returned home and spoken of the futility of it. But when we have a big dream that includes a “happily ever after” for the people in Haiti, there is no sense of impossible. There is only the question of what can I do first? Where can I start?

But maintaining the dream is only one part of the equation. We must also be willing to work along with God for the dream to become reality. We cannot just wait for God to create something for us.

Using whatever definition they may want to use for a “good marriage”– every couple who has a “good marriage” began with a dream of living “happily ever after”. But they will also tell you that it takes work to maintain it. There is no true happiness without hard work.

That does not mean that hard work will always lead to happiness. If we have no dreams, no hopes, no goals, then hard work is only hard work. It wears us out and brings us down.

The UMW Bazaar and Soup Day is a good example from this past week. Lots of people worked hard to make that day happen. It would be astounding to see the tally if we counted the hours invested in that day – from making chili and pies at home to cooking the turkey and making the sandwiches at the church, from setting up the tables and serving to cleaning up afterward, from the cake walk to the meals that were delivered to people in their homes. Countless hours of hard work took place. But every time I walked past those workers, I saw smiles.

It was pretty clear to me that those who experienced the most joy worked hard. (Now, I also know there were some folks who worked hard without experiencing joy; my sense is they lost sight of the dream; it had become just hard work for them.)

I don’t know what you did on Wednesday, I don’t know what part you played, but I challenge you to ask yourself the question of what dreams you had and if you were willing to work hard to have those dreams be fulfilled.

Just as there can be no “happily ever after” without a dream, neither can there be a “happily ever after” without hard work.

Each week in worship we pray the Lord’s Prayer together. In it is a line where we say, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Whatever your vision of what heaven looks like, the question I have for you is what are you doing to make it happen here on earth? Or to put it into the context of today’s scripture, what part of Isaiah’s vision do you long for? How can you work with God to make that a reality?

Bring that dream with you tonight to Charge Conference and share it. We may find that God is giving several of us the same dream – but we’re afraid to name it because we think we will be the only ones working toward it. With God at our side, we can accomplish far more than we ever imagined.

Today is the day to dream dreams as we envision a “happily ever after” for our lives and our community. It’s a time to listen for God’s dreams as well as to name our own. Sometimes those dreams involve changing what is currently in place; other times they involve destroying what currently exists in order to make way for something so radically different from the past that it will no longer be remembered (Is. 65:17b).

Either way, God will walk with us into the future, into whatever “happily ever after” awaits us.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.