|
Morning Meditation
November 10, 2025
Reading: Isaiah 65:17-25
New Heavens and a New Earth
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
“Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years…
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat…
They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them…
The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.
Meditation by Glenn Beamer
A cursory reading of Isaiah may lead one to infer that God, and God alone, would create a neo-Garden of Eden as the new Jerusalem. God relays through Isaiah that we should “rejoice and be glad,” because God will “create” a Jerusalem, delight in his people, and provide long and prosperous lives. However, the latter verses in this passage imply that we can’t rely on God for our community utopia.
Isaiah prophesizes that Jews will build houses and dwell in them and not surrender them to wealthier individuals. Workers will toil in fields and vineyards; partake of their crops and grapes and not turn them over to landowners. Community members were collectively responsible for their neighbors’ well-being.
The Financial Times recently launched a four-year reporting project profiling Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The projects reporters relay that Bethlehem Steel shuttered its steelmaking furnaces thirty years ago, yet unlike steel towns like Johnstown and Youngstown, Bethlehem continues to growth, along with attendant soaring housing costs.
One can visit Bethlehem today and believe that it’s just been blessed among mid-sized industrial cities to enjoy its cultural and economic vibrancy. However, such an inference ignores the very real disruptions and challenges Bethlehemites faced thirty to forty years ago. Bethlehem overcame these challenges because of contributions that first stabilized the city and then parlayed those contributions into a revitalized community. It’s the second part of Isaiah’s passage that comes to mind when I learned about the Financial Times endeavor.
In 1983, Bethlehem Steel laid off 6000 of the 12000 steelworkers at its hometown plant. These losses were in addition to the daily furloughs of hundreds of management employees. Unemployment soared to 18 percent. I worked for a floor cleaning company that advertised three openings. One hundred eighty-five adult men lined up to apply for 3 jobs that paid $3.85 per hour – about one-third of a steelworker’s wage.
One of my classmates took to wearing a hat always. When he took it off, his hair flew out in wild curls and looked oily. Somebody made a crack, and he shot back that his family had turned off their gas to keep their house. He couldn’t shower in a cold house with cold water. A deserved wave of shame hit the rest of us. I had twin friends who were 2 of 7 children. Their parents owned and operated a luncheonette between the cokeworks and rolling mills. Business dived, and they sold their 1400 square-foot house & moved in over the luncheonette.
Three factors enabled Bethlehem to sustain and recreate itself. Two of these factors – corporate responsibility and pensions are economic. The third is spiritual. Federally insured pensions and retiree health insurance provided billions of dollars in economic stability. Thirty years after the shutdown began, fifteen thousand Bethlehem Steel retirees remained in the Lehigh Valley drawing pensions averaging $18000 per year. Company provided health insurance meant that families did not have to relocate. Second, Bethlehem Steel’s managers deserve credit for how they managed their lay-offs and closings. The company created the first corporate outplacement service and negotiated to sell portions of the plant. By maintaining utility and transportation infrastructure, 85% of the plant’s land could be redeveloped for new industry and employment.
The third factor was spiritual. People had long been committed to Bethlehem as a place. As early as the 1950s civic leaders created non-profit institutions designed to offset steel’s volatile, cyclical business cycles. Somewhat ironically, this collective commitment grew when the economic tsunami hit. Bethlehem Steel CEO Lewis Few donated millions of dollars to Moravian College. CEO Hank Barnette was instrumental in redeveloping the steelworks and growing community non-profits such as the National Museum of Industrial History.
I was treasurer for my high school class. Nearly a third of our classmates could not pay $36 for our yearbook. The class officers created, and our class endorsed a plan that provided yearbooks for every graduate regardless of ability to pay. More than a quarter of my classmates were first- or second-generation Americans, and a disproportionate share of students who couldn’t afford the yearbook came from these families. On graduation night, whenever our principal called a first-to-graduate student’s name their families clapped, cheered and whooped with pride. As an eighteen-year-old it was the first time I knew I had helped do the right thing for something little noticed but important. Amid the worst economy since the Great Depression there was genuine joy and pride of place.
The student whose family had the gas shut off put himself through college. He returned to Bethlehem and has taught high school social studies for 36 years. Mutual friends of ours have relayed the compassion and gentle approach he offers his students. He has a lot to be proud of – he contributed to the community Isaiah describes.
| 
