Minister: Rev. Kerry McCormick

December 31, 2011 and January 1, 2012

Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that, as scriptures are read and your word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.

We’re ready to be festive at the turning of the year, aren’t we?  There’s something wonderfully hopeful about a brand New Year: a clean slate, a chance for a fresh start, an opportunity to reinvent ourselves as the person our dogs think we are.

Did you know our pets make New Year’s Resolutions? Here are a few possibilities:

• Get out of the castle more, swim counter-clockwise just once this year.
• Leave the gift of a cold, wet, mushy hairball where it will be most appreciated: right where bare feet hit the floor first thing in the morning.
• Call PETA and tell them what that surgical mask-wearing freak does to us when no one is around.
• Take time from busy schedule to stop and smell the behinds.
• Always scoot before licking.
• Grow opposable thumb; break into pantry; decide for MYSELF how much food is *too* much.
• I will NOT chase the stick unless I see it LEAVE HIS HAND.

Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.

Of the 45% of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions, only 8% will actually succeed in fulfilling their all their resolutions. One in four fail to keep any resolution they make. In reality,  3 out of 4 of us rarely experience success.

Even so, year after year, we make resolutions about money, our weight, self-improvement or education, or relationships.  It appears from the statistics that the less happy we are, the more likely we are to set New Year’s Resolutions.  But here’s the punch line – There is no correlation between happiness and resolution setting/success.  People who achieve their resolutions every year are NO happier than those who do not set resolutions or who are unsuccessful in achieving them.

Yet we use the occasion of the New Year to strive to be a better person.  Have you ever prayed this prayer?

Dear Lord,

So far this year, I've done well.

I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper, I haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I'm very thankful for that.  But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on I'm probably going to need a lot more help.  Amen.

Money motives: Neighbors of ours had a terrible disagreement over a patio they wanted for their backyard. The wife had rather grand ideas, while the husband wanted costs kept to a minimum. The wife won out, and the construction bill climbed higher and higher. I dropped by one day, when the patio was near completion, and was surprised to find the husband smiling from ear to ear as the workmen smoothed over new concrete. I remarked how nice it was to see a grin replace the frown he had been wearing lately.  “You see where they’re smoothing that cement?” he replied. “I just threw my wife’s credit cards in there.” — R. Horn

Weighing in: The teacher in our Bible class asked a woman to read from the book of Numbers about the Israelites wandering in the desert. "The Lord heard you when you wailed, ‘If only we had meat to eat!’" she began, "Now the Lord will give you meat. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, or ten or twenty days, but for a month—until you loathe it." When the woman finished, she paused, looked up, and said, "Hey, isn’t that the Atkin’s diet?"  — David Martino 

Self-improvement: I was trying to decide what to do for a talent show I planned to enter. Trusting my mother to help me out, I asked, "For the show, what do you think I should do, sing or put on a comedy act?" Glancing up from her paper, she said dryly, "What’s the difference?" — Kimmie Helk

Indeed, a new year is upon us. It's time to take down the old calendar, and if it has nice pictures, save it—you can use it again in 2022— and put up the new one, or the 1984 one that you’ve saved for 2012.

As you do, ponder that old calendar.  Look at all those days.  God was with you on every one of them. Think of all you've done, and give thanks for your endeavors. Give thanks for all the people you met, the folks who did things for you, the souls you touched, the companions you had on the way.

Give thanks for all you've seen, and marvel at how the things that you've experienced, and the ways you chose to receive them, have become a part of who you are. Give thanks for the challenges, the terrible days, the long hauls, for they, too, are part of the journey that has brought you to this day, and part of who you are.

And of course, remember all your mistakes, and even more important, what you learned from them. And know that as you leave behind the old year, all those mistakes are forgiven. The little goofs and the profound betrayals, the odd slips and the unbreakable habits, all are forgiven. They are as past as that old year, gone. All that remains is wisdom, what you learned from them.

Matthew’s gospel helps us to remember that we are not who we are going to be.  In the familiar story told to help followers know that reaching out to the last, the lost and the least, was an act of reaching out to Christ himself, and that failing to serve and meet the needs of others was effectively saying ‘no’ to serving Christ, we are faced with the question of which one we want to be.  It’s a valid question for Christians on the cusp of a New Year.

Alongside this story, I am convicted by Paul’s words in the 7^th chapter of Romans. “I know what the right thing to do is, but I find myself doing the thing I don’t want to do – the sinful thing.  It’s almost like I can’t help myself.  What am I going to do with this frustrating problem? Only Christ can help me.”  It’s my paraphrase. And it helps me look at myself with sober judgment.  I want to do the right thing, follow Jesus in all I say and do in every moment of my life.  And I fail. I struggle to be faithful and I know the only answer is a life lived in and for Christ.

Really attending to Jesus' teaching in Matthew could be much more than a resolution.  This is revolutionary (a sudden, complete, marked change).  As we renew and cultivate a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we hear the invitational call toward Active Daily Discipleship that engages us to be the person we have been created to be – integrating our faith into our everyday lives, becoming living examples of servant leadership, especially to those who cannot help themselves.  In the ways we are able to offer our lives in covenant with God to be God’s representatives in the world, we could be forever, radically, completely changed.  New from head to toe.

G. K. Chesterton is credited with saying: 

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a person made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions, at all. Unless a person starts afresh about things, she will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a person starts on the strange assumption that she has never existed before, it is quite certain that she will never exist afterwards. Unless a person be born anew in the Spirit, that one shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Matthew’s gospel reminds us that it’s not really about us, it’s about our participation in the in-breaking of the Kingdom of Heaven into the here and now.  Caring for those who are hurting, hungry, thirsty, sick or in prison, bereft of basic necessities, these are things worth giving your life for. 

Here’s a revolutionary thought for you to ponder this New Year’s: this year already, you have changed and grown. That's the good news as you stand at this threshold: we have and we can again suddenly, completely and markedly, change.  We can experience a revolution in our hearts and in our faith.  In Christ our hearts can be transformed.  In the new year, we can become new people.

Of course, with Paul, we resist change, but the truth is that it's really not change that we dislike so much as loss. It’s our resistance to change that’s hard. Change, and the loss of the familiar, puts us in a vulnerable, powerless position, a place where we’re not in control, and we don’t “know” enough. 

That’s what we don’t like.

And that— that place of powerlessness, dependence and not knowing—  that is the gospel place, the place where our only hope, and our only power, our only hope is God. It’s the place Jesus invites us to simply be. It’s all about dying first and then rising. Recently you heard what Simeon in the temple said about the baby Jesus? “This child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel” (Lk. 2.34). Not the rise and fall, like coming and going. But the falling (first) and then the rising. So, if you are willing, 2012 is the year you will die.

And rise. If you are willing, you will surrender everything to God's infinite love, and let God re-create you, revolutionize your discipleship.  Enter the new year ready to die and rise in the Spirit of the Eternal One who gives you your life as a gift. So, this new year will be great—it will include your birth-day!

As you put up the new calendar, even if it says 1984, be mindful that you are about to become someone new. This re-creation will involve loss, and you will be tempted to resist it. But God will be with you every single one of the 366 days ahead.  

Be ready to accept the changes that will come, to rely on God’s merciful presence, and to be re-created in this new time.  And in preparation, I would invite you into a time of reflection and recommitment to your relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  (go to bulletin insert for the Wesley Covenant Prayer)