To everything there is a season. The beginning of Ecclesiastes' 3rd chapter is traditionally read during worship on the first Sunday of the year. The author speaks eloquently of time, and time is foremost in our minds every New Year. We look back at the past year, reflecting, assessing, trying to sum up, comprehend, internalize; we look ahead to the new year with fears and hopes, with plans and resolutions and goals. Ecclesiastes' passage is perfect for this season of introversion and change: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew. The new year is a time for change: a time to put old things aside, to take on the new and to make the changes last.
This week, I was reading a website filled with New Year's resolutions. Some of the entries included, "Read more. Eat more tacos. Go sailing. Rule the world. Make someone happy." In this spirit, I've made five resolutions for myself that I'd like to offer for your consideration as well. At first, each will sound typical; but each has a small twist. They are: Stay alive. Stay awake. Clean my house. Eat healthier foods. And lose weight.
Stay alive: one would think this would be obvious. If you're dead, you can't carry out resolutions; and of course you can't break any either. But I'm not talking about staying physically alive. I'd like to think that if God calls me home, I'll have a better, eternal life awaiting me, so I'm not really concerned. I do, however, want to stay spiritually alive, as opposed to spiritually dead - something that Jesus warns about. I don't want to be a person whose life is half-lived, but one whose life is full and vibrant. In order to do this, I'll have to be always growing, always learning, always changing, always contributing.
Stay awake: I don't intend to cut down on sleep in the new year or to take shorter naps. Naps were good for President Reagan and they're good enough for me. I'm talking about staying awake spiritually. It's very easy to nap on the world's problems, to fall asleep on the watch. People are still starving in Darfur, and I don't want to forget that. And I don't want to ignore what's going on in the Gaza Strip either. It's frustrating - ever since I was a child, I've been praying for peace in the Middle East. And it would be very easy to simply give up, or not to have an opinion. I think it's important that we do have opinions, and take action.
I also don't want to sleep through events in my own community. This past New Year's Eve, in a widely-reported Long Island tragedy, a 14-year-old boy passed out, froze and died. I asked a couple teenagers, "Would you ask strange adults to buy you liquor and then go drinking in the woods?" Their answer, delivered without a hint of irony: "No, we drink at home." While it would be easy to dismiss this comment and to give up on the intelligence of young people in general, it would be irresponsible and inaccurate. I held up the newspaper and told them, "Okay, how's this: Don't die." Then one of them said, "Hey, I want to read that." There are ways of getting across to the younger generation, and it will always be trial-and-error, but we can't nap on it. If we feel that somehow - by age or experience or osmosis or prayer - we have somehow accumulated more wisdom than those who are younger, then we have a responsibility to share it, no matter what the response.
Clean my house. I'm always amazed at the Hefty bags of garbage I take out of my house once or twice a week. I just can't believe that much garbage comes in. But as I'm sure you can guess, my resolution has to do with my spiritual house. Sometimes my spiritual house accumulates dust, or needs to be vacuumed. Sometimes it gets cluttered with garbage. There are some ideas, habits, doubts that need to be thrown out.
Eat healthier foods. Am I going to give up coffee, chocolate, burgers and pancakes in the new year? No way, I love those things. But I would like to cut down on junk food. And by junk food, I mean the sort of bad stuff that I put into my spiritual body all the time: pessimism, sensationalism, fluff, bad attitudes, blown-up stories, celebrity photos. These things make me bloated and fat. When challenges come, I'd rather be in top spiritual shape. I'd rather eat healthier foods - and the healthiest food of all is the Bible, the bread of life, the Word of God.
And finally, I'd like to lose weight. I've been carrying around a lot of extra weight, and it's been weighing me down: the weight of sin and guilt. There are different kinds of guilt: sometimes we feel guilty for things that aren't even our fault. When Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan was a kid, he and his brother Mike, a football star, were in a car accident that ended Mike's career. For years, Matt felt guilty that he wasn't seriously hurt, and it was extremely difficult for him to pursue his current career. Many of us carry around guilt like that. We feel guilty for being the one who stayed alive, the one who wasn't sick, the one who should have known better. But in the new year, it's time to let those things go. Jesus came to take the weight of our sin and guilt - guilt for things we have done as well as for things we have not. He bore that weight upon his own shoulders; and after we have received His mercy, Jesus doesn't want us to take up our sins again, but to take up our crosses.
The new year is a time to repent and a time to be forgiven. A time to break down unhealthy habits and to build up healthy ones. A time to rend old attitudes and sew new ones. A time to pluck up weeds and plant wheat. A time to keep all that is good and pure and holy, and to cast away that which is not. A time to die to this world and to be born to eternal life. In this new year, may the Lord help us all to keep our resolutions. Amen.
Richard Allen, 4 January 2009
|
