josephholubsermons
Janaury 3, 2010 - Second Sunday of
Christmas
John 1:1-5
"I Resolve..."
"What has come into being in him was life..."
“I
resolve…” It's that time
of year. Pollsters tell us
about half of the American population will make a New Year’s resolution
of some kind. I remember
making and keeping only one New Year's Resolution.
It was in 1991.
For some reason (probably stress), in 1990, I over-indulged in
Peanut M & M's big time which
had numerous negative implications.
On January 1, 1991 I resolved
to not eat a single
Peanut M & M that year. I did it! I fulfilled my resolution.
“I resolve...”
Resolution stuff was all over the television and Internet the
past few days. I saw
several lists of the Top Ten New Year's Resolutions.
The vast majority of resolutions focus on personal habits
and disciplines like losing weight, quitting smoking, getting
more exercise, less drinking, reducing stress and getting out of debt
topping the lists.
A statistic I found interesting is
that about half of the resolutions made this year will not
be met, and as for the rest, varying degrees of success will be attained
with less than 10% actually realizing the sought after change.
The annual New Year’s Resolution frenzy seems to be an
acknowledgment, on the one hand, that
many people recognize and want their lives
to change in some way.
But, on the other hand, if the pollsters are correct, most of us
will either fail in our attempts or fall short of our goals.
I’ll never forget something a man said
to me years ago. We were
talking about a mutual friend who had battled substance abuse, and for
awhile, he seemed to be managing his life extremely well and was
empowered in ways that manifested real change.
But then he had a setback, and in the face of it the man said to
me,
“I don’t believe people can really
change in any substantial way.
We are who we are who we are, and that is all there is to it.
All that can be made are cosmetic changes,”
he said emphatically!
I understood where he was coming from
at that moment. He cared
much about our mutual friend, and he was disappointed in him, as well as
hurt and angry, and his words reflected his emotional state more than
anything. But did he
speak some truth?
Can people really change?
Or are cosmetic changes
the best we can do?
“I resolve…”
Are we merely deluding ourselves?
Perhaps that is why most New Year’s resolutions remain
unrealized, and why half the
population doesn’t even make them.
Why bother if substantial change is not really possible?
I don't buy it!
My own conviction is that
people can change!
Change and transformation are realities that
can be experienced in
a human life. Over my
decades of ministry, I have witnessed genuine transformation in
the lives of many people. I have personally experienced change on
macro levels in my own life.
Growing up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic family, as a young man I
was angry and driven beyond
imagining. It mattered not
the endeavor, whether it be athletics, career or education.
I went at it with an angry passion to be #1. I
still live with the ramifications of that
angry passion every day,
especially as a result of athletics.
Even though I had many trophies of former victories I could line
up on my shelf (actually I've discarded them all), I also have a body
full of titanium holding me together and I live with chronic pain -
both living reminders of my angry passion.
I have not lost my passion, but I have lost the
twin demons of anger and negative self-esteem that fueled
the raging fire that
burned in my soul. People
can change.
Transformation is a
possibility.
This morning's gospel reading is from
John. I call John the
gospel of transformation.
It is not that Matthew, Mark and Luke are not, it is just
that John especially is.
John's gospel is profoundly metaphorical, characterized by
stories of transformation.
For example, it is only in John's
gospel:
·
that we read the story of
Nicodemus and Jesus engaged in a conversation about rebirth, a
euphemism for transformation. (John
3)
·
that we encounter the
story of the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus changed huge amounts of
water into wine; a story that functions, for me, as a metaphor for the
possibility of genuine change and transformation. (John 2)
·
where Jesus says,
"Unless a grain of what falls into
the earth and dies it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it
bears much fruit." The
words are a powerful metaphor pertaining to the ongoing
transformative process Jesus calls forth in the lives of his
disciples. (John
12:24)
·
where Jesus repeatedly
talks about a new quality of life in God that can be
existentially experienced in the moments of our days.
In our gospel for today John says,
"What has come into being in him was life..."
( John 1:3b-4a)
Biblical scholars tell us that John's
gospel wasn't written until perhaps some six decades after the
crucifixion. But even after
that significant period of time, John's faith community was
experiencing Jesus as a transformative reality and energy.
And for John and his community, as well as for the other gospel
communities, the
transformative agent was
LOVE - the love of God.
Those early gospel communities were swept away by and caught
up in the transformative power of God's love as embodied in the life
of Jesus.
The question that remains is how does
the transformative process work for us.
John's community lived six decades after Jesus.
We live two-hundred decades after Jesus.
I can only share with you how the
transformative process works for me. Essentially it is one piece
that has two parts. The
first part involves
allowing myself to get
caught up in a compelling vision
of who I want to be. The first
step of transformation is a
vision of a new reality - a new person - a different me.
For me, Jesus embodies that vision - Jesus is that vision.
The deeper I plunge into the person of Jesus, as he is revealed
in the gospels, the more compelling the vision becomes.
Unfortunately, traditional paradigms
of Christianity have tended to look at the life Jesus and then thrown up
arms of despair with laments of
"Woe is me! I am not like that,
and I cannot be like that!"
Those paradigms of Christianity
get stuck at the point
of self-degradation, confessing that our lives fall short of the vision
and can go no further. So,
our lives often don't go any further - and we find ourselves trapped in
an endless cycle of confession and perpetual disempowerment.
But I don't experience Jesus as a
brick wall that I cannot go beyond who forces me into a
posture of endless confession, but I experience Jesus as an
invitation into a
vision of a new humanity.
When I see that his life was so filled with the love of God, a
love that didn't stop at the places and occasions where my love often
stops, I am not thrown into despair, but I am
drawn deeper into the vision and
beyond my own self-set limits of loving.
The deeper I journey into Jesus' life
and see what a human life can truly
look like and
be like, the more I am
drawn into the vision, and the more I desire the vision to
take shape in my own life.
I dare say that many of those down through the ages that the
church has named and revered as saints are those people, for the most
part, who allowed themselves to be deeply drawn into the vision of a
new humanity as embodied in Jesus, and their lives came to resemble
his.
Those who say it
cannot be done - that change
is not possible - that
transformation is delusion - are really saying that God's
vision of human life as revealed in Jesus is impotent and powerless
to affect any real change.
They might say that best that can be attained is to confess that
we don't measure up.
The
second part of the
process of transformation is the
"I resolve" part.
As I am invited and drawn into
the vision of a new humanity as embodied in Jesus, I reach a place
where I am so captivated and caught up in the vision that I find
myself saying, often to my own surprise,
"I resolve..." This is
the commitment phase, but my commitment is empowered, not merely
by my own strength, but by God's vision in Jesus that continues
to invite me and inspire me beyond where I am; beyond the limits I have
set for love; calling me over thresholds, boundaries and barriers that
I've never crossed before.
It's been my experience that I do set
conditional and restrictive limits to my love.
·
My love can stop dead
in its tracks when I am asked to make a sacrifice.
·
My love can bail out
when a situation demands I swallow my own self-righteous pride.
·
My love can diminish
when I don't want to be inconvenienced or go out of my way.
·
My love can cease
altogether when I am challenged to see the humanity of my adversary.
·
My love can evaporate
when subjected to the heat of self-indulgence.
·
My love can dissolve
when any one of a number of my security systems are threatened.
·
My love can go into
cardiac arrest when I rationalize my feelings of disdain toward
another.
·
My love can die in
the wilderness of fear and
prejudice.
But, I resolve in 2010, the beginning or
a new year, the beginning of a new decade, and the beginning of the rest of my life, to
journey deep into the vision of a new humanity as embodied in Jesus, and
to be guided and inspired by his life and his love, and carried far
beyond the self-drawn limits and boundaries of my love.
I look forward to exploring the new world and liberated way of
living and loving on the other side.
"I resolve..."
I challenge you to resolve too!
Amen.