A New Year's Resolution?
Sermon
So it's all over bar the shouting and we've survived! As far as the general public is concerned Christmas is finished for another year, even though the Church goes on celebrating Christmas for a few more weeks yet. And we're through into another new year without being zapped by God at midnight on New Year's Eve.
I wonder what the future holds in this brand new year? The ecumenical movement of Christian churches in this country coined the phrase "New Start" in the year 2000, to suggest that our country might want to be thinking in terms of a new beginning.
The millennium resolution, which you might remember from a few years ago, spells out what the churches had in mind. It was written in terms which some Christians found offensive, because it failed to mention either the name of God, or of Jesus. But it was designed to be inclusive, because surely in this millennium different faiths must have some way of coming together.
The resolution said this and it's still relevant today:
Let there be respect for the earth,
peace for its people,
love in our lives,
delight in the good,
forgiveness for past wrongs
and from now on a new start.
It seems to me to be an excellent New Year resolution for any year, and to be all about God even if his name is not explicitly mentioned.
Perhaps there are two new aspects in this resolution which haven't been apparent in previous centuries. It was only in the latter years of the last millennium that we began to gain a real appreciation of how we were treating our own planet.
Although some peoples such as North American Indians and Australian Aborigines have always had a deep feeling of solidarity with the earth, that feeling has not been apparent in developed Western nations. For thousands of years we in the West have taken it for granted that the earth is there to be exploited, especially in terms of its natural resources and natural wealth.
So a resolution calling for respect for the earth is very new.
Neither have we been too brilliant until very recent years at recognising and regretting our past mistakes. When I was growing up shortly after the war, I was taught an enormous pride not only in my country, but also in the British Empire. Even when that British Empire became the British Commonwealth, that nationalistic pride was barely dented.
I can remember as a child looking through atlases at school to discover just how many countries of the world were coloured pink - the colour chosen to designate British ownership. Then, I felt nothing but awe and pride. Now I feel somewhat shocked and ashamed that our country marched into other people's territories and simply took them.
Times move on, and opinions move on and change. It's so very difficult to discern mistakes and wrong thinking in your own time, because you simply take for granted that which is happening and never question it. It's only on looking back, when opinions have perhaps reversed, that you begin to identify the horrors perpetrated by past generations.
Slavery was not only accepted in this country for many years, but when far-sighted people began to question the ethics of slavery and suggest it should be stopped, church people justified its existence by quoting from the Bible and speaking in the name of God.
It's so difficult to see the wood when you're standing in a forest of trees.
When God sent a message to the world to say, "This is what I'm like. If you really want to know me, and to know how I think and how I act, then look at this human being, Jesus. He is so much in my image that I call him my son. He is my gift to you for all generations. Enjoy him."
When God sent that message 2000 years ago, the people amongst whom Jesus grew up were unable to accept him. They were too close, they knew him too well, and they couldn't see the wood for the trees.
He was in the world, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. They weren't the only people who didn't accept him. The religious people failed to recognise him, and were instrumental in his death.
It's easy to look back after many years of Christianity and throw up our hands in horror at the way religious people failed to identify Jesus and brought him to such a terrible and cruel end. But if he came again today, would we recognise him?
How open are we to God's messages today? The message of Jesus, which St John refers to in a kind of shorthand as "The Word", was utterly unexpected. Nobody expected the saviour of the world to arrive like the rest of us, as a tiny, vulnerable, helpless baby.
Nobody expected him to take his message mainly to the poor and uneducated. Nobody expected him to thumb his nose at the religious elite of the day. Nobody expected him to choose such a ragbag of disciples. Nobody expected him to die under the curse of God - crucified as a criminal.
So if he came again today, the only almost certain fact is that he would be unlikely to meet any of our expectations. The only way we could ever be ready to recognise him if he came again, is if we were able to first recognise and acknowledge our own prejudices and bigotries, which are usually so deeply held that we're unconscious of them. Then we'd need to ask forgiveness for them, so that we could be open enough to accept God's message for this new year, however it might come and in whatever form it might appear.
And then our New Year Resolution might truly be:
respect for the earth,
peace for its people,
love in our lives, delight in the good,
forgiveness for past wrongs
and from now on a new start.
I wonder what the future holds in this brand new year? The ecumenical movement of Christian churches in this country coined the phrase "New Start" in the year 2000, to suggest that our country might want to be thinking in terms of a new beginning.
The millennium resolution, which you might remember from a few years ago, spells out what the churches had in mind. It was written in terms which some Christians found offensive, because it failed to mention either the name of God, or of Jesus. But it was designed to be inclusive, because surely in this millennium different faiths must have some way of coming together.
The resolution said this and it's still relevant today:
Let there be respect for the earth,
peace for its people,
love in our lives,
delight in the good,
forgiveness for past wrongs
and from now on a new start.
It seems to me to be an excellent New Year resolution for any year, and to be all about God even if his name is not explicitly mentioned.
Perhaps there are two new aspects in this resolution which haven't been apparent in previous centuries. It was only in the latter years of the last millennium that we began to gain a real appreciation of how we were treating our own planet.
Although some peoples such as North American Indians and Australian Aborigines have always had a deep feeling of solidarity with the earth, that feeling has not been apparent in developed Western nations. For thousands of years we in the West have taken it for granted that the earth is there to be exploited, especially in terms of its natural resources and natural wealth.
So a resolution calling for respect for the earth is very new.
Neither have we been too brilliant until very recent years at recognising and regretting our past mistakes. When I was growing up shortly after the war, I was taught an enormous pride not only in my country, but also in the British Empire. Even when that British Empire became the British Commonwealth, that nationalistic pride was barely dented.
I can remember as a child looking through atlases at school to discover just how many countries of the world were coloured pink - the colour chosen to designate British ownership. Then, I felt nothing but awe and pride. Now I feel somewhat shocked and ashamed that our country marched into other people's territories and simply took them.
Times move on, and opinions move on and change. It's so very difficult to discern mistakes and wrong thinking in your own time, because you simply take for granted that which is happening and never question it. It's only on looking back, when opinions have perhaps reversed, that you begin to identify the horrors perpetrated by past generations.
Slavery was not only accepted in this country for many years, but when far-sighted people began to question the ethics of slavery and suggest it should be stopped, church people justified its existence by quoting from the Bible and speaking in the name of God.
It's so difficult to see the wood when you're standing in a forest of trees.
When God sent a message to the world to say, "This is what I'm like. If you really want to know me, and to know how I think and how I act, then look at this human being, Jesus. He is so much in my image that I call him my son. He is my gift to you for all generations. Enjoy him."
When God sent that message 2000 years ago, the people amongst whom Jesus grew up were unable to accept him. They were too close, they knew him too well, and they couldn't see the wood for the trees.
He was in the world, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. They weren't the only people who didn't accept him. The religious people failed to recognise him, and were instrumental in his death.
It's easy to look back after many years of Christianity and throw up our hands in horror at the way religious people failed to identify Jesus and brought him to such a terrible and cruel end. But if he came again today, would we recognise him?
How open are we to God's messages today? The message of Jesus, which St John refers to in a kind of shorthand as "The Word", was utterly unexpected. Nobody expected the saviour of the world to arrive like the rest of us, as a tiny, vulnerable, helpless baby.
Nobody expected him to take his message mainly to the poor and uneducated. Nobody expected him to thumb his nose at the religious elite of the day. Nobody expected him to choose such a ragbag of disciples. Nobody expected him to die under the curse of God - crucified as a criminal.
So if he came again today, the only almost certain fact is that he would be unlikely to meet any of our expectations. The only way we could ever be ready to recognise him if he came again, is if we were able to first recognise and acknowledge our own prejudices and bigotries, which are usually so deeply held that we're unconscious of them. Then we'd need to ask forgiveness for them, so that we could be open enough to accept God's message for this new year, however it might come and in whatever form it might appear.
And then our New Year Resolution might truly be:
respect for the earth,
peace for its people,
love in our lives, delight in the good,
forgiveness for past wrongs
and from now on a new start.
