Readings; Psalm 34:1-10, Philippians 3:7-14, Deuteronomy 4:5-10, Matthew 7:7-12.
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, January 1, 2023
It's amazing how much importance we place on one single night. The sun sets on 31st December and when it rises the next morning a New Year has begun. Everything from the last year has passed and gone and the New Year is here. New possibilities, new hopes, new ideas and dreams.
Are you are a resolution person? Some years I am, some years I'm not. Some years I can be kind of flippant about it, “This year I'll give up smoking.” Easy to do when you have never actually taken up smoking in the first place. Other years I'm serious and I'll commit to something like reading through the whole Bible in a translation I've never done before. I've managed to keep that one, but then I am a preacher and Bible reading is a discipline that's part of my job description. Sometimes I'll make resolutions about exercise or diet or to not do certain things, like stay up late watching mindless TV shows and I fail dismally to see them through.
Why do we put ourselves through that resolution thing? Maybe it's because New Year is an opportunity to do some thinking and take an inventory of our lives. We realize what unrealistic and complicated human beings we can be, so we take a breath and contemplate that, maybe, we could do better. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we've already lost sight of our new ideals before we’ve remembered to write the right year at the top of our checks.
The month of January gets its name from the Roman god Janus. Janus is pictured as a two-faced man. One face looks towards the past and the other towards the future. As we think about New Year’s resolutions we can look, not in two, but three different directions: looking back, looking ahead and looking at now.
Looking Back
The Hebrew people were no strangers to looking back. They were constantly challenged to remember their heritage and God’s dealings with them. Moses once encouraged them with these words: “Be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your hearts as long as you live” (Deuteronomy 4 v 9).
It’s important to face yesterday and the year that has closed. If we don’t our resolutions won’t last. How many times have we made completely unrealistic resolutions because we didn’t take seriously whether last year had left us? We need to face it honestly, not with rose-colored spectacles or seeing shadows everywhere so it might be painful. Last year might have been one you don’t particularly want to remember. On the other hand, it might have been so good you’re now worried that it can’t continue.
Whatever the last year has held, I'd encourage you to spend some time remembering. Pull out your calendar or look at some old photographs. Scan through some posts on your Facebook page. What were the highlights? What were the low points? Where did you feel God's presence in those moments?
As much as we might want this year to be a completely new start, it doesn’t start in a vacuum. It follows what’s been. And what’s been, has brought us to where we are. Our resolutions can be flawed because they don’t look backwards first. Think about the past year. What can we be thankful for, what is there to be pleased about, what was hard, what did we learn, what habits do we want to get out of, what habits are good ones to keep doing?
If we don’t learn lessons from what we’ve seen and heard, then it’s like looking in a mirror and then forgetting what we just saw. The past is important, we can learn a lot. If we don’t learn, we’ll find things repeating themselves. God doesn’t intend us to live in the past. Looking back is intended to root us firmly in the rich soil of faith, which provides the environment in which we can grow into new things. Paul writes in Philippians 3:13 “Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus”
Looking Ahead
We can't spend our whole time looking back and reminiscing about days gone by. Looking backwards all the time can be dangerous. You may well bump into things you can't see and cause yourself serious harm. We need to focus on where we are going.
Remembering what you have learned from the year gone by, and full of hope for what might be, what are you aiming at this year? It has been rightly said that if we aim at nothing, we have 100% chance of hitting it.
It might be that we want to know our friends better by this time next year, or to have grown closer with God, our spouse, our family, to be healthier, fitter, slimmer. Whatever, think about tomorrow, the kind of person you want to be, the kind of friend, mother, father, sister, brother, employer, employee, friend, neighbor you'd like to be.
What are your dreams for your faith community this year? What steps will you take to make those things happen? You know, in church life, I've often had folk come to me and say that they think this should happen or that should happen and what am I going to do about that?
Friends, it's not about what I'm going to do, but what you are going to do. God has given you that vision for a purpose and the reason is not so you can get somebody else to do something about it, but so that you can live into it! If God gives you a vision, it's because it's one that God wants to equip you to fulfill.
So, look ahead. Be prepared to dream. But also, be prepared to act upon your dreams not re-assign them to somebody else. That's the tricky part about resolutions. We must resolve to take personal responsibility for seeing them through!
Looking at Now
If our aim is to be healthier, how can we do it? How do you eat an elephant? Answer, one bite at a time, inch by inch. But, to be clear, I don't recommend eating elephants. If you want to get fitter, certainly don't eat an elephant. What can you realistically do?
If you want to develop relationships, then do it in manageable time segments. If it's with your children, then why not resolve to spend an hour more a week with them doing things they want to do. If it's with your spouse set a date night once a month. If you want to grow in your relationship with God, don’t resolve to spend every hour of every day praying, make a resolution to spend at least some portion of the day in meditation, bible reading or prayer. Listen to an audio devotion on the way to work, join a bible study group or volunteer to help out at the Food Pantry.
I’m not saying don’t stretch yourself. I want to encourage us all to set our sights high, and work hard at those things in our lives we feel are most important, but let’s be realistic. Because then we can be optimistic. Reachable goals are far more likely to be attained than unreachable ones!
Certainly, as your pastor, I would encourage you to make this year one in which you grow in the grace, love and faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'd encourage you to be a regular supporter and attender of our worship services. That's only about an hour and a half out of your weekly schedule. This hour when we gather can really set the agenda for every other hour in our week!
In particular, I would invite you to make the most of this wonderful privilege we have once a month to come around the communion table. Communion speaks to us in ways preachers can never do. The sacrament communicates not just though words, but though touch and taste and smell and memory.
Jesus was completely purposeful in telling us to remember Him in this way. It calls to mind His Cross. It calls to mind His promise. It reminds us that unless we feed upon His love, our own love quickly fades, our resolve quickly falters and we easily become disconnected to our passion and pursuit of higher things.
So I encourage you this New Year to look back to all that last year was, to look ahead to all that you want to do and to be in this new year, and to face today, to work out how you’ll get there. Don’t just seize the day, seize the year, and all to the glory of God. Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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