A New Year
January 1, 2006
Psalm 148
Isaiah 61:8-62:3
Happy New Year! It's finally happened 2006. We've had the Christian new year, which is Christmas Eve, and now the cultural new year last night! What a couple of Holy Weeks we've had. Celebrating how God can break into our lives no matter who we are or where we are. Celebrating that God can break in allowing us a do over. Finding that newborn life within us and stretching out before us. And now last night, counting down to the new year 2006. This is the new year!
This is the moment to praise God! This is the moment to give thanks for breath and life! Are you sick? Scared? Lonely? Tired? Hopeless? Lost? Overwhelmed? Feeling as if you just can not give thanks. Fear not, the newborn one has come; this is the moment to give thanks for breath of life. For if we are breathing it is possible to be newborn again: to be healed, comforted, nurtured, parented, rested, hopeful, and possible. For if we are breathing it is possible to fill our lives with light and life. If we are breathing, this is the moment. This is the moment to praise God for that. For the opportunity of hope and peace, of light and love, of beginning again. This is the new year!
This is the moment to praise God! This is the moment to give thanks for breath and life!
Have you murdered, robbed, held power over another, abused, violated, persecuted, raged, hated, and excluded? Fear not, the newborn one has come, all has been forgiven and all can be loved, the whole world can be loved this year. It matters not who you've been, today God has broken in reminding us of this new life, this new year, this new hope to be someone new, someone righteous, someone whole. This is the new year!
This is the moment to praise God! The prophet Isaiah reminds us of Zion, a city lying in ruins, a place plagued by power, corruption, robbery, abuse, and God's new plan to make a new thing happen. Like seeds that spring into life in a garden, like people who marry adorn themselves with beauty before the ceremony, God will show the city that they are blessed. The faithful will see how God has blessed their lives through their children, through their history. And, that is the catch. That this is the new year! But, in order for it to be different than last, we have to change a few things. We have to strive this year to be faithful. We have to put down our old habits concerning power, control, deception, greed and fill our lives with God. We need to clean out our houses to allow for a new Spirit to take over, one of life, light and hope. This is a new year, but it will be the same as last year unless we decide to let ourselves become again a new thing. To be led into our lives through our faith. To serve in our lives out of faith. To become in our lives out of faith. This is a new year! This could be the year!
This could be the year we finally break this community out of dying into thriving. But, it's not going to happen unless we learn how to praise God. I've been hearing a lot lately about how folks are burned out and used up. How is it that when we are burned out and used up we cut the church out of our lives? What if this new year we made the faith community a priority in our lives? What if we made our lives centrally filled with that Trinitarian relationship of Creator Christ and Holy Spirit? What if that energetic reality took control of our lives this year and we made shining that energy into this community our priority! What a new year it would be! When we allow ourselves to let go of being burned out, overwhelmed and instead embrace the life of the energetic, Holy Spirit, the Presence of God in life and light, we allow ourselves to exchange closed for open, defeated for invigorated, death for life. What a new year it would be! When we allow ourselves to focus on what God is doing in our lives and where we see God in our lives instead of where we're broken, what a year we could have! We would be filled with those seeing gifts, naming gifts, sharing gifts instead of those who are counting gifts and hoarding all we have just in case we don't have enough energy to count again tomorrow. What if today, we took count of just one thing that we felt was a gift and we shared that gift today. That naming would ground our feet in God the one who gifts, that sharing would undergird our witness of the work of Jesus, of the presence of Christ, that giving produces energy filling us with a vigorous life and light and hope. What a new year this would be! Praise God for turning us from death to life! Praise God for leading us toward life! Praise God for the gift of breath! This could be the year, but it depends on you.
This could be the year that we finally break this community out of dying and into thriving by living as disciples of Christ. By praising God for the opportunities to serve as Christ did. To see the hungry and feed them. To ask the question of why they are hungry and others are fed, and find ways to feed five thousand with those things that only five have. And, to recognize the lesson in that. By praising God for the opportunity to see our neighbors as brothers and sisters working to find the light. What if we considered ourselves the bearers of the light? What if we lit ourselves up, took the light into their darkness, and let them know, they aren't alone, we are with them and God is with us? What a year this could be for growing our faith in that exchange. How our exhaustion and uselessness would be beaten away through transforming lives through presence and light. What if we lived as disciples who cared for the imprisoned? What if this were the year where we looked at the injustice of our justice and who the people were in those cages? What if we looked at a system that attacks those who are poor and broke the locks off that cage? What energy would be created with an opportunity to make the world more just! What if we took our tired selves and wrote a letter to Gabe Padilla? What if we took our tired selves and prayed for those in prison? What if we took our tired selves and believed that everyone could be loved this day? We might explode from the hope within us, the light radiating from us, the joy that all are welcome and children of God. What a year this would be, but it depends on you!
This could be the year that we change this community from dying into thriving. This could be the year if we each made a commitment to being a community member. By living out our promises. Those of us who've joined this community, the 63 of us who've come together to do a new thing here in Tucson, to be always open and open all ways. To be a progressive faithful voice seeing the face of God in all we meet. We've made a commitment to this faith and family. We've made a promise to be disciples, to recognize our own call by God to be in our own unique way in this world and to honor and praise God for that. We are called to resist oppression and evil. And we've promised to show love and justice witnessing to the work and word of Jesus. What a year this would be if we could keep our promise! We have promised to grow in the faith. We have promised to be faithful members of this community by celebrating the presence of God in our lives and furthering God's love. What a year this would be if our faith deepened! What a year this would be if more of God's unconditional love were available to all in this world! You have promised to participate in the life and mission of this community of God's people, sharing in worship and enlisting in the work of First. What if this were the year you took a risk and stepped onto a position on the Flower Model? What if this were the year that this community of faith came first in your extracurricular activities? What if the growing of God in our lives, in our world, in our hope were first? What kind of transformation would that be if you took the time to make it tangible in working with the Flower Model, serving on one of the teams that make this community function? What if this were the year that we had to expand each petal and leaf all taking a bit of the load. All keeping our promises to serve, all committed to making this community a place available, open, and welcome to all who come to the door? What if this were the year that we kept our promises and earned a new name? A new name because we had been transformed through the presence of God within? What if this were the year? It's only dependent on you.
I strongly believe that this is our year at First. But I also believe that this is the year that is dependent on you. I will do and am committed to doing my part. I will be here; I will live with you, die with you, and love you. I will struggle, challenge, cry and laugh with you. But, this year, this community is aching for your gifts. Let's resolve this new year to have a community twice this size next year. Let's resolve today to each one of us find one person and invite them, talk with them, and nurture them until they find their way into community here. Take it on each one of you. This growth depends on you. This is the year First that you've been waiting for, since 1979…Let's not let it pass. Let's not let it roll by, this is it. We've got to pull ourselves together, we've got to let go of the broken, the captured, the powerless, the victim and center ourselves in the one who loves, empowers, delights in, celebrates, and calls out. This is your year. This is your year to step up and step in, every week, every day, and every breath and praise God. Praise God for finding First. Praise God for knowing and feeling the presence! Praise God for gifts and blessings, for sun and moon. This is the year where you begin to own your power, your presence, your life, your light, your call. And I believe you are going to begin to spend your time this year with, in, filled with God. Let it be so for the newborn one has come. Let us pray.