January 1, 2017 New
Year’s Day Matthew
3:1-4:17
It’s New Year’s
Day and the whole year lays before us fresh and new. We’re only 11 hours into this year, so if
you’re the sort who makes New Year’s resolutions you probably haven’t even had
the chance to break them yet. As for me,
I quit making New Year’s resolutions. If
I never make a resolution to improve I never feel guilty about failing!
In our reading
from Matthew we meet two people who talk about changing your life. Both John the Baptist and Jesus use the exact
same words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” What does this mean, and why?
Repentance here
does mean to stop doing bad things, but it also has a deeper dimension,
especially in light of the kingdom of heaven coming near.
(Power point
slides) Here’s how I think most people see their lives. This circle is a person and he or she is made
up of many parts: Faith is one part, an
important and significant part. And
through the church their faith connects to other people’s faith. There are other parts as well. Many people have a job and a connecting
workplace. Or if you are a student you
have classes and attend a school. There
is a spouse or significant other. That’s
a major part of life and a commitment.
Parents have children. They
require time, attention and money. I’d
swear you go from spending time changing diapers to spending times on the
sidelines of a ballfield or at a concert.
What we have also
has a big impact on us. A house, cars,
maybe a boat or snowmobile or four-wheeler or something else. These are all big and expensive things.
Of course there are
also other relationships: friends, neighbors, other family members. And there’s a whole lot more. What makes you – you – and what defines your
life is a complex mix of a lot of things.
Sometimes people
feel exhausted by keeping it all together.
Sometimes demands from one area crowd out others. Family may suffer because of work. Children reduce the amount of time parents
have for each other. Expenses and bills
may cause you to cut back what you can do other places. Church participation falters when other
demands become too great. People try to
balance it all, but keeping the balance becomes exhausting. Ultimately they fail; feeling burnt-out and
guilty.
Sometimes when it
all falls apart people turn to their faith for help. They ask God for strength and guidance. This is good thing, at least they are turning
the right way. However, it is probably
too little too late. True repentance is
needed. This is not the type of
repentance where you stop doing naughty things.
This is much deeper. It is the
repentance John the Baptist and Jesus called for. It is a whole-life reorientation.
Let’s change our
self-understanding to this way: First
and foremost you are a child of God, made in the image of God, whole, complete
and good. You live every day keeping
eternity in mind. You make every
decision knowing everything life is only temporary. Everything: your house, your relationships,
your job, your possessions, your traditions; everything. Your ultimate and eternal reality
awaits. And in light of that everything
today is pale and relatively unimportant.
Now, with that as
a lens you view everything else – your job, your house and possessions, your
spouse, your kids. Now things are not
tugging against each other. They are all
held in the perspective of faith. With
that lens you then make all your life decisions, big and small.
This all sounds
easy and great; but it’s not. It’s
incredibly hard.
Try and keep this
way of being in mind and then consider the stereotypical college guy on a
Friday night. He goes out to a bar with
some friends. He does what stereotypical
college guys do, he checks out all the women in the bar. What’s going through his mind? I can tell you what is not going
through his mind! He is not looking
the women and judging them by asking himself, “Which of these women can help me
be the most effective disciple of Jesus?”
Let’s go further,
and make us all feel guilty. Did you
pick the house you live in by considering how it will help you bring about
God’s kingdom? Did you ever go into a
car dealership and say to the salesperson, “I need the best vehicle that will
equip me to serve Jesus.” Did you ever
go to your boss and say, “I need a raise so I can give more to charities.”
Let’s look at the
testing of Jesus by the devil in the wilderness. There are three tests:
Jesus, you’re hungry. You
have the power to get food, so get some for yourself.
Jesus, you have faith.
You’re in good with God. Make use
of it for yourself.
Jesus, you’ve got power.
You can have the biggest house, the prettiest wife, the fattest paycheck
and the nicest, smartest, most athletic and best behaved kids in the
neighborhood. All you have to do is use
your power like everyone else would.
These tests,
these temptations are not obviously evil.
In fact, they all appear to be for the good. It’s basically saying: Jesus, structure
you’re life according to the model of the world. Be the stereotypical college guy. Come on, this is the way good upstanding
people live. This is the way it’s
supposed to be.
Jesus lives for
the kingdom of God and he orients himself toward that. His life was built around the second model of
being a person.
Why do you have
to repent in order to have the kingdom of God?
It’s the only way for this second model to work.
None of us are
perfect at this, and don’t think I’m claiming to be better than anyone else
with this next thought. Sometimes people
come to me with their life in tatters.
They’re trying the balancing act and it just isn’t working. They want me to pray that God give them
strength and endurance. I want to say
that it’s not that simple. You’ve made
every major life decision apart from God – apart from who God made you to be. It’s all fallen apart and now you’re asking
God to give you strength so you can keep it all together?
That’s not how
God works. God is not going to give you
the strength to keep going under burdens you’ve wrongfully made for
yourself. That’s like trying to fix a
deep chest wound with a Band-Aid. You
need major surgery!
God always helps. But God is not going to help you to your own
destruction. God is going to help you to
wholeness.
People who are recovering from an
addiction know that there is more to recovery than just giving up a
substance. Often their whole lives have
been built around the addiction. If they
want to be healthy they may have to give up friends, family ties and a whole
way of life. Otherwise they are fighting
a losing battle.
It is easy to become addicted to the
ways of the world.
But don’t beat yourself up too
much. I think churches bear a lot of the
blame. My critique of my own ministry,
this congregation and many congregations I work with is all the same. We buy into the idea of faith being part of a
well-balanced life. We buy the idea that
life is about getting through with faith as a part of it. We then make people feel guilty when other
things crowd it out. But I don’t think
that is bringing about the kingdom of God.
What did Jesus and John the Baptist
mean when they said, “The kingdom of God has come near”? Many people imagine eternal life, but that is
not what they meant. The kingdom of God
is when people live according to the reality of God’s eternal promises. The kingdom of God is intended for this
lifetime here and now. We do not
struggle through life with faith as a crutch.
Through faith we are to embrace life and shape all its possibilities.
It is a new year with new
possibilities. We’re going to make
mistakes. That I know. And I hope we have some successes. May we have the insight and the strength to
truly repent and instead bring about the kingdom of God, so that God’s good
will is done among us here and now.
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