As a progressive, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to God – this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
Happy New Year! I did a straw poll with our church choir and asked how many people made New Year’s resolutions. About 50 percent said they did.
When I was younger, I used to make a resolution every year.
One year, I resolved to read through the Bible in one year – and I’m glad to say – I did it. Another year, I decided to pray a certain prayer every day; it came out of my reading from the book of James where it says, “If anyone lacks wisdom, all they have to do is ask for it, and God will give it generously!”
Well, I thought, “that’s a good thing;” and while I was praying it on the way to the office one day at a stoplight in Escondido, I thought to myself, “I want a personalized license plate to help me remember this prayer” and came up with this. CANTBYY (Can’t Be Too Wise!)
I like watching Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin reporting from Times Square on New Year’s Eve. They have such fun bantering back and forth; and throughout the evening they ask each other, and people on the streets, what their New Year’s resolutions are. Many resolutions focus on things like losing weight, quitting smoking, getting more exercise, reducing stress and getting out of debt.
Statistics say that about half of the resolutions made this year will not be kept. Some will be more successful than others, with the end result being that less than 10 percent actually keep their New Year’s resolutions.
Making a New Year’s resolution, on one hand, is an acknowledgment that many people want some sort of change in their lives; and on the other hand, if the statistics are correct, most of us will either fail or fall short of our goals.
So, by making New Year’s resolutions, are we setting ourselves up for failure? Or deluding ourselves? Maybe that’s why so many of us don’t make them anymore. Is change really possible?
I believe it is! Change and transformation are realities we can experience. This year marks 25 years that I’ve been in full-time ministry and the beginning of the seventh year here at The Met as your pastor, and I’m so blessed and happy and grateful! Through the decades, I’ve witnessed genuine transformation in the lives of many people. The longer we’re in this relationship, the more we can see transformation; and I’m not just talking hair styles!
This morning’s reading is from John. John has been called the gospel of transformation by biblical scholars. In John’s gospel:
We read the story of Nicodemus and Jesus talking about rebirth and transformation.
We encounter the story of the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus changed huge amounts of water into wine; a story that can be seen as a metaphor for the possibility of genuine change and transformation.
Throughout this Gospel of John, Jesus talks about a quality of life in God that we can also experience in our lives on a daily basis. John 1 says, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it … and the Word became flesh and lived among us …”
Current scholarly consensus dates the writing of John’s Gospel to more than six decades after the crucifixion. And even after that significant amount of time after Jesus’ death, John’s faith community was still experiencing Jesus as transformative; able to bring about change and healing and growth. Those early faith communities were, both, swept away by and caught up in the transformative power of God’s love, found in the life of Jesus.
So, here’s the question. John’s community lived six decades after Jesus. We live more than two-hundred decades after Jesus. So, how does this transformative power of Jesus work for us today?
I can’t answer that question for you, but I can share how the transformative process works for me. Basically, for me, it’s one piece that has two parts. The first part involves a vision; allowing myself to get caught up in a vision of who I want to be. Theologian Holub says, “The first step of transformation is a vision of a new reality – a new person – a different me.”
For me, Jesus embodies that vision. Now, I’m not talking about the Jesus that some strains of Christianity focus on like self-degradation or the “woe is me” mentality where people get trapped in an endless cycle of perpetual beating themselves up for who they are. No, I’m talking about the Jesus of healing, and miracles, and love, and forgiveness, and faith, and unity; the “I can do all things through Christ” Jesus.
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 this vision for myself and transformation can take place.
The second part of the process of transformation is the “I resolve” part. I resolve! This is the commitment phase now, and this is the part that scares me. But as I let my commitment not be limited by my fear or my limited strength and let my resolve be motivated by God’s vision of who I am and who I can become, and how God already sees me, I can cross over barriers I’ve never crossed before.
I know I’m not alone when it comes to setting conditions and limits to my love. I found this list online; see if you can relate to it like me:
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 dissolve when any one of a number of my security systems are threatened.
My love can die in the wilderness of fear and prejudice.
So, let’s focus on transformation and the power of God’s love for each of us. Let’s resolve in 2014, the beginning of a new year, to take a deeper journey into our relationship with God. To let go of our fears or past failures and forge ahead guided and inspired by the life of Jesus and open to God’s transformative love.
That’s a New Year’s resolution I can make! I hope you’ll join me.
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the senior pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met), 2633 Denver Street, San Diego, California, themetchurch.org. Services every Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m.
