All Things New

Revelation 21:1-6a (NRSV)
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."

So, this is the week I started to feel it. My birthday is right before Christmas so I have an opportunity to reflect on the coming of another year of life just before the coming of another year on the calendar. It is a great reminder of my mortality and the transience of time.

Every year it happens. In the aftermath of Christmas I am surrounded by the wrapping paper and the bows. I look at my belt buckle and know that I have moved back out a notch. I feel sluggish and tired. I feel aches I didn’t have before. I look ahead at the year to come and I know that there is a mountain of things to do on the horizon and I wonder if I have the energy to tackle them. I look back on the dreams of years past and I say: Why haven’t I saved more for retirement? Why haven’t I been able to get back into the jeans I wore in college? Why haven’t I learned to really play guitar? Why haven’t I written the great American novel? Why haven’t I read the Bible more? Why haven’t I learned to pray? Why am I not the wise, even-tempered, unworried soul that I thought I would be at this age? I try to keep myself from asking this question but it’s there just on the horizon: Where did it all go wrong?

That’s when I look at the calendar and see that the old year is coming to an end. I’m going to throw away that 2005 calendar and there will be a whole new year up there. 2006! 2006 is filled with potential and possibility. 2006 doesn’t know anything about my shortcomings and failures. 2006 isn’t burdened with all the things I failed to do in 2005. It’s a fresh year…an open year…a, well, a New Year! And in a New Year I can be a new Alex!

Yes, that’s it. In this New Year I will work out and lose the weight I’ve been putting on. I will be attentive to my friends and my family. I will be a better steward of my money and my time. I will write more and call my folks more. I will watch less TV and check my e-mail and IM’s less often. I will establish a devotional life that will draw me closer to God. I will read the Bible and say my prayers. I will study and learn about Jesus. I will serve and love my neighbors, especially the poorest of my neighbors. I will go to bed early and get up early. I will walk. I will bring flowers to my wife. I will floss.

I will be perfect and I will be perfect because it is a New Year and whatever the old year was the New Year can be better. Whatever I was in the old year I don’t have to be any more. Because I have decided…no, I have resolved…that’s it…I’m making a resolution…and even though my will was not strong enough to resist that large piece of caramel cake on December 31st, because it is January 1st I will be able to resist it today. I have made some New Year’s Resolutions and I will be perfect.

Is that how you’re feeling today? I know we’re tired from all of the festivities and we’d like to get a little routine back to our lives, but there is a part of us that wants this year to be different…right? So we come to this day and we make some promises to ourselves, even though we know that many of them will be empty, forgotten words by the time next week rolls around.

John Wesley, the first Methodist back in the 18th century, got himself in a lot of controversies by insisting that perfection was not only a possibility for Christians, but that Christians ought to be expecting perfection. United Methodist pastors, me included, are asked publicly, when they are preparing for ordination, "Do you expect to be made perfect in this lifetime?" It’s the kind of question that makes you gulp before you give the expected answer, which is "Yes."

When you put it like that it, it sounds ridiculous. Perfect? Us? I can’t even be charitable to my crazy relatives for four hours at Christmas. Surely you’re looking for someone else to be perfect!
What puts the lie to all of our New Year’s Resolutions…the death knell for all of them…is my failure to be perfect and my persistence in being pretty darned imperfect. I know that God created me for prayer and praise but I am so far from perfection that I forget not only who God is but who I am. I know in my heart and in my soul that I am meant for something more than petty distractions and mindless TV but I am entertaining myself to death. I know that I have the potential to be a child of God but I can hang in there with the best of the children of the devil. I may have heard of perfection but if you ask me for directions to it I think I’d have to say that you can’t get there from here.

The problem is the caramel cake problem. The reason my will and resolutions are not enough to move me toward being the person God wants me to be is the same reason my will and resolutions seldom work in keeping me from caramel cake – my will is permanently flawed. As children of Adam and Eve who, like Humpty Dumpty, had a great fall, we live our lives under the shadow of sin. And even though we have the best of intentions, even though we have the capacity for goodness, even though we know the rules and can distinguish right from wrong, even though we sometimes show flashes of brilliance and moments of greatness, when we look at ourselves it is as if we are looking into funhouse mirrors that distort our image so much that we look ridiculous. Sin does that to us and it affects us right down to our core.

So when I turn my will toward something…when I aim at something and feel that this time I’m going to do it because I am resolved…I find that I am an unreliable agent. You know the old saying that you can’t trust anyone but yourself. Christians know something much rawer…you can’t even trust yourself.

People who have gone through great illnesses and traumas know this already. When you are in the grip of something like cancer or grief you know that your resources are insufficient to move you forward. People who have struggled with addictions to drugs or alcohol know this. The first step in confronting addiction is the admission that you can’t do it alone, that you don’t have it altogether, that you need help because your own will and your own way are unreliable guides. You need a higher power.

Wesley believed that we could be restored and that we could be healed. Wesley believed that, despite our flaws and failures, despite the fact that we have been warped by the effects of sin, our will could be renewed. Perfection was possible for us, but only when we let go of the illusion that we could trust our own resources to become perfect.

Our scripture readings today give us some very different perspectives on how God works in the world. In the reading from Ecclesiastes we hear the wisdom of one who has realized the mixed nature of life in this world. Here we know joy and we know sorrow. We know war and we know peace. We build things up and we tear things down. There are times when we weep and times when we dance. For the writer of Ecclesiastes, who is sometimes called the Preacher, there is nothing new under the sun.

The vision of Revelation at the very end of the Bible is very different. Here John sees that something new is breaking into the world as we know it. There is a new heaven and a new earth. And in the city of God all mourning and pain and death will be left behind because God will be in our midst. God will make camp among mortals and wipe away every tear from our eyes. When Jesus comes again, it won’t be business as usual. "Behold," John hears Jesus say. "Behold…Look, I am making everything new."

That’s an important phrase. "I am making all things new." Who is making all things new? It’s not me. It’s not us who can transform our lives into the shape of the kingdom to come. My will is not sufficient. The best resolution I can ever make on a New Year’s Eve will never survive until the end of time. It is God at work in Jesus Christ that is transforming us. It is Christ who makes all things new.

That’s important because what we are good at is making things old. We are pros at lapsing into old habits and old routines and never breaking the endless cycle that runs from "things have always been like this" to "things will never get any better." Even at our best, when we confront our bad habits with nerves of steel and an iron will, we know how easily broken and bent that steel and iron are.

If it is Christ who is making all things new then we need a new image for who we are. Perhaps we are more like concrete being poured into a form. Christ takes the sand and rock and grit of our lives and puts it into a shape that is stronger than any of those elements on their own. Paul talks about this when he warns the Roman Christians, "Don’t be conformed to this world…don’t take on the shape of the world around you. Don’t give your will over to the forces that surround you. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds…Take on the shape of Christ and be conformed to his image" [Romans 12:2]. Give your will to the one who can truly make of you something new.

If we are going to be made perfect, brothers and sisters, it isn’t going to happen because we decide to use the change of the calendar to give it the old college try one more time. If we are going to be made perfect it is because we will admit that the old ways and the old college try just aren’t working any more and they never have. We need to give ourselves to God, to release ourselves from the illusion that we are in control and to accept God’s will above our own. And God’s will is that we should be transformed.

So what I’m saying is that you should rip up your New Year’s Resolutions and prepare some New Year’s Resignations. Resign from those things that keep you from giving yourself to God. Resign from the illusion that you can make it on your own and find some fellow Christians who can help hold you accountable to God’s will and intentions for your life. I am continually amazed at the power people in this congregation find in small groups, covenant groups, study groups, and Emmaus reunion groups. You should know that the United Methodist clergy in this area are meeting in a covenant group as well and I would not be able to be your pastor, to dare to be your pastor, if I were not meeting with others who can remind me of who I am and to keep me connected. Resign from doing it on your own. You’re not that self-sufficient and not that good.

Resign from the distractions that keep you from seeing God. We live with so much input…so much stimulation from so many sources. Don’t just do something…stand there and listen for the God who is seeking you out.

Resign from the burden of living up to a standard that is not God’s. Whether the expectations are those of peers at school or the people you work with or the way business is done, if you are being asked to be someone you wouldn’t want to be in here on Sunday morning, resign.

Resign from a culture that glorifies violence and intoxication and easy, thoughtless sexual relations. Resign from a culture that tells us with each advertisement that the highest thing we can aspire to is to be a consumer. You are more than that. So much more than that. It is a new year and there is so much potential and possibility in 2006. But there is also so much potential and possibility in you.

John Wesley used to gather his Methodists together at the beginning of the year for a covenant service. It was one of those things that made Methodists stand out. No one else welcomed the New Year in this way.

What he asked the Methodists to do was to remind themselves of who they were and to whom they had given themselves. They didn’t resolve to do anything by themselves, they resigned their will to God and trusted that God would make of them something new because that is what God has promised. God is making all things new.

A shortened version of the prayer John Wesley used is found in our hymnal on page #607. I’d like to invite you to say that prayer with me this morning, but only if you are ready to accept the implication. These are not words to be said lightly. When you say these words you say "No" to what the world tells us about who we are. When we covenant together with God we know that some things about us will need to change and that can be painful. We need help to keep this covenant and that’s why we say it together.

If you believe that God is transforming the world, including you and me, I invite you to say this prayer with me. If you believe that New Year’s Resolutions are not enough to bring about true and lasting change, I invite you to say this prayer with me. If you are ready and willing and expect perfection, I invited you to say this prayer with me. Because the only way we can get there is if God does with us what only God can do.

Let us pray:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low by thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.