I suppose by now most of us have moved into post-holiday mode, packing
away the decorations, vacuuming up stray pine needles and finding
either relief or monotony in the resumption of our “normal”
routines. It’s time to face the music and step on the scale
we’ve avoided since mid-November, time to resume or start some
sort of exercise routine and resolve to eat healthy. Starbucks is
even helping save us from ourselves this year by taking trans-fats
out of their stores’ baked goods. It’s the time of year
for resolutions, for all the ways we vow to become the person we always
thought we could or should be.
In
the midst of all this shriving and striving, I read a very interesting
piece by the American novelist, Alice Hoffman. In an essay entitled
“No More Self-Improvement,” she takes a different look
at this time of year and comes to some different conclusions. She
writes: “Every New Year’s, I made a long list of what
I would change about myself. I was a harsh judge of my own life, and
each year I vowed to make radical changes in order to become a better
person. I would lose weight, stop smoking, clean my house, exercise,
be more organized, and learn to cook and to speak French. I set out
with the best intentions and accomplished some of these tasks, but
it was never enough…each year I felt like a failure.”
But,
life intervened and taught Alice Hoffman some different lessons. The
first came from her grandmother. “My grandmother always told
me I was wasting the joy of the New Year. She had been born in a frozen
village in Russia and traveled to New York, lived in unheated houses,
left school to take a job, married young, started a business, and
lost a husband and a son. She didn’t understand my need to reassess
my weaknesses and failures. Lists were a waste of time. Proposed changes
were superficial—they had nothing to do with who I was inside.
I was myself, thin or fat, organized or not.”
The
next big lesson in Alice Hoffman’s life came when she was diagnosed
with breast cancer at the age of 46. Exhausted after chemotherapy,
and before beginning daily radiation treatments, she took a break
with her family over the holidays. During that time apart, taking
long walks on the beach, she writes: “One night…I went
outside…there are times when you can see stars even in the city.
In the winter, when the sky is clearer, the constellations seem closer.
When I was standing outside, the world seemed big again, endless and
filled with promise. I thought about all those New Years when I believed
myself not thin enough, or smart enough or good enough, when my list
of how I wanted to change the future went on and on…and then
I thought what my grandmother had known all along. What a waste of
time. …I became well again. Now, rather than holding myself
to impossible standards and setting myself up for inevitable failure,
I look past imperfections. I won’t be a better person; the quality
and texture of my life will be no richer, nor will the people I love
most love me less because my weight fluctuates or because I conjugate
a French verb incorrectly. So when it comes to the New Year, I resolve
only one thing: to do my best and see the next year through....”
In
its wisdom, the church brings us this season of Epiphany after Christmas
every year to do something similar—not to make lists and lists
of resolutions, but to refocus our lives in much the way Alice Hoffman
describes. This is a season to stand outside at night, with the Wise
Men, and see the stars, to let the world seem big again and filled
with promise. A season to put our lives in perspective, not through
the lens of our failures and shortcomings, but in the light of God’s
love, coming to us in Christ Jesus.
And
on this special day, as we remember Jesus’ baptism, we remember
and reaffirm our own as well. If we were baptized as infants or as
children, we may not remember the day itself, but each time a child
is brought forward to this font for baptism, we see the joy and the
excitement in the parents’ and grandparents’ eyes. We
sense the anticipation, the delight. We become caught up in the feeling
that the world is big and filled with promise. And as parents hand
their beloved child to one of us pastors, like little Jack Alexander
last Sunday, or as we walk the center aisle carrying the newest baptized
Christian, the words of God ring again in our hearts: “This
is my beloved, my child, in whom I am well pleased.”
That’s
what baptismal renewal is about, really. A day set aside and made
special for all of us to feel again that anticipation and excitement
and joy. A day to remember that God has called us by name and loves
us very much. A day to remember that, in our baptism, God claims us
and gives us power through the Holy Spirit to live the life God creates
in us.
If
you have come to worship this day with some longing in your heart
for a new and improved life in this New Year, find it here in sacrament
of holy communion and in the waters of baptism. For, just as in the
very beginning of all things, God’s Spirit continues to hover
over our chaos and ambiguity. God is present here this morning, to
bring forth life, to restore us each and all to wholeness and peace.
A
wonderful spiritual director often advises those who come to him for
insight and guidance to “breathe the spirit deeply in.”
Breathe the spirit deeply in. Be filled this day with God’s
loving and creative and creating power, ever present and ever new.
It
can all be a bit intoxicating, really. Best to have your feet planted
firmly on the ground when you gaze up at the stars. Any of you who’ve
worked with the youth can relate to this story from the New Testament
professor from Princeton Seminary who visited a high school youth
group. After the professor finished speaking about the significance
of Christ's baptism as a revelation of God's presence in Jesus, one
youth said without looking up, "That ain't what it means."
Glad that the student had been listening enough to disagree, the professor
asked, "What do you think it means?"
"The
story says that the heavens were opened, right?" "Right."
"The heavens were opened and the Spirit of God came down, right?"
"That's right."
The
boy finally looked up and leaned forward, saying, "It means that
God is on the loose in the world. And it is dangerous."
The
youth got it right. The power of God at work in us is far more exciting
and creative and healing and freeing than any list of New Year’s
resolutions could ever be. The Holy Spirit names us and claims us
and then sets us loose in the world to live as Christ’s disciples:
to love the unloved, to serve the poor, to speak good news to anyone
who desperately needs to hear it, to break down barriers and dividing
walls, to make peace.
Remember
your baptism, brothers and sisters. Give thanks to God. Resolve simply
to live into your baptism in this New Year. Trust in God’s love.
Claim your gifts. And do your best to live the life God grants unto
you. It is enough. And it is dangerous. For a whole bunch of loving,
serving, giving Christians can, with the help of God in Christ Jesus,
make the whole world new.
Amen.
Notes:
Alice Hoffman, “No More Self-Improvement”, Real Simple,
January 2007.
Daniel D. Chambers (youth group story), quoted in Sermon Nuggets,
Baptism of Christ 2007, Lindy Black. Illustrations, humor, questions,
quotations.
©Patricia
Farris, 2006. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
First
United Methodist Church
1008 Eleventh Street
Santa Monica, CA 90403
www.santamonicaumc.org
(310) 393-8258
I
Have Called You By Name