Advent I, Year A -- Isaiah 2:1–5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11–14; Matthew 24:36–44
A homily by Fr.
Gene Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, December 1, 2013.
“NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS”
(Homily texts: Romans 13:11–14 & Matthew 24:36–44)
Happy New
Year!
In exactly
one month, people around the world will be making their New Year’s resolutions
as January 1st rolls around.
Generally,
these resolutions tend to focus on doing something better in the coming year
than was done in the old year … things like:
losing some weight, or getting more sleep, or getting more exercise, or
taking time to care for oneself.
Sometimes, these resolutions also involve a determination to do things
for others, perhaps to visit a loved one who can’t get out very easily, or to
work in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, or to get involved in an outreach
ministry at church.
Reflecting
on the things we’ve just mentioned, we might say that resolutions generally
fall into some predictable patterns:
- Resolves to get rid of things that aren’t positive influences in our lives,
- Resolves to make positive and helpful things more a part of our lives,
- Resolves to do more to help others.
Today, we
stand at the beginning of the new Church Year.
The season of Advent stretches out before us, calling us to prepare for
the Lord’s coming at Christmastime as a baby born in Bethlehem, and calling us
to prepare for His coming at the end of time in power and great glory.
Perhaps it
would be a good time then, on this first day of the New Year in the Church, to
make some New Year’s resolutions for the welfare of our spiritual life.
We said a
moment ago that the resolutions we make in our secular lives generally fall
into some predictable patterns: Resolves
to get rid of something that isn’t a positive influence in our lives, resolves
to make positive things more a part of our lives, and resolves to do more for
others.
As we look
at our lectionary readings for this morning, we can see that St. Paul is
encouraging the early Christians in Rome to do just what we’ve listed
here: He encourages them to set aside
those harmful things that do nothing to build us up in the faith, things that
constitute the “works of darkness”. But
he also encourages them to take up the positive things, things like “putting on
the Lord Jesus Christ.” And the theme of
getting ready also runs through both our reading from Romans and the gospel
passage, where Jesus warns His disciples that they do not know at what time the
Son of man is coming.
Allow me,
if you will, to offer some suggestions for your own resolution-making, as we
think about our walk with God in the coming year.
Setting aside the harmful things: We know from our day-to-day, physical
existence those things that tend to tear us down and not build us up. What is true in our physical life can also be
true in our spiritual life. Spiritually,
these things can hinder our life in God:
- Not getting enough exercise: Spiritually, this might involve a lack of study, things like reading the Bible, a daily devotional, or a book about the Christian faith. It might involve a prayer life that is irregular. It might involve a haphazard pattern of attendance at Church.
- Concentrating on worthless things: Here we come into the modern equivalent of the sorts of things that St. Paul mentions in Romans, things like spending time watching worthless programs on TV (there’s no shortage of those, is there!), reading things that are outrightly harmful (engaging in pornography, for example), or spending a large amount of time on social media sites.
Taking up the positive things: This is, of course, the reverse of what we’ve
just mentioned. And, as was true there,
it is also true here that the experiences of our physical, day-to-day existence
make it possible to draw conclusions which can be applied to our Christian
life….we know that certain things enhance our lives, make us stronger, and enable
us to ward off disease. Spiritually,
then, here are some possibilities to consider as we resolve to build up our
life in Christ:
- Eating well spiritually: The Bible is the wellspring of our faith, the source of those things that God wants us to know about Himself. How about resolving to read just one chapter a day in the New Testament in the coming year? Starting with Matthew, that would take less than a year to accomplish. In addition to Bible reading, there are countless other resources that one might wish to use, things like praying the daily office (Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer) in the Prayer Book, using a daily devotional, or taking up the reading of a book on living the Christian life.
- Getting more exercise: “Use it or lose it” was the phrase we used to use in the Army to describe the need to keep physically fit. The same reality applies to our Christian walk, for if we do not do the things we need to do to keep our spiritual muscles in tone, then they will degrade over time. It is true that the Christian life is not maintenance-free … it requires effort to maintain. The things we’ve mentioned above apply here, things like attending Church each and every Sunday, things like applying ourselves to a better life of prayer, or ensuring that we are able to quiet our minds and hearts enough to hear God’s voice in our Bible reading and study.
Moving out, showing our faith by our works: In his letter, St. James says, “Faith without
works is dead.” (James 2:17). Christians down through the ages have
recognized the requirement that the Lord puts on them to pass along the Lord’s
blessings to others.
- The biblical tithe: We are in a season of our annual stewardship campaign, as we plan for the coming calendar year. Support for the Church’s ministry and mission involves the nuts-and-bolts matter of finances, in addition to the spiritual welfare of the congregation. But if we look at what the Bible has to say about the handling of our money, then we can see that the biblical view of money is that giving back to God 10% (the biblical tithe) of what God has entrusted to us isn’t just a matter of the practical matter of underwriting the Church’s needs, it is a spiritual discipline that all people of faith are called to enter into. Though we do not give so that God can give back to us, the truth is that it is impossible to out-give God. So perhaps we ought to make a resolve at the beginning of this new Church Year to begin to work toward the biblical tithe (if we aren’t already tithing) as a matter of passing on to God and to others a portion of what God has given into our hands.
- Acts of service: Within and without the Church’s walls, there are many ways in which we can actively serve the Lord and others. We’ve mentioned some of them earlier this morning. Receiving and then giving is the pattern of a healthy spiritual life, one that calls us to widen our vision to see God at work on our own lives, and to make that reality known by visible acts of service.
I will
admit that what I’ve said here is largely my own “short list” of ideas. But my intent is to suggest some things that
might prompt your own reflection as you make your own spiritual welfare a
matter of prayer and discernment in the year that lies ahead of us.
May the
Holy Spirit enable and enlighten us to see God’s will for us in the New Year
that lies ahead.
AMEN.
