Sermon Preached By Rev. Richard E. Stetler - 12/31/2000

Psalm 148; Colossians 3:12-17

The New Year is always a time of nostalgia, a time of looking back. We are conditioned to do that over the holidays. Most of us live at such a fast pace that we enjoy taking the time to look at the newspaper supplements or the footage from a newscast that telescopes many of the significant events of the past year. While we watch what affected the national consciousness, we also are keenly aware of the personal events that paraded across the stage of our individual lives.

To varying degrees, we all bring memories of successes and failures as we approach the New Year. These memories have a powerful way of defining us, particularly if we have been spending a lot of time reviewing our past. If we are not careful, our memories will determine the quality of our future. This morning we are going to consider how the message of Jesus Christ changes our habit of being defined by events in our past.

All of us have several well-established models of what our faith is suppose to do for us. But suppose life continues to be challenging. We experience power struggles at work. Our primary relationships are not as fulfilling as we want them to be. What happens to our thinking when we were clearly taught that Christ makes all things new? What happens when the expectations of our faith clash with the reality of our experiences. Suppose nothing about us is "new"? What may such a thought pattern be saying to us?

Some time ago, I remember being in the home of a Roman Catholic friend. When his mother learned that I was studying to be a Methodist minister, she asked my opinion about her church. If I can reconstruct the flavor of her comments she said:

I feel lost. My church is changing too fast for me. I love the Latin. The use of that beautiful language in our services is all I have ever known. Call me "old school" but I feel as though I am losing everything that has meant something to me. We still eat fish on Fridays and now that is optional. Going to confession is optional. What saddens me is that I cannot do anything about it.

I did not know how to respond to her comments. Nothing I could have said would have removed her deep sadness. What does such a response represent? As much as we may not want to admit it, significant changes to our external world can affect us deeply.

I remember another occasion when I was asked to perform a wedding ceremony for a couple both of whom were from strong Italian Roman Catholic families. They came to me because one of them had been divorced and they did not want to take the time to go through the legal protocols to have that marriage annulled by the Church.

During the rehearsal both sets of parents radiated their disdain for what I represented. They felt forced to tolerate me as a necessary evil. To their thinking, the familiar pattern of how Roman Catholic weddings need and must be performed was being violated. There were fears on both sides of the aisle as to whether or not the couple would be married if I performed the ceremony.

To thaw the ice, I called Father Aldo Petrini, a long time friend of mine from St. John's in Chillum. I explained what I was experiencing and asked for his help. When the two of us walked out in front of the wedding guests, both sets of parents came alive with renewed energy. Relief was written all over their faces. Aldo was a native-born Italian himself, so the sun rose. NOW the wedding could proceed!

It is amazing how much we want our church and its leadership to reinforce images and models that have been in place since we were children. Such things have very little to do with anything substantive. They have to do with trappings that help us feel comfortable with the culture of our faith tradition. For that one reason alone, we make them critically important!

These same thought patterns happen all the time in other denominations. Most of us have been church hunting at least once in our lives. When we are looking, we want to find a church that evokes the feeling; "This is it! We need to look no further." We may not know why we say that to ourselves. When we find such a church, we are experiencing familiar patterns that reinforce a model in our past of what a church is supposed to be.

Listen to what Paul wrote to the Colossians.

You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you.

Paul's message instructs his readers to move forward into the future as new creatures. The new has come and the old has passed away. Paul carefully itemized the evidence of this new life. Such evidence had more to do with the spirit of people than their beliefs. If we cannot demonstrate the faith Paul describes, why hold the church, or the office personnel, or our primary relationships responsible?

Even for the disciples of Jesus, radiating such a spirit was easier said than done. Life for them following Jesus' resurrection was most challenging for them. They clashed repeatedly with the Apostle Paul over what a follower of Jesus was supposed to be. Many of the disciples wanted newcomers to the faith to convert to Judaism. They wanted new believers to observe Hebrew traditions and dietary restrictions. Paul would have nothing to do with such thinking and proceeded to take his message to the Gentiles.

Like the woman who had to give up her beloved Latin or the parents who had to face the possibility of having their children married by a non-Catholic, it is easy to find fault with an environment rather than consider what we were directed by Jesus and Paul to bring into it. In verse 16 of today's lesson Paul wrote, "Christ's message in all its richness must live in your hearts."

What we believe represents our "faith," may not. What we call our "faith," may be nothing more than a host of models to which we may have sworn our allegiance. That is why "our faith" frequently will not work for us when life becomes exceedingly difficult.

The future is going to be very demanding for the church. We will either insist on some sort of orthodoxy, some uniformity in our beliefs, or we will roll up our sleeves and make Christ visible everywhere and anyway we can. We can either demand from our environment or we can choose to change it through what we bring to it. If we look back on our lives and take our cues for our faith from the past, we will enter the future blind. Had Jesus decided to do that there would have been no Gospel, no Good News, and nothing to celebrate today?

We were invited to make visible a new spirit in our world. Jesus once told us that no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will break. Pour new wine into new wineskins. Traditions are fine but they have severe limitations. Moreover, when we observe people within whom Christ's message is alive in their hearts, we become changed.

Thursday night I was watching a segment on television concerning Dr. Gloria, a name well known in Anacostia. She is a physician who has taken her practice on the road. Everything she needs as a pediatrician is in her roaming medical facility. She goes to her patients, most of who have no medical insurance. She is making a difference in a neighborhood very much like the one in which she grew up. She said, "So often I am the last line of defense between life and death for many of these children." She is living the authentic message.

Friday Paul Harvey spoke about a physician who had joined an HMO. When he had to see nine patients an hour, he realized he simply could not do it any longer. He quit in order to practice medicine the way he wanted to. The town's people set up a foundation that is supporting him. He refuses to carry malpractice insurance. He makes house calls. He probably makes mistakes, but because he is doing the very best he knows how to do, no one sues. His spirit has established a different climate in his community. He is living the authentic message.

This week CNN did a piece on a young man who decided to give himself to clean up every river in the United States. The network showed how he got started with his small outboard motorboat. Word spread about this young man's activities. The clean up effort has now grown to an enormous size.

Today large corporations are cooperating with funding, even the contribution of barges. People from these corporate offices have joined him with their boats. Companies are beginning to insist that their employees engage in some form of community service. Imagine what is happening because of the spirit of one young man who wanted to clean up rivers. The sketch ended by him saying, "Look for me because I will soon be coming to a river near you." That is living the authentic message.

Paul did not attach the label "Christian" to what he was asking his readers to be. He wrote that we must clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. His words also explained that such qualities must be visible in our spirits.

We must sail on into the future with a new perspective concerning the models in our past. We must stop allowing the past to define us. We must because that is what Jesus do. He abandoned what was once thought to be highly "sacred" in order to teach and portray the new spirit he was bringing into our world. And he asked us to follow him.

As we enter the New Year, we need to think of ourselves as a ship leaving port. That ship does not look back nor does it sail in the shallow water for protection and security. It looks only to where it wants to go and it sails on and on.

There is nothing secure about where we are going. There will be setbacks, there will be storms, there will be lots of near misses, and disappointments. Faith will not protect anyone from anything in the external world. What faith does is enable us to bring light into darkness. This is who we are and that is what we do. God does the rest.

Enter the New Year committed to bringing this spirit into the office, into your primary relationships, into St. Matthew's, and into every setting you are privileged to go. Stop expecting anything from anyone. Instead count on what you and God intend to bring. Then you will see miracles happening day after day. Instead of wanting and needing someone or something to be other than what they are, sail on expecting that there is nothing that you and God cannot handle together. Jesus taught us that. In the New Year count on this being true every day you live.

THE CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

We thank you, God, that we have these moments of reflection. The old year is passing into the night. As we have for most of our lives, we are tempted to look back. Our minds are filled with thoughts of what we would change if we could live our lives again. There was something we wished we had not said. There was a drama we wish we could rewrite. We entered pastures that were not as green as we had thought. There were moments of opportunity we allowed to pass. This morning we pray for the strength to bless all that happened yesterday. Teach us where our vision should be focused. May we enter tomorrow wiser and more accomplished. Lead us to express joy more often, smile more automatically, and worry less. Teach us stillness and patience. Fill our cups so that we might fill those of others who may not know you. We ask these things through the spirit of Jesus. Amen.

THE PASTORAL PRAYER

What a year it has been, oh God. There were times when our lives were totally out of control with the demands of our schedules. There were other times when we could quiet ourselves, curl up on our sofa, and read a stimulating book. We come this morning on the eve of a New Year asking once again for the guidance of your Holy Spirit as our lives continue to evolve and unfold.

Teach us why complaining never drove a nail or hoisted a beam into place. Guide us to understand why it never motivated us to roll up our sleeves or say, "Here am I. Send me." Teach us why our opinions are useless unless they are helpful, insightful and kind. Help us to learn why laughter is so critical to the balance of life and why singing enables us to rise above the cares that usually defeated us. Show us why commitment and discipline are as essential to living as is our being open to possibilities.

As we enter the New Year, may we do so free of old hurts, liberated from habits that hide our loving spirits, and willing to embrace change as the only option that helps us grow. Ignite in our souls the deep desire to live inspired lives. May our trust in you be such a part of our living that fear remains an adjective that only describes what we used to feel. We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, who taught us to say when we pray . . .