Re: Solution
Ephesians 3:1-12
Did you make a New Year’s Resolution this year? 40 to 45 percent of American adults make one or more resolutions each year. So how do we do with our resolutions? Seventy-five percent make it past the first week. Forty-six percent make it past six months.
Here’s something that’s even more amazing: A person who makes a New Year’s resolution is 10 times more likely to attain that goal than someone who wants to accomplish the same thing but doesn’t make a formal resolution.
Unlike that 46% of those who made resolutions successfully, only 4 percent of non-resolvers had maintained the behavior change after six months.
While 40 percent of us are able to keep our top resolution on the first attempt, the rest try and fail and try again, with 17 percent finally succeeding after more than six attempts.
With the passing into a new year we may find ourselves like the two guys living on a houseboat. One night, while they slept, their boat broke loose from its mooring and drifted into the open sea. One of the men got up in the morning before his mate and, going out on deck, noticed there was no land in sight anywhere. Excitedly, he called to his mate, “Joe, get up quick; we ain’t here any more!”
I hope that whatever plans you have for this New Year that you will have success and meaning and that you’ll have some idea of where you want to be.
What if our New Year’s resolution was to be part of the solution of the world? What if, instead of being obstinate, throwing road blocks or getting in the way of God’s grace, we became partners with that grace? Grace is the solution the world is looking for. We have plenty of data that show that war doesn’t accomplish a lasting solution. We have plenty of experience to prove hate, isolation, fear, and intimidation don’t bring lasting change. What our world needs is something that can heal the wounds, bridge the gaps, fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. The solution is grace. It seems, though, grace is a difficult commodity to come by. And this is not a new problem.
The Ephesian church struggled with some of the same problems we face in our day. Just as we struggle with what it means to be a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural world, so the Ephesians found themselves grumbling between their Jewish and Gentile factions. We forget how radically inclusive Paul was asking the people of his day to be – both Jew and Gentile. The inclusivity that we champion today started way back in biblical times. The solution was not building better walls to keep the other away. The solution was discovering how grace helps us learn to live together. We say one of our mottos here at All God’s Children is to “come just as you are.” That is a very grace-filled invitation. When people really do it, we find that, in fact, it changes all of us in small and profound ways. Theologically, this sounds great. Practically, we quickly discover how uneasy that can make us feel. That is the ironical nature of epiphanies.
There is something enticing and fascinating about epiphanies – discovering something new being revealed to us. We say we long for these discoveries. We search the scripture. We ponder our faith. We study and discuss (or as my family used to say – we cuss and discuss). But the truth is that an epiphany always changes the world. Things will be different after this discovery because new knowledge or insight or revelation makes things different.
Resistance to change is common and as the Borg would say, resistance is futile – but we still resist. It is much easier to let things slide. Take, for example, a New York City ordinance that is still in effect. It states that there must be hitching posts available in front of City Hall for any reporters that might need to hitch their horses there. As L. P. Hartley once said, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” It is hard stepping out of the past and into the promise of the future.
Epiphanies make us different. Do you remember when you had your own epiphany that being GLBTQ was a non-issue for God? The world became a different place.
The shepherds were different after the angels’ visited. The Magi were different after visiting the child. Epiphanies always change the world. And when we find ourselves with a different world, we soon learn that we must change to be part of that world. That takes grace, doesn’t it?
If we don’t change we become like that famous line from good ole Charlie Brown, “How can I do new math with an old math brain?” The answer is: learn new math.
Learn new ways of being. Handle new information. Resist the temptation to operate out of well-worn assumptions that have become part of our worldview. Depend on God to help you navigate the rocks. We will make mistakes. We’re not as good at or comfortable with the newness of a changed world and so we feel inadequate or scared. The light of epiphany may be beautifully enticing but it also glaringly reveals flaws.
God uses epiphany to create something new and with God, the past is not obliterated, simply transformed. It is like the enigmatic Greek proverb about a farmer who said, “This is my grandfather’s axe. My father fitted it with a new handle, and I fitted it with a new head.” Grace helps us find the connections that give meaning with our past while allowing God to continually do a “new thing.”
God surrounds us with grace despite our sense of unworthiness. We have known forgiveness and second chances. The solution for our world is the same kind of grace. It is not easy. It is not simplistic. It is the solution.
Sources:
www.homileticsonline.com The Re-Solution, January 2008.
FAITH & RENEWAL, May/June 1993, p. 2.
Ted Engstrom, HIGH PERFORMANCE, (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1988), p. 85.