01/04/04

Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18,

My mother's father, Charlie Line, God rest his soul, was always the eternal optimist; I think he discovered the power of positive thinking long before Norman Vincent Peale did. Grandpa's attitudes toward life were not phony or put-on. He was a genuine optimist, almost always with a song or whistle on his lips, a smile on his face. He was a great guy, and though he's been gone well over 30 years now, I still miss him. For many years, when he was a young man, Grandpa was also a Sunday school superintendent, and I thought of him when I read about another Sunday school superintendent, who, every Sunday morning, would gather the assembled children and say: "Let's start off this morning with a word in song." Regardless the weather, or how he was feeling, or whatever was going on in the world around him, he'd always smile and say: "Let's start off this morning with a word in song." (i)

Somehow, this also seems like an appropriate thing to say in the opening days of a new year: Let's start off the new year with a word in song! As we embark on a new year, it's often wise to look back and reflect on the old one. With this in mind, and to go with what we just said, I'm reminded of the ballad from the musical, The Fantastiks, entitled, "Try to Remember." The song includes words encouraging us to recollect past memories, bitter or sweet, recognizing that the past, however it was, bad or good, is a part of who we are in the present. It concludes: "Deep in December it's nice to remember, although you know the snow will follow. Deep in December it's nice to remember without a hurt the heart is hollow. Deep in December it's nice to remember the fires of September that made us mellow. Deep in December our hearts will remember - and follow...." For Christians, of course, the one we follow is Jesus Christ. It's nice, even healthy, to remember, to look back, but not for too long, and then we need to look ahead.

A bizarre New Yorker cartoon shows George, trying to cut back an uncontrollable vine that has already encircled his house several times, finally pinning George himself to the wall. His wife sees the tip of the vine rounding the corner of the house and screams, "Here it comes again, George!" Some of us have that same uneasy feeling as a new year comes round again, don't we? We know that the new year will be a mixed bag: deaths and births; new friends to meet and old ones leaving; pains and joys; new mistakes and, hopefully, learning from them; new jobs and retirements; losers and winners (in the stock market and elsewhere); depressions and joyous excitements; new surprises and old expectations; new surgeries, new illnesses, but also new medicines, and new hope. There'll be new quarrels over old stuff and old ones over new; new scandals, new songs, books, TV shows, and movies; all sorts of new and old possibilities. (ii) In short, a real mixed bag. As the writer of Ecclesiastes would say, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven."

In this new season why not make a new year's resolution? Though the year is already four days old, it's not too late, if you're not already doing it, to start reading the Bible every day; it's a great spiritual discipline. That way you'll start off the year with a word, the Word of God in song, a new song for the new year. To get us going, let's look briefly at our lessons for today; each has a song motif, and each has something important for us to hear.

We begin with Jeremiah, normally a doom and gloom prophet, but who, in today's passage, urges the people to "sing aloud with gladness," to rejoice and be merry, because God has delivered them from their long exile. The Lord has redeemed them from their enemy. Liberation has already happened, and now they are to come home. God will lead them home, will guide them, and turn their mourning into joy and their sorrow into gladness. My friends, this is a word of hope for us also. Our Lord has already saved us, and even now is leading us, guiding us to the truth, to the new, abundant life that is ours in the new year soon unfolding before us. God has delivered us from our unwanted past, from all that we would just as soon forget, and opened up new horizons for the future. That's a word worth singing about, isn't it?

We receive another word from Paul in Ephesians, a hymn of praise for God's goodness to all of us. We have been blessed, chosen, and destined to be the adopted sons and daughters of God. Through Christ we are in a special relationship with the One whom we call Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of life. God has chosen us to be God's special children from the beginning of time. Is this not also a word worth singing about?

Finally, we come to the Prologue of John, the first 18 verses of the Gospel, thought by some scholars to have originally been a hymn of the early church, a new song telling people who Jesus Christ was and how he was the Word through whom God created the world in the beginning. The song makes an astonishing claim: that the One whose birth we have just celebrated was present at the creation of the world. In fact, says the song, this was the Word God spoke that called creation, including human life, into existence!" (iii) Not only that, but for those of us who believe in this Light in the darkness, this Word made flesh, we are given the power to become ... power to become all that we are meant to be, power to overcome all that makes us less than what we know we should be, power to become God's children, heirs of the promises of grace. We have all received "grace upon grace," and the only thing we need to do is respond, by living graceful lives empowered by that Word.

An English teacher was talking about the power of words in class one day, emphasizing the importance of a large vocabulary, and the power of even a single word. She told her class, "Use a word ten times and it will be yours forever." From the back of the room a teenage girl was overheard muttering under her breath: "Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby." (iv) Words are powerful, and at times, vitally important. "Any word from the doctor?" we ask. "Any word on that missing plane?" "Any word on the latest weather forecast?" "Any word on the job offer?" "What's the good word?" Words can affirm us or destroy us, can build us up or tear us down, can comfort or wound us, can calm us, or cause great fear. Words are mighty powerful, indeed! (v)

According to the Biblical account of creation, it was a word that brought the world into existence. God said, "Let there be light" and creation occurred. That was the "good word" way back then. Then "in the fullness of time," God sent the good word again, a Word that was there even at the beginning, but that now becomes the living Word, Emmanuel, God with us. The Word comes down, becomes flesh, and dwells among us. Jesus' coming, the Word made flesh, shows us just how far God's love is willing to go to save and redeem you and me.

I think I've used this story before, but it bears repeating. It was a dark and stormy night, complete with thunder and lightning, when 7-year old Sara climbed out of her bed trembling and padded down the hall to her parent's bedroom. She tugged on her father's pajama sleeve, "Daddy, I'm afraid." Her father opened the covers and she snuggled in between her parents. Dad held Sara tightly and said, "You don't have to be afraid, honey; God will always take care of you." Sara replied, "I know, Daddy, but tonight I need someone with skin on." (vi) And that, of course, is what Jesus Christ is for us, the Word made flesh, who came to live among us.

Too often, though, some of us may think that faith is only a one-way street - toward us. So, in addition to your new year's resolution of reading the Word daily, consider another resolution - that of also sharing the Word. To fully become what God wants us to become, we need to receive the Word every day. As a car needs gas to be propelled from one spot to another, so as we travel through this new year we will need to make daily stops for spiritual food. But our fuel lines will get all gummed up and our engines will get overheated if we just run them idling in one place. When the Word became flesh, God took on human form, and Jesus didn't just speak, he acted. This is what our Lord expects of us. We are not to be the just hearers of the Word but also doers of the Word, in very concrete ways.

Mother Teresa was receiving one of her many awards, and during her acceptance speech she said, "Let us not be satisfied with just paying money. Money is not enough. Money can be got - but [my poor people of Calcutta] need your hands to serve them, they need your hearts to love them. Very often I ask people to come to our homes for the dying. We have a big place in Calcutta ... and I ask the people not to come and give things ... things I can get for the asking ... but I want their presence, just to touch them, just to smile at them, just to be present ... it means such a lot." (vii)

A couple of our families sang Christmas carols at the home of Carol and Ralph Fortini last month. They were doers of the Word - and it meant such a lot. We are all called to be doers of the Word, to be the presence of God's love in the lives of other people, bringing light into their darkness and hope where there is despair. The Good News is a song we can't keep just to ourselves, but one that must be shared with others, as Jesus has shown us how.

A misprint in a weather forecast read: "There is a 50% chance of ... today and tomorrow." As we stand at the threshold of this new year, our faith assures us there is a 100% chance of today and tomorrow. You and I need not be like George's wife in the cartoon - "Here it comes again, George!" - facing the new year with feelings of dread. Rather, may our attitude be one of expectation, hope, and confidence - that in our God of new beginnings there is more than a 50% chance of today and tomorrow, but a 100% chance of new life. So, let's start off the new year with a song, with God's Word in song, and then let's share that Word by singing it every day, in every way we know how, every chance we get. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall