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Our Sunday Message Starting Over: Philippians 2:5-13 On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus announced to the disciples that they would all betray him. Peter was horrified by the thought and promised that even if everyone else betrayed Jesus, he wouldn’t. It was a promise that he couldn’t keep. In less than twenty-four hours, he had denied Christ three times. We’ve all done it. In our best moments, we make promises to God, to each other, and to ourselves and mostly we mean it. In the baptismal service this morning, the question was asked, “Will you follow Christ your whole life long?” The answer that was given is, “Yes.” And they meant it. Have you ever thought about how often we make promises as a part of our worship? Besides the promises that we make at baptism, we make a promise when we marry; we make a promise as parents and as a congregation when we dedicate babies; we make a promise at deacon ordination. As pastor and congregation, we made a promise together when I came as your pastor and renewed it again at year ten. When we make these promises, we mean it. But like Peter, we fall short. I wrote the vows that we use for parent/child dedication and I have stood before God and God’s people on four different occasions and repeated the vows. Every time, I have meant it. One vow asks, “Will you follow God’s guidance in your own life that they may see and follow your example in godly character and conduct?” Four times, I have made that promise. My children can tell you sometimes they have seen my example of godly character and conduct and sometimes they have seen something else. We all make promises that we can’t keep. The biblical word is hamartia. It is translated, “sin,” but it means, “to try hard, but to fall short.” If you ask the average person on the street if they are a sinner, they will look at you funny and then walk away. But if you ask the average person on the street if they ever make promises that they can’t keep, they will agree. In her book, The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion tells about the time her daughter was in the ICU. Her daughter asked when her mother would have to leave her. Joan answered, “I said that I would not leave until we could all leave together. Her face relaxed and she went back to sleep. . . . I would not leave. I would take care of her. She would be all right. It also occurred to me that this was a promise that I could not keep. I could not always take care of her. I could not never leave her.”1 We all make promises that we can’t keep. Even in our very best moments, we are sinners. The apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Romans near the end of his life. It is his most complete and mature statement of beliefs. Even at the height of his spiritual maturity, Paul writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do the good that I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”2 So what is the point of making promises if we can’t keep them? Why is promise making so much a part of our worship if we can’t be the Christian, the spouse, the parent, the deacon, or the pastor that we want to be? Why make New Year’s resolutions if you know that you can’t keep them? Let me answer with a story. A visitor came to the monastery one day and saw the monks at work. It was such a strange world to the visitor. When he finally had a chance, he pulled one of the monks aside and asked, “What do you do in the monastery all day?” The monk thought for a moment and then he replied, “Well, we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up.”3 We fall short. But we get up and try again. That’s why we make promises and oaths and vows in church and why, on occasion, we renew them. John McQuiston is a Memphis attorney with a busy commercial practice. After his father’s death, John lamented that the church had not been as much a part of his own life as it had been his father’s. The priest who performed John’s father’s funeral introduced John to the Rule of Benedict and John began to incorporate the spiritual practices into his busy, daily life. He soon realized that what was missing in his life was not a doctrine or creed to confess, but a regular rhythm and pattern and order of spirituality. John wrote a paraphrase of the Rule for contemporary people. The title is, Always We Begin Again. In other words, a disciplined spirituality is not always getting things right, but falling and getting up. The apostle Paul understood that. Writing from prison to the church at Philippi, he admits that he is a long way from perfection. But he says, “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, I strain forward toward what lies ahead.”4 Forget about the failures. Learn from them and then let them go. So you did not keep all your New Year’s resolutions last year. Make new ones. We fall short. But we begin again. You don’t know it, but I forgot the words to the poem on Christmas Day. Well, maybe you did know it. I knew those words in my sleep. But on Christmas Day, I forgot. When I paused, Rachel spoke my part and we moved on. When it was over and I was lamenting the fact that I forgot, she said, “It’s okay, Dad.” We fall short. But we begin again. John Wesley understood. That is the reason that he thought that New Year’s Day was a good time for Covenant Renewal. It is a time for new beginnings. It is a time to admit that we have fallen short and to begin again. It is a time to renew the promise that we made in baptism “to follow Christ our whole life long.” It is a time to recommit ourselves. In his covenant renewal service, John Wesley wrote, “Let us then, remembering the mercies of God, and the hope of his calling, examine ourselves by the light of his Spirit, that we may see wherein we have failed or fallen short in faith and practice, and, considering all that this Covenant means, may give ourselves anew to God.”5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. We will not live up to the obedience of Christ. We fall short. But today, by God’s grace and power, we begin again. The words to the Covenant Renewal are in your worship guide. Find the words now. Let us read as directed. Leader: In the old covenant, God chose Israel to be a special people and to obey the law. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, has made a new covenant with all who trust in him. We stand within this covenant and we bear his name. On the one side, God promises in this covenant to give us new life in Christ. On the other side, we are pledged to live not for ourselves but for God. Today, therefore, we meet to renew the covenant which binds us to God. *(the congregation will stand) Friends, let us claim the covenant God has made with his people, and accept the yoke of Christ. To accept the yoke of Christ means that we allow Christ to guide all that we do and are, and that Christ himself is our only reward. Christ has many services to be done; some are easy, others are difficult; some make others applaud us, others bring only reproach; some we desire to do because of our own interests; others seem unnatural. Sometimes we please Christ and meet our own needs, at other times we cannot please Christ unless we deny ourselves. Yet Christ strengthens us and gives us the power to do all these things. Therefore let us make this covenant of God our own. Let us give ourselves completely to God, trusting in his promises and relying on his grace. People: I give myself completely to you, God. Assign me to my place in your creation. Let me suffer for you. Give me the work you would have me do. Give me many tasks or have me step aside while you call others. Put me forward or humble me. Give me riches or let me live in poverty. I freely give all that I am and all that I have to you. And now, Holy God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. May this covenant made on earth continue for all eternity. ALL: AMEN. Theological Reflection: Covenants Covenant—a solemn promise made binding by an oath.6 On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus Christ took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” A solemn promise made binding by an oath. The death of Jesus on Calvary was God’s solemn promise of salvation. In baptism, we respond to God’s covenant by promising to follow him. John Wesley, the Anglican reformer and founder of the Methodist church, believed that at least once a year, we needed to renew that promise. He thought that New Year’s Day was a particularly appropriate time for Covenant Renewal. After all, New Year is a time for starting over. The first Methodist Covenant Service was held on August 11, 1755. There were approximately eighteen hundred people who stood with Wesley in covenant renewal on that first night. As Wesley reflected on that first experience, he recorded these words in his journal, “Such a night I scarce ever saw before. Surely the fruit of it shall remain forever.”7 The fruit of that night remains at least until today. On this New Year’s Day, we will use Wesley’s words to guide us in renewal. During this time of worship, ask God to prepare you for renewal and recommitment. 1 Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, p. 96f. 2 Romans 7:15. 3 Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p. 99f. 4 Philippians 3:13b. 5 Hickman, Saliers, Stookey, and White, The New Handbook of the Christian Year, p. 79. 6 The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1, “Covenant,” p. 714. 7 Hickman, et al., p. 78. |
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