Time certainly flies.  Do you remember when Prince’s song that said, “Tonight I’m 'gonna' party like it’s 1999,” was futuristic?  Do you remember the big to-do in that very year where some people were all but moving into bomb shelters in fear that the world would shut down in Y2K?  Things have changed since then and I imagine your New Year’s celebrations have changed over time as well.  Your life can be defined by what New Year ’s Eve phase you find yourself.  You go from not being able to stay up until midnight as a kid to being up all night as a young adult to not being able to make it through the 9 o’clock evening news.  For the last several years, we’ve been in Missouri on New Year’s Eve with my family which is in the Central time zone.  I’ve begun counting midnight Eastern Standard Time as making it to the New Year.  If Dick Clark says it’s 2008 then it’s 2008.  I’m in the parent-of-a-two-year-old-with-pregnant-wife-at-home New Year’s eve phase.

 

Though my New Year ’s Eve rituals continue to change there is one thing that remains about that night that I truly love.  It is a night of optimism.  People are generally in a good mood and friendly.  They have an outlook that seems to say a new chance, a new start is just on the horizon.  It is a mental thing.  The calendar simply turns the page but the mind sees it differently.  The mind resolves to leave behind bad habits and pick up good ones.  The mind allows you to drop off old baggage on the 31^st and let’s you imagine a more perfect existence.  Even so, some of us worry about the pressure of the new year… the pressure of holding to resolutions and making the year count in a positive, successful, and productive way.

 

If you are one feeling that pressure, perhaps I can alleviate some of it for you.  Imagine with me a New Year’s Eve party… the best DJ in the city is playing the best dance tunes… the best food is being served… and some friends are sitting in a corner booth laughing and carrying on.  As the countdown approaches, water is exchanged for wine and the friends begin sharing their plans for the next year.  “I want to lose twenty pounds”, one says.  “I’m going to fix up the house”, another adds.  Finally, the guy in the corner speaks up in a sober tone, “I’m going to systematically alter the existence of the world, die for the salvation of humanity, and be resurrected from the grave.”   His buddies pause for a minute before laughing hysterically and saying things like… “you always have the craziest ideas, Jesus”.

 

You’ve just been at a New Year’s Eve party with Jesus…thus the water to wine reference.  Does his resolution relieve some of the pressure you are feeling about yours?  Coming to grips with your faith will do a lot for your resolutions.  We all are looking for some resolve in our life… some solutions to our problems, our shortcomings, and weaknesses.  The Ultimate Solution is one concerning faith and is offered to us again in our scripture text for today.  The solution has always been, is now, and continues to be forever wrapped up in the mysteries of God.  This sermon title reflects that.  Most of you recognized those two little letters that begin the title:  re:.  All returning email messages begin with those letters which stand for “in reference to” or “in regard to.”  It comes from the Latin word “res,” which refers to a “thing” or “matter”.  Thinking about our goals to rectify our problems in the new year, it seems fitting to make reference to the Solution today as shared by the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 3:1-12).

 

Paul writes to a people that are having some internal struggles in their church.  The church family appears torn apart by “who-is-in-and-how” as the Gentiles find their way into the way of Christ. The “mystery,” as Paul calls it, is no longer. The gospel is a radical inclusion story that is a “you are accepted here just as you are” scandal.  It is scandalous because Gentiles didn’t mix with the Jewish community and it is scandalous for us because we don’t feel there is room for everyone in the church either…. Sometimes feeling there is not room for us because we have fallen short of God’s call in our lives to live faithfully and serve humanity humbly.

 

This scandal reveals a chance for New Year’s optimism; to leave behind last year’s shortcomings and live into the comings of God’s realm in the world.  The new year is worth the mental turn.  2007 had its rough spots.  Career Builder put out the “15 Weirdest Work Stories of 2007” which included some strange happenings.  One headline read, “Cola Wars get Physical as Pepsi worker attacks Coke Employee.”  Two employees from the rival companies got into a tiff over shelf space in the isle of a Wal-Mart in one of our own Indiana towns.  “The Pepsi worker allegedly assaulted the Coca-Cola employee, hitting him in the face, giving him a black eye and breaking his nose.  Police say the two were also accused of trying to run each other over with pallets full of soda bottles.”[1]

An even more bizarre story suggested that a jury from Tyler, Texas sentenced a man to 16 years in prison for shoplifting a $1 candy bar.  According to the Dallas Morning News, calls from around the world flooded the Smith County district attorney’s office after this 29 year old man was sentenced to hard time for swiping a Snickers bar.  In response to the outcries from the many callers, Smith County assistant district attorney Jodi Brown responded, “It was a king-size bar.”[2]

These are forgettable happenings of 2007 and we all have things we want to forget as well. Resolutions not kept, promises broken, heated arguments that were unneeded, lapses in judgment, etc.  The shadow side of our lives can haunt us if we don’t turn it over. The gospel message is about turning it over.  The Gentiles were now to be welcomed into the church and the Jewish community would have to turn over their pride and arrogance to acknowledge the radical acceptance of Christ for all.  I love verses five and six as read in The Message version of the Bible that speaks to this.  Listen to the words, “The mystery [of Christ's new order] is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives stand on the same ground before God.  They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 3: 6) – The Message[3]

We stand on the same ground as our ancestors and as all who will come after us.  In business terms, this would be the same as every person getting $100,000 dollars to start a business… everyone has the same advantage but some will use it more wisely than others.  We are offered the same help and the same promises and that promise is a full life now and an eternal life to come.  The question becomes, will you use this advantage wisely?  Part of the problem comes in the message we are portraying as the church at large and as individuals living out the faith.  We exclude, we water down, we don’t seek challenge and we don’t offer it.  We too easily allow a live and vibrant message to become an ancient, dead fairy tale.

 

Cameron Strang, a twenty-something CEO of Relevant Media Group, said recently in the New York Times that… “My generation is discontented with dead religion,” speaking of the 20-to-30-year-old crowd.  “We don’t want to show up on Sunday, sing two hymns, hear a sermon consisting of three points and an email story, and go home.  The Bible says we’re supposed to die for this thing.  If I’m going to do that, this has to be worth something.”[4]  And while he speaks for the twenty something crowd, is that not something we all long for?  A faith… a life that is worth something?  The pessimistic side of us, that glass-half-empty side of us, expects the same old life and problems to persist in 2008.  We drag our feet into the new year feeling that the dead end job in the cubicle farm at work is hopeless.  We expect our relationships to remain broken and our faith to remain tame and boring.  Change seems impossible. We feel that our life has reached a point where newness is no longer; where all the episodes of life ahead of us are reruns.  But that is a matter of outlook.

 

The Gentile community upon hearing Paul’s words found some new ground to stand on and the new year affords the same for us.  Even in difficult times we must see the chance for change.  Do I sound political at this point?  All the candidates vying for the presidency are exhausted from smiling and having to explain away their past.  I spent one day of our recent holiday trip in Iowa where my grandparents live.  I ate at the Pizza Ranch where Mitt Romney had just been and I drove past the Chicken Inn Motel in that small town where Hillary had recently stopped for a visit.  My grandparents have been receiving calls every night from the Huckabees, Clintons, Obamas, and the whole bunch and I thought, wow, my grandparents are really moving up in the world.  Optimism abounds in Iowa these days.  Politicians are all speaking passionately in regards to the solutions our world needs and there is a glimmer of hope that change is possible.  But, the message gets all bogged down in the shadow side of politics and much is written off as political banter.

 

Even so, I believe that change is possible and that we play a role in change.  One of my favorite authors, Douglas Coupland said, “Death without the possibility of changing the world is the same as a life that never was.”  I want to die knowing I believed change is possible and that I did my best to make it so.  That is my prayer this year…that God will let me in on something powerful that the gospel is trying to break forth.  That I might have the wisdom, patience, and prayerful insight to see God at work and help initiate that action.  Along with getting in better shape and being a Godly husband and father, that is what I want to do in 2008.  There… I have said it out loud.

 

Whether we have spoken them aloud or not, I assume most of us have hashed through some hopes for 2008… a flicker of a dream that things might be different.  If so, you likely find yourself in the midst of that iffy time that exists between the point at which we decide to change our lives and the point where our lives actually change.  It is a critical time where one can waver or prevail.  To prevail, you must first believe in the power of one.  You must subscribe to the idea that your life matters and it certainly does.  I have felt lost at times in my life… as if I was incapable of being an agent of change… as though my life was inconsequential to the movement of the world.  These are moments where you feel like that one Scrabble tile that has no letter on it or a Styrofoam puff used in packaging.[5]  You feel invisible, useless, or at minimum, uncertain of what you are able to do.  When you feel this way, draw from this passage of Paul where he claims in verse eight, “I am the very least of all the saints” and yet God has offered him grace and a message to proclaim.  This is Paul’s word to us in reference to the Solution of our need.  It is hope in the power of one… in the possibility of change.  You have access to the same promise extended to Paul and you have “access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in Christ.”

 

We will need that confidence to make our mark this year.  We will need access to God and a faith that is willing to step boldly in order to demonstrate in our words and actions the radical inclusion and radical love that is found in Christ.  As we open our north campus in Fishers this year, expanding our witness of Christ’s love, we need many to be in prayer and many to step up to this new challenge of ministry.  It excites me to see these ideas of life-giving love active in you.  I have seen it.  I have seen that Spirit alive and moving in this congregation… that same bold gospel message alive in our midst that drove the congregation at Ephesus.  I saw it most recently in Jim Holland who passed away last week.

 

I visited Jim at the hospital just before Christmas and he smiled as he always did and told me stories about baseball and his family…two things he loved dearly.  But what moved me most was what he shared with me towards the end of our time together.  Jim said, “I remember when we started our church (Jim and Vicki were charter members) worshipping in the clubhouse of our subdivision.  I remember having weekly choir rehearsals in our living room.  Look where we have come!  I am so proud to be a part of this church family and am amazed at how many people we have sent into ministry.”  We talked more about the church, the wonderful support of the community and the ministry that makes up who we are as a people.  It led me to say, “I hope the same can happen at the north campus.”  And with a big smile and the confidence and boldness of faith, Jim said, “It will… it will.”

 

Jim was an agent of change and a man of deep faith who helped get this ministry off the ground.  He lives on in this ministry and my prayer is that we all might capture that spirit and believe that we can be a part of making the gospel happen again and again. You have the clean slate of a new year before you.  You have made resolutions to improve your life and hopefully improve the world but fixing our own lives and living up to God’s perceived approval can be lofty tasks.  This is why grace is freely given…it is a gift of love from God and we are called simply to respond to love with love. While your resolutions may not bear the weight that Jesus bore in his resolution to cosmically change the world and die for the sins of all, you can, and are called, to be an agent of change.  Follow through on your promises.  Commit daily to making progress toward your goals.  Pray and maintain a faith that believes the impossible is within reach… after all, who are we to limit what is possible when we come together to work in faith for the radical gospel message of Christ.  You may not save the world on a cross like Jesus but perhaps the words of our Savior will give you hope for your resolutions:  “Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do even greater works than these.” (John 14: 12).  When we resolve to live the gospel, the gospel re-solves us time and time again.  Be bold, live in faith, and step up to the needs of the world.  If we can do that, 2008 will be what it needs to be and you just might find the Solution to life you’ve been looking for.

---