News Blog

Hespeler, 26 January 2020 © Scott McAndless
Isaiah 9:1-4, Psalm 27:1, 4-9, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, Matthew 4:12-23

Zebedee was getting old. He’d been at this fishing trade for a long time – maybe too long. His hearing wasn’t what it once was and that was probably why he didn’t hear when the man came walking down the shores of the Sea of Galilee and spoke to his sons who were sitting at the other end of the boat. He didn’t even look up from the rather difficult knot that he was struggling to get out of the net.

Besides, he was busy talking – something that he seemed to do all day every day – something that his two sons, James and John, were so accustomed to listening to that they generally responded with nothing but nods and the odd grunt.

“Have you heard about what happened up Capernaum way the other day,” he had been saying to them. “You know Peter and Andrew, the two brothers who have a boat up there? Well, they were out casting their nets just a little off from shore when that new young man – you know, the one that just moved down from the hills in Nazareth – came along. He apparently called out to them across the water and he told them – get this – he told them that they should stop fishing for fish and start fishing for people instead.

“But that’s not the really crazy part, oh no! The really crazy part is that they actually listened to him. They jumped off their boat, leaving behind a pretty decent catch of fish in the process, and swam to him and then started following him. Can you believe that?

“They left everything behind. I mean, I realize that there’s not a lot of good money in fishing these days. I know better than anybody how hard it is to get by, but these are men who have people depending on them. Peter’s got a wife and a couple of kids. Andrew is taking care of his mother and his sisters. I mean, it’s just not fair that they should leave those people behind and go off after somebody just because he’s got these crazy ideas that maybe mean something to them. It’s just not fair that Jesus would even ask them to do something like that.

“Well, at least I know that something like that is not going to happen to me. I know that I can count on my boys to be there for me and to keep this old fishing boat going when I get too old to go out there on the water day after day. You boys know that it wouldn’t be fair for you to leave me and… boys? Jimmy, Johnny? You guys are being pretty quiet back there in the stern. You wouldn’t be playing a joke on your old man now would you? Boys, boys?”

Now, obviously I don’t know if it went down like that. The Gospel of Matthew tells the story very briefly with little detail. Maybe James and John did have a good talk with their father before they got up and left and the old man was in agreement. But I certainly don’t get that impression from reading the gospel story. The point of the story seems to be that they just got up and left. And I can’t help but think about what that meant for their father – how he must have thought it was all unfair.

Last fall in the auction, I put a sermon up for the bidding. I said that I would give the person who bid the most the opportunity to tell me what to preach about one Sunday in January: this Sunday. The winner was Andy Cann. And after, I am sure, that Andy flirted with the thought of making me preach something that would probably end my career, he finally suggested to me the title of this morning’s sermon: “It ain’t fair.” Which, frankly, could still end my career if I don’t watch out.

Now, Andy was thinking about some particular things that happen in the church when he suggested that topic. He spoke about some of the ways in which the burden of the work of the church tends to fall unfairly on certain people. He spoke, for example, about particular case (that I won’t spell out because I don’t have permission from everyone involved), but it was a case where a small group of people were supporting an important mission of the church – something that we are all supposed to be part of – mostly out of their own pockets. That, Andy pointed out rightly enough, that ain’t right.

I don’t really need to get into specific cases in order to explore what Andy was getting at because this is actually something that happens in the church all the time. I don’t know how many times over the years I have had somebody come up to me talking about some very similar situation – a situation where somebody feels as if they (or somebody else) are unfairly loaded with some burden, cost or duty in the church. I don’t know how many times I have heard people complain that others aren’t pitching in and doing their part. And of course, there generally is a lot of truth to what is being said because it is almost never true that the burden of being the church is evenly distributed among all the people.

And part of me wants to use Andy’s question to stir people up, to get them to all step up and pitch in – to make sure that we all collectively own and support the good work that the church does. And, of course, that is a noble goal. But I do generally find that, before we ask people to act differently – to share the load differently – we need to ask why it is that people behave the way that they do now. If you don’t understand that, chances are you will not be successful at bringing about the changes that you would like to see.

The first question, I think, is whether or not fairness is actually what we should be striving for. The answer to that question might be no. When Jesus came along and stole Zebedee’s two sons away from him, the two sons that he had been depending on to take over the family business, do you think that Jesus was aware of the hardship that he might be causing for the old man? I think that he was. I think that he was aware that, to a certain extent, it was unfair of him to deprive Zebedee of the family supports that he had been counting on.

But why was Jesus there? He was there to proclaim a message, and that message was, Matthew tells us, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus was announcing that something so big had arrived that it had changed everything. What’s more, he declared that the arrival of the kingdom demanded a particular response: repentance. The word that Jesus uses there – the word that is translated as repent – is a Greek word that actually means to change one’s mind and one’s heart. Jesus was saying that, because God had turned up on the scene to do something grand, that it was time for everyone to start thinking about life and just about everything else in completely different ways. Apparently, that included thinking differently about things like the expectations that society placed upon you.

What James and John did, getting up and walking away from their lives, may have broken all of the expectations that society had placed upon them, but it was actually the perfect response to the new reality that Jesus had brought into being. All of that is a way of saying that our human notions of fairness, that idea that everyone else should live up to the expectations we have of them, may have been superseded by something greater, something more important, by the kingdom of heaven which blasts everyone’s expectations out of the water – apparently literally in the case of Peter and Andrew.

Now, does that mean that there should be no expectation of fairness in the life of the church? Of course not. But it does mean that we are supposed to look at the bigger picture and not just the fairness of a particular circumstance.

I’ve always been a bit puzzled by our reading this morning from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Addressing the church, he says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” But then, only a couple of lines later he says, “for all must carry their own loads.” Now just wait a minute here, Paul, which is it? Do we carry other people’s burdens or just our own? Surely you cannot have it both ways.

But, of course, Paul knew exactly what he was doing when he put those two contradictory sentences so close together. He was trying to get our attention. He was actually trying to show us that, when we focus on what other people are doing or contributing, we will go astray. That is why, in between those two contradictory statements, he slips in this little gem: “All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbour’s work, will become a cause for pride.”

You see, if we only focus on what other people are doing (or failing to do), the church can never become what it needs to be. Focussing on what other people do, Paul warns us, is the cause of pride. Pride is a difficult concept for us to understand sometimes. Pride can sometimes be a good thing like, for example, when someone takes pride in doing a job well. When you set out to do something and you put everything you can into it and get the results you are trying for, of course you should be able to feel good about what you have accomplished.

Paul is not here warning about that kind of pride because it is a pride that that is related to testing your own work, focussing on what you can do. The problem comes when you try to feel good about yourself by focussing on other people – by putting someone else down so that you look better or by criticizing somebody else’s best efforts. That, Paul is saying, is what is very destructive for the church and in many other areas of life. And I will say that, yes, that is something that I have seen often enough in the life of the church.

Sometimes, for example, the very people who carry the heavy loads at the church, and occasionally righteously complain about it, are trapped precisely because they have this problem. They might well say, for example, that they want somebody else to take on their burden, but what happens when somebody actually steps up to do so? Well, they don’t do it right, do they? They don’t do it in the way that it has always been done, so they can’t take over. And so the person who tries to take on their burden gives up in frustration and they end up still carrying that burden and (even better) still being able to complain about how unfair it is. That is all about a dangerous kind of pride, all about feeling better about yourself by criticizing others and it has no place in the logic of the kingdom of heaven.

Paul suggests that the only way for you to avoid this kind of pitfall is to focus on what you can do, how you can contribute by bearing the burdens of others rather than on who ought to be bearing your burdens and who ought to be doing what and how and so falling into the pride that puts others down. The result of all of that is not always going to be fair in the sense that the burdens will always be equally distributed. But the kingdom was always about more than what feels fair in the moment, it is about changing the way that we look at everything because God has suddenly shown up on the scene.

I feel for poor Zebedee left alone in his boat. The aftermath of all of that cannot have been easy for him. But he also had his role to play and a burden to bear in the great thing that God was doing. I have to believe that he came to realize that, even if it took some time. We all have our roles to play and our burdens to carry. As we all focus on what we can do to carry the loads of others, we will come to find the true strength of the message that Jesus brought.

Come out for some fun and to support our youth!  Our Hespeler Arts Palooza Kicks off on Sunday, January 26th with grab bags for the children and the Pie Baking Contest/Auction.  

Hespeler, 12 January, 2020 © Scott McAndless
Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. I believe that he is the Son of God and the one who has revealed God to us in a uniquely powerful way. But holding such belief can be a challenge sometimes. Being a believer doesn’t mean that you never have doubts or questions. Being a believer is not the same thing as being certain. And so I have thought, as I’m sure you have also thought at times, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to know rather than simply to believe? Wouldn’t it be nice to be presented with the evidence right there before your eyes and be put in the position that left you with no room to doubt?

Wouldn’t it have been nice, for example, to have been there for that episode we read about in the Gospel of Matthew this morning? There doesn’t seem to be any room for doubt in that scene. John the Baptist is so certain that Jesus is the one that he’s been looking for, that he even protests that it would be inappropriate for him to baptize Jesus because that would imply that, in some sense, Jesus was less important than John! But even the certainty of John is blown out of the water by what happens immediately following the baptism: “just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”

Now, wouldn’t it have been something to witness that – to see the Spirit of God descending just like a dove flies down from the sky, to hear that voice speaking so clearly? I mean, surely that’s about as close to proof and evidence as you can get. And there clearly must have been a lot of people who were there. The gospel writers speak of large crowds going out to see John the Baptist despite his remote location. So hundreds, if not thousands, could have witnessed the incredible event. The result of such an experience must have been that huge numbers of Judeans and Galileans left that day in the certain and secure knowledge of exactly who Jesus was and what he had come to do.

Except, well, if you continue to read through the gospels from this point in the story, that’s not quite what seems to have happened, is it? Oh, there is no question that people are very interested in what Jesus does in his ministry. He is able to gather huge crowds most everywhere he goes. But, as interested as the people are in Jesus, they hardly seem very certain about what he represents. In fact, I seem to recall an episode later in the gospel, when the disciples report back to Jesus about what the people have been saying about who he is and there are all these crazy ideas floating around – “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matthew 16:14) So apparently there were a lot of people speculating about who Jesus was, but, with all of that talk, no one seemed to be saying anything about the words that reverberated from heaven in front of all those witnesses. It wasn’t being rumoured all over the place that he might be the Son of God.

And, what’s more, we are told that even John – even the Baptist who Matthew tells us was so certain when Jesus was standing in front of him – was soon racked with doubts on that very subject. We’re told that, later, when he was in prison and waiting for his own execution, he became so discouraged that he sent word to Jesus asking him outright whether or not he was the one. Is that the kind of thing that you would ask after hearing the voice of God booming directly from heaven telling you exactly who Jesus was? I mean, if you have heard the voice, you have no need to second guess what you see Jesus doing afterwards, do you?

So, the story of the baptism of Jesus with its very public confirmation of who Jesus was, leaves us with a big question mark. If it all went down like that, why wasn’t everyone completely certain about who Jesus was throughout his ministry? I can think of two possible answers and I suspect that both are correct to a certain extent.

The first answer is that proof is not the fix for all our faith issues that we think it is. Just because, at some moment in your life, you are confronted with something that absolutely convinces you that God is real and that God is present in some powerful way, that doesn’t mean that you will never again doubt such realities. It is simply not true that, the more proof you have of something, the less doubt you will have about it.

Doubt is something that is simply in our human nature. And it is actually a gift and a very good thing. Doubt is what makes the researcher not just accept the established results of previous science, and instead push on and keep asking questions until a new theory and better answer is found. If humanity had never struggled with doubt, we would have struggled with far more ignorance as we settled for insufficient answers.

But we are sometimes tormented by doubt too. Even when you have been convinced of something that is really important to you – when you have been given ample proof, for example, that somebody loves you – you can still be racked with doubts about their love. Why? Simply because the answer to the question, “do they love me?” is so very important to you. Well, the things you believe about Jesus fall into much the same category. They are the kinds of beliefs that people build their lives around. And, because of that, it may not matter how much Jesus proves to you that he’s there and committed to you, you may still doubt it just because it matters that much.

So actually, I do not find it impossible that John and the others gathered at the Jordan River really did hear a voice booming down from heaven that identified exactly who Jesus was and yet could have still walked away from such an experience doubting what their eyes had seen and their ears had heard.

But that is all based on the assumption that everything that happened by the Jordan was plain for everyone to see, but as I look closer at what the passage actually says, maybe we ought not to be assuming that. Matthew is actually rather careful in how he describes the events of that day and the more I read it, the less certain I am about who saw and heard what.

In fact, you can kind of get lost when you delve into the grammar of Matthew’s description. “The heavens were opened to him,” it says, “and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” But who is he in that sentence? And is the he who saw it the same him upon whom the Spirit alighted? I suspect that Matthew quite intentionally kept all of that rather vague. Matthew doesn’t actually tell us who saw what.

Even more strange, he also doesn’t actually tell us who heard what either. All he writes is, “And a voice from heaven said…” You’ve all heard the classic philosophical question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well, Matthew kind of leaves us with a similar philosophical query. What does it matter what a voice from heaven says if we don’t know who heard it?

But an even better question is what does the voice of the Lord resounding from heaven sound like, and how would you recognize it? There are, of course, many stories in the Bible of people hearing God’s voice. The Old Testament prophets, for example, are always talking about how God told them this or God told them that. And I always used to imagine that just like any other conversation except that you couldn’t see God when God was speaking, only hear. But the more I study the prophets, the less convinced I am that it worked like that.

As you look at how they operated, you realize that, most often, when they speak of what the Lord said to them, they are reflecting on the events happening around them or in the larger political sphere and are detecting some message from God in those things. It would seem that hearing God’s voice is a little bit different from most every conversation you have ever had.

We read a psalm together this morning, the beautiful 29^th psalm, which is all about hearing the voice of the Lord. “The voice of the Lord is over the waters;” it declares. “the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.” But, as you continue to read, you start to wonder what exactly the voice of the Lord is as it does things like break cedars trees, make forests and mountain skip, flash with fire, shake the wilderness and make oak trees whirl. Soon it becomes clear enough, what the palmist is actually describing is a powerful thunderstorm and the effects it has on the countryside.

What the psalmist is saying is that, at least sometimes, the voice of the Lord can appear in the form of a powerful storm. But think of what that means for a moment. If God can speak through a powerful storm, then it is quite possible for one person to witness that storm and think, “Wow, that is a powerful storm,” and somebody else might see that same thing and respond, “Yes, Lord, I have heard what you are saying.”

The voice of the Lord is always and has always been open to interpretation. I have thought about that a lot recently as I have reflected on what has been happening in the world. Speaking of storms and God speaking through storms, how about the firestorms that have swept through Australia over the past few weeks. They have been huge and unprecedented. As of last week, an area of that country as large of all of Southern Ontario – from Windsor in the west to Tobermory in the north to Peterborough in the east – all of it has been destroyed by fire. That is huge – some would say apocalyptic – in scale.

There is no question that something significant has happened in Australia, but whether or not there is a message in it is a matter of interpretation. One person (such as, apparently the Australian Prime Minister) might look at the devastation and say, “Wow, that is terrible and horrible and everything, but we don’t really have to change anything about how we live.” And somebody else looks at the same thing and may hear the voice of the Lord saying, “Maybe it is time for everyone to make some serious changes.”

Now, one way of seeing this might be right, and the other might be wrong. Presumably either God is speaking or God isn’t. And I certainly have my thoughts about which interpretation is right. But, because everyone has a stake in what the interpretation is, there is no answer that is unmistakable, by which I mean people always seem to find ways to make mistakes when it comes to the voice of the Lord.

So, if you are looking for certainty about God, about Christ and who he is, the answer seems to be that it doesn’t quite work like that. If you were there on the day when John baptized Jesus (an event that I certainly believe really happened) I’m not sure what you would have seen. Maybe you would have seen a dove fly from a nearby branch, maybe the clouds formed some unusual formation. Maybe you might have even heard thunder or some other unusual sound rumbling from the sky. Somebody who was there saw all of that and heard the voice of the Lord in it, but would you have? And if you did, would you have believed? Maybe. I hope so, but still that would be different from being absolutely certain about who Jesus was.

I understand why you would like to be certain. It is natural. But clearly that is not how God works. And there is a good reason why. I actually don’t think that people operate all that well from a position of certainty. When people are completely certain about their position, that is when they turn into tyrants. That is when, even sometimes with the best of intentions, they can easily become persecutors or oppressors of those who disagree with them.

There is a humility that comes from struggling with doubt (at least when you’re honest with yourself about it) and so God doesn’t give us certainty. God invites us to faith and though it may be harder, I do believe that it is better.

Stay tuned for lots of opportunities to explore your creativity! Starting on Sunday, January 26th and running for 6 weeks. Something for everyone, adults and children, week days and weekends. Musics and arts!

There is actually a whole lot to be said for doing everything in the way that it has always been done. Take a Sunday morning worship service for example. When I am planning a worship service that follows the normal weekly pattern, it is always a lot less work. I can just copy and paste what we’ve done before and then make some changes as needed. I know where to go to find hymns and prayers and other elements of the service. Even more importantly, there is a psychological comfort and ease in working according to pre-established patterns and forms.

But just try planning an unusual or innovative worship service. You find yourself basically reinventing the wheel. You have to go back and rethink the function of a prayer or a litany at a certain point in the service and then write the thing according to that purpose. That is a lot more work. And that is just when you’re preparing for the thing. The actual worship service itself takes even more concentration because it’s just a lot easier to lose track of what’s next and how it is supposed to go.

And if that’s true about a worship service, it is doubly true about any new or innovative project or event that you might consider in the church. The first time you do something, you have to invent or create just about every aspect of what you do. There is also much more potential for something to go wrong in some unanticipated way. After you’ve done a program a few times it can be so much easier and a lot less work.

For example, as you will see as you continue to read through this newsletter, we are about to embark on a bold new endeavour in the coming weeks; we’re calling it Hespeler Arts Palooza. Though this is something that builds upon some past successful events, the scope of what we are attempting is quite new and rather daunting. It hasn’t even started yet and we are already feeling the stress of it as we work on schedules and finding innovative ways to get the word out to the people we are trying to engage.

So, given that new is hard, you have to ask the question: why even try it? Why not just keep doing things the way that they have always been done? Of course, there’s also the added benefit that church people often take a great deal of comfort from what they are used to and what they have experienced before and are more likely to criticize or even complain when dealing with the unfamiliar. So why even bother trying anything new?

The reasons are many, but I would like to share a few with you from my perspective.

• Just because something worked in the past, doesn’t mean that it is the best or only way to do it moving forward. In fact, since the church finds itself within a rapidly changing society – a rapidly changing world! – we find ourselves in a situation where what worked in the past might be increasingly irrelevant to society. But, if we never try anything new, we will never be able to compare what worked in the past with what works today.
• Yes, there is a comfort to be found in doing what we are used to, but we must ask, is comfort what we are called to as followers of Christ? No. We are called to lives of faith and trust in God and stepping out and taking a risk by trying something new is indeed an excellent way to exercise our faith muscles.
• While there is indeed comfort and ease in routine, there is an excitement that comes with trying something new. We cannot constantly be in such an excited state, of course, because it can wear us down, but seasons of excitement are needed to keep us engaged and interested.
• New initiatives mean new ways to connect with people. Think of it in a travelling metaphor. When you are travelling over familiar territory with people that you know, the group tends to behave in very self-sufficient ways. There is no need to stop and ask anyone else for directions. You all know where and how to get the supplies that you need. But when you are travelling over unfamiliar territory, you are often forced to deal with other people and you have to deal with them in a place where you are not the expert. There is a humility and a mutuality that is found in unfamiliar territory, attitudes that would serve the world well in the coming in this young century.
• But, of course, the most important reason for trying something new is that we are emulating our God who says:

Next Sunday, on January 19, 2020, we will be joined by the Rev. Dr. John-Peter Smit. Rev. Smit is the Regional Minister for Congregational Health with the Synod of CNOB (our synod). He will share his wisdom with us during the worship service by preaching the sermon and then, immediately after worship, we will move downstairs for a workshop. He will help us to better envision our future together as a congregation and how we can all participate together in bringing that vision to light. Rev. Smit has a long history of successfully helping congregations do this kind of work and so we hope that you will plan to come out and fully participate in this workshop. This workshop is for everyone (not just the leadership groups) and we hope that everyone will take part. Coffee tea and some light snacks will be put out to sustain us through the process but the workshop will not extend far into the afternoon. Quiet activities for children will be available in the nursery during the workshop.  

Plan to join us on this special Sunday as we kick off our Hespeler Arts Palooza!  This will be a period of 6 weeks when we will have numerous opportunities to explore our creative side.  Sign up sheets for the various workshops/lessons will be available on this last day of sign up.  Included in HAP will be:

• Start your week off with a 30 minute walk; Monday mornings, January 27 - March 2, in the gym from 9:15 am - 9:45 am.  Walk at your own pace.
• Explorations in Music for kids (and one for everyone) - 5 weeks from Sunday, February 2 - Sunday, March 1.
• Watercolour workshops led by Debbie from Debbie Ellis Watercolours, for adults
• Birdhouse building workshop for kids and their parents
• Knitting & Crocheting lessons on Tuesday mornings, from January 28 - February 18
• Milk Bag Weaving, also on a Tuesday morning
• Hymn Sing & Tea
• Open Mic Rehearsal
• Open Mic
• Master Class with Laura Pudwell, accompanist: Gregory Gibson
• Mini concert & gallery

Watch your bulletins and newsletters for more information./

Hespeler, 5 January 2020 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 31:7-14, Psalm 147:12-20, Ephesians 1:3-14, John 1:1-18

You’ve had five days, so how are you doing?

You all know what it is like at the turn of the year. Everybody else is doing it, so you tend to look back and look forward and at least pause to think about what happened in 2019 and what you’d like to happen in 2020. Many of us even make resolutions – setting out our intentions to be different in the new year. And of course, the people who run gyms and personal training companies and dieting plans all know it. Every year they sign thousands of people up for the services that they provide.

But, even though people always seem make the best of plans on the first of January, it seems just as common for people to struggle a bit on the follow-through. So, five days on, it doesn’t seem too out of place to ask how you are doing. How are you following through on that exercise regime, that diet plan, that other resolution that was going to revolutionize your life in 2020?

If you are doing well, that is great. But it’s only been five days; I think we all know that the real test is likely yet to come. And I don’t mean to mock anyone’s best intentions, but I don’t think it is any secret that, if you do follow through 100% on your New Year’s resolutions, you are definitely beating the odds. Most resolutions collapse into so much dust before the first month of the year is over.

It is almost as if making a decision on an arbitrary date on a calendar created by a man named Gregory doesn’t have the magical power to bring about all of the changes we really crave in our lives. Well, as much as I applaud everyone’s best efforts, I think that is exactly the case. But that doesn’t mean that the change you may want is out of reach for you. And actually, the instinct is good; the idea of making the change at the beginning of something is good. It is just that we may be reaching for the wrong beginning.

There is something very special about the way that John decides to begin his gospel story of Jesus. You see, the Gospel of Mark decided that Jesus’ story began when he was baptised – that you really didn’t need to know anything about him before that happened. Then Matthew and Luke came along and said, “Wait a minute, you have to go back earlier than that to understand Jesus. You have to know about what happened when he was conceived and born.”

Then it was like Matthew and Luke turned to John and said, “There’s no way you can start your story any earlier than that.” And John said, “just watch me!” He decided that you really can’t understand who Jesus is and what he did if you don’t go back way before Jesus was born – back to the very beginning of the world, in fact. “In the beginning,” he begins. And it is, of course, a very intentional echo of the opening of the Book of Genesis. But, instead of saying, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” he says, “In the beginning was the Word.”

Now, entire books – whole libraries – have been written about what John meant by that phrase, “the Word.” It refers, of course, to the fact that, in the Genesis story, God creates by speaking things into existence – by saying, “Let there be…” But it also means more than that. It refers to the biblical notion that the ideal of Wisdom (who is, interestingly enough, personified as a woman in the Proverbs) was actively present with God in the work of creation. (Proverbs 8:22-31)

Even more surprising, it is a reference to a central concept of ancient Greek philosophy. You see, John wrote his Gospel in Greek, and the Greek word he uses there, the word that is translated in English as word, is the word logos. But logos is not just the common, everyday ancient Greek word for a word. It was a special word for word that was mostly used by philosophers to talk about deeper ideas of meaning and understanding. That’s why we find it as a root in scholarly English words like biology, technology and logic.

So, in just the opening few words of his gospel, John introduces us to all sorts of interesting ideas and concepts about this world and how it came into being. But actually, the most amazing thing that he has to say about the beginning of all things is yet to come. He reveals – almost in passing, almost as if were a minor point – that this Word, this way that God spoke all things into being, this notion of divine wisdom, this organizing principle of Greek philosophy – was not something apart from God, but was, in fact, indistinguishable from God: “and the Word was God.”

But John is not quite finished blowing our minds, because there is one more key step in this story of the work of the logos in creation. A few lines later he reveals that the Word became flesh and it is clear, as you continue, that he is talking about the main character of this Gospel – that this pre-existing Word of God is one and the same as Jesus of Nazareth. And that statement left a puzzle that Christians have spent the ages arguing over and trying to understand – how could Jesus possibly be the totally human man who was known and loved by his friends in Galilee and yet also at the same time the pre-existing Word of God who was from the beginning and was also, somehow, God?

But I am not going to try and unravel all of the mysteries of the Holy Trinity today. In fact, I don’t really think that it is a mystery that can be completely understood by human thought and reason. I just want us to note, for the moment, that John believed that to truly understand Jesus and why he came and what he accomplished, you need to go back not just to his baptism, not just to his birth, but to the very beginning of all things.

And that brings us back to us and the struggles that we sometimes have to be and become the people that we want to be. As I said, we seem to feel this pull to want to make resolutions or to improve ourselves at the beginnings of things, like on the first of January. It is a correct impulse; the problem is just that we are looking towards the wrong beginning.

Here is what the Letter to the Ephesians says about you becoming your best person – the person that God always intended you to be. He says that God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” He is saying that the story of your transformation didn’t start at the beginning of the New Year but rather at the beginning of time itself. And you may say, “How can that be? I wasn’t even around way back then. I think I would remember something like that.” And no you weren’t. The apostle is not suggesting that you were a pre-existent being who was there at the beginning of all things and you just don’t remember it.

But he clearly agrees with the author of the Gospel of John that Jesus is that kind of pre-existent being and, because Jesus was there and you are in Christ today, there is a sense in which you were there too. But Ephesians adds new depth of understanding to what it was that Jesus was doing there at the beginning of all things. The idea seems to be that Jesus began his great work all the way back then. Jesus’ work of bringing the human and the divine together, of wiping away everything that could ever separate you from God and of recreating you as the best person that you can be, is not tied to just one moment in time – not even the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross or of the resurrection. It is a project that has always been intended to take all of eternity to be fully realized.

And I think that this is one idea that has always been lacking in our plans to improve ourselves. Our thinking about making ourselves better is too future oriented. We try to become better people by suppressing who we have been – by seeking only to forget or overcome the mistakes or regrets of the past. This causes a problem because we end up trying to become brand new people who are completely disconnected from everything we have ever known or been. I believe that this is actually a formula for failure. You cannot embrace change without knowing who you are or where you have come from.

And that is why Jesus is able to engender the kind of change you truly need in your life. Jesus doesn’t just know who you may become, Jesus is also intimately connected with whom you have been. But I am saying more than just that Jesus is understanding of the mistakes and the errors that you’ve made in the past or the ways in which you failed to measure up to your best intentions. The Letter to the Ephesians is saying that Jesus was there when you – everything that you were ever meant to do or be – were just a gleam in God’s eye. Jesus was in on the planning phase of your life. And Jesus has been pulling for you to become the person you were intended to be ever since. In fact, Jesus likely has a better sense of who you are supposed to be than you yourself have.

Now, I do believe that this is a notion that has often been misunderstood and even abused down through Christian history. This notion that God has a plan for people’s lives, for example, has been used to make people stay in situations where they are abused or mistreated. Slaves, for example, were often told that it was God’s good will for them that they remain slaves. Women in abusive relationships often receive the same message to this very day: this relationship is God’s will for you and therefore you have to put up with the abuse. That is a lie!

The whole point of this teaching is not that you have to accept the situation into which you were born or in which you have been placed. That would be to say that the world or that society or that the economy is what has predetermined what person you are supposed to be. No, the point of this is that Jesus knows you better then the world knows you, better than your society know you and better than the expectations that other people have put on you. Indeed, Jesus also knows you better than you know yourself and that is how you can discover, even later in life, new depths or new understandings of what God is calling you to be. This is about you learning to be true to your true self no matter what the world might think or what the world might say.

Now, what does all of this have to do with the efforts that we make to change or improve ourselves especially at the beginning of a new year? The tradition of simply making New Year’s resolutions is, I believe, ultimately a self-defeating thing. If you set out into the new year armed only with your willpower to create a better you, you will inevitably fail sooner or later and the discouragement that follows will only set you back.

I would suggest that more is needed than just decision and willpower. You need to go back, not just to the beginning of the year, but to the very beginning. Jesus was with you there and I would suggest that you begin by meditating with Jesus on how God sees you and what God is calling you to be. Do not let the fear of what other people might think get in the way. Do not waste your energy trying to conform yourself to what other people think you should be, but be transformed into that vision that God has for you. That is how true change, the change that you may crave, will come into your life.

From the Session, Deacons and staff of St. Andrew's, we wish you all God's richest blessings for 2020!