A New Year a new resolution

Today we face the reality of an approaching New Year with its attendant resolutions, most of which will have been broken within a 24 hour period or slightly longer.  The resolutions that we make may well be made with fervour and real striving but will fail ultimately because there will be no one around to assist or help or walk alongside as we strive for the goal.  In Isaiah the prophet is rejoicing because the possibility has been achieved because God has walked with the people (Is 61.10-11).  As a Church and a Denomination and a Parish we too need to make a resolution and each of us needs to walk with each other and with God to achieve the resolution.  If we need to make a resolution what is that going to be?  Perhaps, a fairly pointless question as each one of us will have a different resolution to put forward and it is highly unlikely that any of us will agree fully on the way forward, in the end it will be the best fit rather than the one thing everyone wants.  Adjustments have to be made to accommodate everybody and in the end this will mean that a true goal is not aimed for or reached.  Why?  Simply stated we are all political and want to attain what we as individuals see as being optimal for us as individuals.

The prophesy for Mary was as individual as they come.  Simeon starts of revealing greatness and ends with sadness (Lk. 2.28-35).  Greatness in the Saviour sadness in the heart of Mary.  If our resolution aligns with Christ and God perhaps it is inevitable that some will feel sorrow.  However, sorrow is sometimes pointing to our own inadequacies rather than to the poverty of the outcome of the resolution.  In seeking for the future, we must allow the future to embed itself within us rather than being something that we drag up from the past to make into a "future".  In allowing God's Spirit into our lives and following the will of the Spirit we open ourselves to sadness and joy.  Just as Mary is foretold to have her heart rent (Lk. 2.34b) we too will have our hearts rent.  Simply this is a result of our own wants being dashed, maybe not as drastically as Mary but in some respects in a very similar way.  Mary would have wanted her child to have a long and productive life.  Maybe even as the prophesied King or even as a favoured prophet within the Judaic way.  She certainly did not wish or want an early death let alone one upon a cross.  However, she did not cling to what she wanted but she allowed the Spirit to direct her place and her dreams so that we to could dream with Mary of a new world.

God walks with us if we allow him to but it means giving up our wants

Our inability to allow ourselves to be taken by God and shepherded by God, and companioned by God draws us backwards rather than towards the new life that God promises all his children.  We companion our children through life, some not as well as others, but if we can do it why cannot we allow God to undertake this with his children (all of us) (Gal. 4.7).  We ourselves were companioned by others as we grew up and as we entered into the workforce.  Is it only because we have been taught that spiritual reality is not a true part of life? or is it because we do not want to give up our desires for the greater good of our communities?  Reading "The Well Tempered City" by Jonathan Rose made me stop to think what we would really be like if we lived out the dreams of God in community, if we stopped to consider the rest of our community rather than just ourselves, if we actually managed to be advocates for those who are the poorest of the poor in our communities, if we had the capacity to build using the environment as a partner rather than as a usable and disposable commodity?  Perhaps, our New Years resolution is to follow the call of God and not be persuaded to follow our dreams, to put up with the sadness but to live the glory.  Only when we have become a place of peace and justice will we really understand what it means to be part of God's call.