CHRISTMAS II-A, January 2, 2005

I don’t know about you, but I always thought I was doing something good by making New Year’s Resolutions every January First. I’ve made resolutions to go on a diet. I’ve made resolutions to be more considerate of my family. I’ve made resolutions to take more time for myself, for my personal, physical and spiritual well being. When I think about those particular resolutions, I honestly think they are pretty good. The sad part is that as good as these many resolutions were, I was just as good at not keeping them, as anyone can tell my looking at my waistline.

To be honest, I’m at the point in my life where I have finally come to realize that the reason why I never keep any of these good resolutions for very long, if at all, is that they are just that: resolutions. A resolution is a way of solving -- resolving -- a problem. Want to lose weight? Go on a diet. Want to make family life what it should be? Be more considerate to the members of your family. Want to keep myself sane? Take some time, make some time, for myself on a regular basis. Good resolutions and good ideas all.

However, a resolution only goes so far. A resolution tells me what I should or maybe should not do. But in order to do what has to be done, what I need is not a resolution but a revolution, a revolt, a revolving of my life, a turning around of what is to what should be. Revolutions are battles, wars even. They are wars with myself. I have to fight myself to do what I know has to be done. And even if I know that what has to be done must be done, and if I resolve to do it, it is still a battle to get it done.

Think of the military revolutions across the centuries. No matter how right and how just the cause, it was never, ever easy. Hardships had to be endured. Changes in lifestyle and thinking were demanded. Sacrifice was essential. The revolution would not have succeeded otherwise. Total commitment is demanded with any revolution. And that is not easy. It is not easy for us. It was not easy for God.

You see, that is what Christianity is all about. That is what God becoming one of us is all about. Christianity is not only a new way of being in relationship with God. Christianity is also a new way for God being God. The New Testament is all about God changing the way God was going to be God if God was going to get his work and his will done. The Old Testament way did not work. The God of the Old Testament was a God somewhere out there. Yes, He spoke to His prophets. Yes, He worked through various people like Abraham and Moses and David. But it didn’t work.

If God was to get His work done, God would have to change the way God was going to be God. God changed that way by coming among us in Jesus. It was a revolutionary way of being God. Hardships had to be endured. Changes in God’s way of thinking, even God’s lifestyle were demanded. Sacrifice was essential. Total commitment was demanded. And that was what God did in Jesus - in Jesus’ life, his death on the cross, his resurrection.

Now I will grant that that sounds like I am making God into some kind of super human being who thinks and acts just like you and me, only on a much higher level. I agree that it sounds that way. However, if we compare the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New, God acts as God in two different ways. Again, the God of the Old Testament related to His people as someone standing off on the side giving orders, making sure things were done the way He wanted them done, punishing and rewarding as the situation demanded. He was the boss.

The God of the New Testament became not a boss but a servant. He came to live among us as one of us. It demanded a new way for God to be God. It was a revolutionary way for God to be God because it demanded total commitment on God’s part.

Total commitment: that is what revolutions demand. I don’t know about you, but that is why I fail with my resolutions. I don’t give them my total commitment because I’m not that ready to change my lifestyle. It is too easy the way it is and too hard, too difficult to change. I want to be able to eat all the donuts I want and still not gain weight. I would like to do whatever I want and still have my family love every minute of my selfishness. I would still like to run and run and run and stay healthy in mind and body. You too?

It is never too late to change. God waited thousands of years before sending His Son. He endured countless failures with His chosen people. But failure is only final when we stop trying. Throughout the whole of the Old Testament God never stopped trying to be God to His people. Failure is also an opportunity to begin again more intelligently. God began again in Jesus, if you will.

Now I know I am treading on dangerous ground trying to read the mind of God, trying to read into the ways and thoughts of God. In human terms God became one of us in Jesus because that was the intelligent thing to do, the wise thing, because it was the only way you and I could ever understand God and God’s love for us. The story of Jesus is the story of God resolving to revolt, to change the way God is God. That is not to say God did not have this in mind from the very beginning. It is only to say that when we compare the Old Testament with the New, we compare the way God is God.

Yet, the same must be said for you and for me. If we are truly going to resolve to live our lives the way we know they should be lived, we need a revolution, not a bunch of good, worthy, honorable resolutions. Nothing short of a personal revolution will make any resolution a reality. We have to be willing to pay the price, be willing to turn our lives around, revolt from the old life in order to make the new. But are we doing so?

Someone once said that we are going to be what we are now becoming. If we want to know what our life will look like a year from now or years from now, all we have to do is look at our life right now. Do we make resolutions we don’t keep? Do we make half-hearted attempts at living out our faith? Is our faith life good enough? If we answer "yes," then we know what the future will look like.

I suspect that one of the main reasons why our resolutions fail and why we are reluctant to enter into a revolution as far as our life is concerned is not that we are simply satisfied with the way we are. Most of us are not, and probably justifiably so. We all could be better. We could all do a better job at living out our faith. Rather, I think our problem is that we tend to believe that we have to go it alone. And that’s silly.

No revolutions are ever accomplished alone. We cannot change our personal lifestyle or the lifestyle of another or even of a nation all by ourselves. We need the help and support of others. That is what this parish family is all about. It is about us supporting one another in being and becoming the person God calls us to be, the person we must resolve to be. We also need the help and support of God. Jesus couldn’t do what He did without the love and support of God the Father and without the love and support, even if it wasn’t very strong at times, of the people He gathered around him. Neither can we.

A resolution is a resolution. But a revolution is what changes our life and changes the world in the process. To change our lives we need to resolve to revolt and then get on with the revolution knowing that we will not be fighting alone. May we all have a revolting and revolutionary New Year.