LIVING DIFFERENTLY IN 2007

Luke 2: 25-32

When was the last time you were in church? Some were in church last for a wedding or a funeral; some for a Christmas service; some for a service weeks earlier. Little things have changed since you were last in church: the stage was up last Sunday and is down today; the table is down today and the kneeling bench is up as we ordain elders; poinsettias are on stands and the Christ candle has multiplied into seven lights on each candelabra, representing the gifts that Jesus said were upon him as he quoted Isaiah: the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge of and fear of the Lord, and piety. So we commemorate the fact that Christ the Savior is born and today’s text takes us to yet another event in his young life. Big things have also occurred this week. For some of you a loved one died, got sick, got well, got baptized, or got married. Since you were last in church, the world changed too: Saddam Hussein was executed and President Gerald Ford died after a long 93 years of life. But life, history and circumstances do not just affect you; you also will affect history, circumstances in 2007. Starting tomorrow, your life will be affected not just by what comes your way, but by what you produce and decide to offer to the world. Human weakness, human error, or human choice may pull a support stick out from under you and “Kerplunk!” your world will change. Or you, by faithful or faithless actions, will also undergird your world or cause it to crash to the ground. We are on the cusp of choices today. Take the choices that Chuck Colson and Jeb Magruder made, for instance. They were on the President Nixon team that became famous because of the Watergate scandal. Colson was counsel to the President; Magruder, who ironically had managed Donald Rumsfeld’s campaign to be elected to Congress in 1962, was chosen as special assistant to President Nixon in 1969. After their involvement in the Watergate scandal was brought to light, they could have fallen deeper into their self-made darkness. Instead, Chuck Colson pleaded guilty and turned to Jesus, starting his now famous Christian Prison Fellowship ministry that thrives to this day. Magruder pled guilty and ended up sitting next to me in classes at Princeton Seminary and was in my 1981 graduating class. He has now pastored three Presbyterian Churches. People take their circumstances and decide to use them for good … or not. You have the same choices before you.

Long ago when Jesus was still a child, Mary and Joseph had their lives changed with words that challenged them and blessed God: Simeon, upon seeing the child Jesus, was moved by God’s Spirit to proclaim that eyes had now seen the salvation from God. He anxiously scooped the baby boy up in his arms, blessed God, and was ready to breathe his last because of what he saw in this boy’s face. A circumstance of which he had dreamed but never expected to see that day happened and changed his life and ours as we got to listen in on that holy blessing.

Dr. Robert Schuller tells the story of entertainer Danny Thomas deciding to live differently one year as he struggled early in his career. In his early years he had suffered setback after setback. During one of his darkest moments, he was cornered in Detroit by a man who handed him a pamphlet telling about Jude, the patron saint of the hopeless. “When St. Jude does you a favor, you’re supposed to tell people about it, spread his name, and carry pamphlets” Danny Thomas told others. But still his setbacks didn’t stop. He began to wonder if he should try another profession. Finally he went to church to pray for direction. He didn’t bargain with God saying anything like “If I become a star I’ll build a shrine to St. Jude.” No; he merely prayed for enough success that he would be able to care for his family. But, as God’s plan or circumstances would have it, he did grow successful, but in so doing, he never forgot his sense of having an unsettled debt of thanks to God. Since he loved children, he decided to do something to help those who were sick and poor. In 1962 St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital was founded in Memphis, Tennessee with Danny Thomas there as founder, fund raiser, and number one flag waver. Over the years, he has stayed involved in giving longer life and quality years to children who are ill. Danny Thomas did what others can do in 2007: he exchanged gifts that he received and turned them into gifts for others. “Miracles multiply when you follow the three steps that John the Baptist gave so many years ago:

Change your life. Make an about-face toward God.

Rearrange your life so He can enter and take control.

Exchange your gifts. As you make your way across the rocks, take time to serve as a stepping stone for others.” [THE WORLD’S GREATEST COMEBACKS, Nelson Press 1988, p. 78].

Some here today may be ready to leave angry responses in 2006 and pick up learned control of their temper in 2007- what a gift that would be to those around you! Some here may be ready to leave arrogance in 2006 and begin 2007 with a new acknowledgement that they can learn from others. Some may be ready to leave dishonesty and the tangled web it has woven in 2006 and try truthful living in 2007, even with all that it will take to “come clean” with others.? And what persons here today would be willing to find ways to leave reactions of disappointment and harping criticism behind in 2006 and let people instead learn from the bed of their own consequences in 2007?

Today, God is offering us all the best last offer we’ll get this year: to prepare ourselves right now to leave old destructive habits on the communion table of grace that drive away family, or friends, or jobs, and to pick up new habits of hope and nurture from Jesus as he feeds us with the cup, the bread, and the Word. Consider now what you will leave behind, and then, with this day of new beginnings, decide what changes you will take from the Table of God’s grace to make a difference in 2007.

Jeffrey A. Sumner December 31, 2006