Luke 2: 41-52
Did anyone come to breakfast this morning at your house and announce – “I’m so hungry, I feel as if I haven’t eaten since last year!”?
It’s fun to play with all the brand-new possibilities open to us on January 1. If you went jogging this morning, then you’ve exercised every day this year. Get through lunch without eating potato chips or a candy bar, and this year reflects a whole new healthy and perfectly-kept diet regime. So far this year, perhaps you have never cussed at someone, never yelled at the kids, never forgotten to floss, and never thrown your dirty clothes on the bathroom floor!
On January 1 our whole life can be transformed. For one day at least, all our good intentions can be jump-started, and all our bad habits can be unplugged. At least for a few hours (or minutes?), the year is a perfect reflection of our best self.
But January 1 is followed inevitably by January 2 and January 3. Someday soon we will opt for staying in a cozy bed a few more minutes rather than plunging out into the cold on that jog or walk. Pretty soon candy wrappers will start appearing in our desk drawer again. By the 4th or 5th, we will surely have been aggravated enough at a bad driver or a dropped glass or a stubbed toe to have let loose a blue streak of bad words or less than caring thoughts. And by the 7th, our socks are back on the bathroom floor and our dental floss is gathering dust.
For all but a few of us, most New Year’s resolutions get packed away with the last of the Christmas decorations. By Epiphany our behavior and the whole New Year are just as tarnished as they were before January 1.
The problem with most of our resolutions is that they are too safe, too sensible and too self-centered. We resolve to make tiny cosmetic changes in our lifestyles – but refuse to consider restructuring our lives and changing the paradigms by which we live. Luke’s single story about the boy Jesus offers us an example of what it would mean if we were to transform our lives by making the ultimate resolution, the mother of all New Year’s resolutions, the resolution that ends all resolutions – to declare that from this day forward we will be “about [our] Father’s business.”
Joseph and Mary, their friends, neighbors and relatives, all made the required pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. But as soon as the allotted time for the holiday was over, they hit the road – anxious to get back to all the chores and responsibilities that filled their lives. Joseph, a craftsman working with wood, undoubtedly had projects awaiting his attention. Mary would have had the hundreds of time-consuming tasks it took to keep her family fed and clothed. Like most of us at the end of an extended vacation, they were probably looking forward to getting back to the comfortable familiarity of their own hearth and home.
But the young Jesus refuses to let his relationship with God be regulated according to some prearranged, culturally imposed schedule. Instead of going along with the return-to-business-as-usual attitude, Jesus answered the most important call of all – to be about his Father’s business.
What would it mean if we were to act in a similar fashion? What would it mean to live, not according to human expectations or cultural patterns, but according to what God required of us? What does it mean to be about God’s business, rather than other people’s business, or even other people’s definition of God’s business? Jesus discovered at this early age that answering God’s expectations can get you in trouble – even with your own family. In fact, focusing on God’s business may put an unexpected crimp in the family business. “Business-as-usual” may not be the way God does business. And the world and the Church can find that unnerving.
The ultimate New Year’s resolution does not challenge us to cut fat grams, or quit smoking, or get to aerobics class twice a week. The ultimate resolution a Christian can make is to live in the light of divine intentions, not human inventions. The New Year’s resolution to end all resolutions is to live under the umbrella of God’s expectations and to make it my business and your business to be a part of God’s business.
But this just begs a bigger question: What is God’s business?
God’s business is transformation. An electrical transformer takes high voltage and transforms it into energy that we can use in our everyday lives. Without a transformer, there could be no light in the darkness, no safety in the storm. At Bethlehem, God came to us and gave us Jesus the Christ, who transforms in his life the love and power of God into the impulses of grace and justice that the world so desperately needs.
So what does the Christian who resolves to be a part of God’s transforming work on January 1 do on Monday, January 2? There are two essential requirements: First, we must delve deeply into God’s Word – the Bible. Second, we must go widely into the world.
1. The Word. When the young Jesus felt called to live beyond business-as-usual and answered the call of God’s business, he first went to the temple. In other words, he steeped himself in the meanings and messages of God’s Word. Knowing what God intends for men and women, learning what God has already said and done and promised for this world, is a necessary first step in the transformative process.
2. The World. Being about God’s business doesn’t mean we do nothing but sit in the temple – in the church, all day long and discuss theology. Remember that while Jesus started out in the temple, he then obediently followed Joseph and Mary back out into the world.
We cannot be a part of transforming the world unless we stand in its midst. That is the trouble with our traditional New Year’s resolutions – they never step outside the confines of our own self-centered existence.
What if instead of resolving to lose 10 pounds this year, you resolved to eat according to a diet that could sustain the whole world?
What if instead of resolving to get more exercise this year, you resolved to exercise some spiritual muscles and committed to spend time studying the Bible on a regular basis?
What if instead of resolving to spend less time in front of the TV and more time reading some good books, you resolved to teach those struggling with illiteracy to read those books to you?
What if instead of resolving to spend more “quality time” with your family,
you resolved to involve your whole family in a local mission project that directly serves those in need in our own community?
Your life, your commitment to the ultimate resolution, can help the love of God through Christ to transform the world. Today is January 1. A fresh New Year lies unblemished before us. What do you resolve to be on January 2 – and for the rest of your life?
