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A NEW YOU
(A sermon preached March 18, 2007 at University United Methodist Church, East
Lansing MI, by John Ross Thompson)
Scripture Texts: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
What do these things have in common?
Weight Watchers
Botox
Fitness Gyms
Home Exercise Equipment
Estee Lauder
Fad psychology
South Beach
All of these promise a “new you.”
Have you heard about “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne? "The Secret," as described in
the thunderously successful DVD and book, essentially says that you can get
anything you want — health, wealth, love — simply by thinking it. The book calls
it the law of attraction: "When you think of the things that you want, and you
focus on them with all of your intention, then the law of attraction will give
you exactly what you want … every time." Proponents of the secret say it's
scientific: Positive thoughts attract positive things; negative thoughts attract
negative things. You don't get fat because of food. You get fat because you
think food will make you fat.
I believe in positive thinking, but I don’t recommend this book.
Do you think those who promote these things have been reading 2 Corinthians?
How many of you made a new year’s resolution?
How many of you are keeping your new year’s resolution? Only about 40% of people
do.
In the 2 Corinthians text, Paul promises that in each of us in Christ there will
be a new creation.
Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son features a son who “came to himself”
and had a constructive new beginning.
In the Old Testament story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness (from
the book of Joshua), God’s people reach the Promised Land, the daily manna from
God ends, and there is a new beginning.
What would it be like for us if that happened to us?
We’ve been on a Lenten journey, repenting of what we have been and what we have
done, and looking toward Easter. Today’s scriptures begin to show us what the
end of this journey can bring.
Luke is uniquely concerned with assuring us of God's forgiveness; he is the only
gospel author to portray (in the parable of the Prodigal Son) a God who runs to
meet us as we return from our self-imposed exiles. Who else but God can welcome
us back from our most devastating screw-ups?
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Lent – Rejoice Sunday, a respite from the
austerity and discipline of the rest of the season. A foretaste of Easter.
When in the 18th century Jonathan Edwards proposed signs to separate true
religious experience from its counterfeits, the Puritan preacher recommended
that we look for joy. It was, he held, the dead giveaway that God was present in
someone's life. Roman Catholic spiritual director Baron Friedrich von Hugel
reminded us that the canonization process in his tradition required that we find
joy in the lives of candidates for sainthood, or their causes would be poked
full of holes. He quoted and approved St. Philip Neri's observation: "There is
no such thing as a sad saint." Protestant theologian Emil Brunner wrote, "Joy is
the feeling we have when we really are ourselves." Paul Tillich, in agreement,
said, "Joy is nothing else than an awareness of being fulfilled in our true
being." Karl Rahner has written a splendid essay placing joy at the heart of the
mysticism of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order.
I suggest that such joy can be evidence of God’s new creation in us.
For some of us, there may be a radical change like Paul’s. Paul saw the big
difference.
Or, it may be a gradual change, as happens to most of us. We can see it better
looking backward, or see it in someone else.
Conversion, however, is a long process. It is not accomplished in an instant or
with one word, but it is a lifetime process of turning, again and again.
The Israelites discovered this when they ended their long journey from captivity
to liberation. Upon reaching the promised land, they began to cultivate and eat
their own food; no longer could they depend on manna from heaven: "The manna
ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer
had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year" (Joshua 5:12).
God sustained the Israelites through 40 years of hardship as the Israelites
prepared for freedom, and finally it was time for the Israelites to take
responsibility for their end of the covenant. It was time to grow their faith
until it produced life-giving fruits for the community and for God.
Our Methodist tradition calls this new creation “going on to perfection”.
We could just as well call it becoming more Christ-like.
What is clear is that when we are “in Christ” we have something more.
“New creation” is becoming all that God created us to be, opening ourselves to
possibilities, taking a giant step toward the future. It is permitting God to do
God’s thing in us.
Who are you in the prodigal son parable?
The moment of change was when the prodigal son “came to himself”.
I can identify with him, remembering well a time in my life when I determined
that I was not meant by God to live a “less than” life, but to reach for a new
life. This was my “came to himself” experience
The prodigal father welcomed back the wayward son, finding a newness in his
life.
Perhaps the elder son also found newness of life. We can only guess.
“Ours is a both/and, not an either/or, God.”
What will “the new you” look like?
It will be a lot like the best that you already know.
Perhaps the good in you that you wish could be true all of the time.
“It is God’s doing” not ours.
God, create newness in all of us through Christ our Lord, Amen.
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