Resolutions and Why We Stink at Them (Sermon 1-2-11)

John 1:1-18
Ephesians 1:1-14


 Happy New Year! This morning I’m going to ask the same question that I would guess about 95% of pastors are going to ask their congregations: It’s been 24 hours, how are you doing on your resolution? Anybody doing great? Anybody doing so-so? Anybody already give up? Anybody decide that their resolution was going to be not to make a resolution?

That’s been my resolution for the past couple years now. For a long while, every New Years and Lent, it always seemed like I was making up a decision at the last minute, remembering that “oh yeah, everybody else is going to have one, I need one too.” I wonder, am I the only one, or do most people make these resolutions just because “it’s the thing to do.”

Do any of us really put that much stock in the power of having to hang a new calendar and remember to put ‘11 instead of ‘10 when you date a check? Did anyone wake up yesterday morning and say to themselves “Ahhhh, it’s a fresh year”? I imagine a pretty large number of folks woke up yesterday morning and instead said “ooohhh, owww, why did I do that to myself?”



While Erin and I were watching the festivities on the T.V. the other night, in between tending to a son with the flu, they interviewed several of the visitors to Times Square, asking the usual string of questions: where they came from, why they chose to celebrate there, what their hopes were for the New Year, et cetera et cetera. One guy they interviewed told the lady doing the interviews that he and his friends had come down from part of Canada and had been there the year before.

The Lady asked him about their previous experience, and the guy said that “this year is soooo much better.” She then asked him why, and with a keen sense of insight and a serene perspective filled with wisdom, he told her “BECAUSE IT’S TWO-THOUSAND ELEVEN BABY! WOOHOO!” And I thought to myself “really?” I mean, two weeks from now, is anyone going to be walking around, reveling in the fact that it’s no longer 2010 but is now 2011?

In fact, I was thinking the other day, while I’m not one to hate on any particular holiday, any chance to get together and have fun, if there was any holiday which I were to hate, New Years Day would probably be it. New Year’s Eve, sure, it’s fun, staying up late, watching the ball drop, eating finger foods and playing card games, and so on. But New Years Day, and New Years in general, are pretty anti-climatic holidays.

Think about it. First, it follows directly on the heels of the best holiday of the year. Second, it includes no presents, nothing to look forward to after the clock strikes twelve besides some corned beef and cabbage. Third, unless you’re an ancient Roman believer in the God Janus, from whom this month takes its name, there is absolutely no significance to the particular date at all. It just happened to be the one that was picked. There’s no religious significance; there isn’t even any solar or celestial significance to the day. New Year’s Day is a day when, frankly, nothing happens. Lastly, in addition to falling in Christmas’ shadow, not having any presents, and having no significance, it occurs during the downward slope of one of the most unpleasant times of the year, at least from my perspective. I hate the cold.

And yet, every year, millions of people persuade themselves to believe in the catharsis of a New Year and the power of the human will to mold and shape its own destiny. Every year we’re asked “what’s your resolution?” Or “how are you going to make this year different?” I don’t know for certain, but I have an intuition that there may be several companies which depend upon the popular mythology of New Years in order to increase their end-of-the-year profit margins. Nicorette, Slim Fast, as well as Tylenol, I imagine, all probably make a killing around this time of year. Maybe I should buy some stock in them next December.

Or maybe, for some people, it seems like a time to “pay the piper” so to speak. Perhaps for the first half of the year they were fending off questions about “when are you going to quit smoking?” or, “when are you going to get back to working out?” or, last year’s trend-setter, “when are you going to reduce your carbon footprint?” And after a while it just became easier to say “it’ll be my New Year’s resolution.” Certainly more friendly than “back off and mind your own business.”

Then when New Years rolls around, it’s time to screw up your nerve, pump up the old will-power, and give it a try. Studies show, of course, that although 52% of people are generally pretty confident about their ability to achieve their New Year’s resolution, only about 12% are actually effective.

Why is that? Why is it that every December 31st, most of the western world gets excited about changing some aspect of their life, and yet by January 1st only 12% have actually done it?

I think, and don’t take me as too much of a pessimist when I say this, but I think the majority of the world realizes there’s something wrong. And in response they’re doing the only thing they know how to do to try and fix it. I won’t say that we think, but I believe we at least feel like, if we could just get off the smokes, or just loose those last few pounds, or just get a more fuel efficient car, the world, while not perfect, will at least be alright again.

Now, I repeat those particular three goals because they highlight the fact that our resolutions tend to be, though not always, set on achieving very contemporary goals. What I mean is that our decisions to change our lives for the better often follow the changing trends of what our culture says a good life consists of. We change the game while we simultaneously change the goals.

Human beings realize that something is wrong, and we’re in search of something better. But every few years we change our opinion on what that better thing is.

Our first passage for today, from John, tells us:

3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

But, he continues later:

10He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

St. Augustine, in his famous book “Confessions” gives a line which, I think, summarizes very succinctly the general motivation behind many of the resolutions which are made every New Year. He says, in a prayer to God: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

The human heart, apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ who is the light of the lives of humanity, is desperately restless. It wants to both discover what a better life is, and then achieve it.  And in order to do so, at times we desperately cleave to that 12%, that margin of human success in achieving our resolution.

Now, I’m not a business man, nor am I a gambler. But I’m pretty sure any business man or gambler would tell you that 12%, well, that’s not a good spread. If your favorite team only wins 12% of the time, you can be pretty sure that you’re not going to be celebrating this year at the Superbowl. If your business only has a profitable year 12% of the time, it’s time to find a new business.

In our passage from Ephesians today, we see one of the classic proof texts of Calvinism. It’s all about predestination; God, the one who’s will never fails, choosing to act on our behalf. Whatever you believe about predestination, whether you’re a Calvinist, Arminian, or somewhere in between like myself, the clear point of this passage is that it is God who does the actual work which we receive as a free blessing, a gift of grace, through Jesus Christ.

Paul tells us that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Him. Likewise, John told us in our first passage that He has given us “grace upon grace.” You see, despite our success rate, when we look ahead at what’s coming in 2011, whatever resolutions we may have made, we know that the fact is, 2011 is going to bring with it some hard times. Just like 2010 brought some hard times, as did 2009, and 2008, and so on throughout all of history.

But we also know that the same God who chose us from the foundations of the world, the same God who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, the same God who saw us through 2010, is going to be with us yet again in 2011. We know that, though our feeble 12% will not make our lives ideal, just like every other human attempt to make us happy by means of some sort of law, in Christ we have received “grace upon grace;” through Christ came grace and truth.

And so, perhaps, our resolution this year ought to be, not to make for ourselves a resolution, but to abandon ourselves to the resolute will of God. To cleave desperately to the one who has resolved to love us, forgive us, save us, heal us, and carry us through each and every year until we see Him face to face, when all the world and resolution-making has passed away. Amen.