First Reading 1 Kings 3:4-15
4 And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.” 6 And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. 7 And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. 8 And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. 9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” 10 It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. 11 And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, 12 behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. 13 I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. 14 And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.” 15 And Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.
Psalm Psalm 119:97-104
97 Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. 98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. 101 I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. 102 I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. 103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104 Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
Second Reading Ephesians 1:3-14
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Gospel Luke 2:40-52
40 And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. 41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
A New Name for a New Year
Well let me be among the first to wish you a blessed New Year and welcome you to the beginning of decade number three of this 21st century! And to go along with the good wishes we receive, one of the things we seem to do, as we begin a new year, is to make resolutions. We reflect on our successes and on our shortcomings and we promise ourselves that we’ll do better, so we set new goals for ourselves. Some of these pledges we make are doable, but some, are pretty lofty. A minister friend of mine wrote in the church newsletter that he was setting two goals for the new year. His first goal was to clean up his desk; a monumental task indeed! His second goal was to find last year’s goals.
Some of you may remember the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip. In one strip, Calvin and Hobbes are talking about the New Year. Calvin says, “I’m getting disillusioned with these new years. They don’t seem very new at all. Each new year is just like the old year. Here another year has gone by and everything is still the same. There’s still pollution and war and stupidity and greed. Things haven’t changed. I say what kind of future is this? I thought things were supposed to improve. I thought the future was supposed to be better.” Hobbes replies with his usual keen insight, “The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.” Think about that statement for a moment: “the problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.” That’s a statement worth pondering! You see, sadly, there are two constants in our lives: one, we don’t like change, and two, we do like the status quo.
The beginning of a new year is traditionally a time for reflection. We look back over the previous year and assess our triumphs and failures. We gain satisfaction from our successes, and we lament our short comings. Each time we face a new beginning, we have expectations that things will be different and hopefully better. But as Hobbes says, the future just keeps turning into more of the present. That may be why some of us come to church; we gather in the hope that the Holy Spirit may work anew in us, and the future will be full of exciting new possibilities; that we will experience positive change and new growth. We grow tired of the “same old, same old,” yet, we resist change.
Two men were discussing one of their colleagues. One said, “Did you know he has 30 years of experience in his field?” To this his friend responded, “Actually, he doesn’t have thirty years of experience: He’s had one year of experience thirty times.” The future keeps turning into the present for their coworker. But this isn’t what God wants for us. Look again at our epistle lesson from Ephesians chapter 1 for this first Sunday of the New Year: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves” (Eph. 1:3-6). What an uplifting passage for us to start the new year with.
We are God’s chosen ones. We were predestined to be His elect. Now I’m not wanting to sound like a prosperity preacher, but God doesn’t want our lives to be humdrum, meaningless, or have lives filled with depressing routines. God wants something better for us than mediocrity. This is why it’s important for us to recognize a couple of things as we begin this New Year. First, we need to acknowledge that God loves doing a new thing in and through us. Jesus said in Revelation 21:5: “See I am making everything new.” God also said something very similar through His prophet Isaiah, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:18-19). That is the exciting thing about serving God. With God, change is always good.
Now I want to be very careful here, there are plenty of folks in “progressive churches” who abuse these passages and others like them, to justify sinful, self-centered behavior. God’s word wasn’t given for us to bend to our wishes. And to prevent errant interpretation, we must first remember what God said in Malachi 3:6, “I the LORD do not change”, as well as what the writer of Hebrews tells us, “God is the same yesterday today and forever” (13:8). The second thing we must take into account is that unless a law or statute God commanded is fulfilled, His commands and statutes are still in effect. The problem is, we, as sinful human beings, want to interpret the Bible to suit our selfish desires. That means we must “divide God’s word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15) prayerfully, carefully and faithfully. This is why we, in the NALC, have as one of our core values, that we are to remain Traditional Grounded.
Being Traditionally Grounded means that anytime we look to clarify and understand God’s word, we also look to see how the church has interpreted the passage throughout history. This practice helps us to remain faithful in our preaching and teaching. With that in mind, we then can take comfort in that fact that when we’re obedient to and serve God with our whole hearts, God can do a new thing in and through us. God has proven, over and over, that He wants the best for us. But the problem is, you and I are often afraid of change. Add to this the fact that we love the status quo.
Someone once commented that status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” It can be dangerous sticking to the status quo. For example, something happened in 1906 that dramatically changed the game of football. Prior to 1906, football had been a low-scoring game of running and kicking. Guys in leather helmets plodded down the field methodically seeking to overpower the other team. Have you ever heard the expression “three yards and a cloud of dust?” This was the strategy employed throughout football before 1906. Then something revolutionary happened.
The forward pass was legalized, making it possible to gain twenty, thirty, forty or more yards with one throw. During that first season, however, most teams stayed with the tried-and-true way of playing the game, “three yards and a cloud of dust”. One team, however, took another approach. Coaches at St. Louis University decided to switch to an offense that incorporated the forward pass. That first season they outscored their opponents 402 to 11! In many cases, change is good and for the better. God loves change, especially when it’s a change that moves us away from a self-focused life, to a life centered on God and His will for our lives. God’s desire for His creation has always been what’s best. But our idea of what’s best isn’t always in line with God’s, even when we have the best of intensions. That’s why we set goals and make declarations at the beginning of a new year.
But the resolutions we make are sometimes hard to keep. How many of us pledge repeatedly to drop an old habit and begin a new one? And yet, it seems that many of those well intended resolutions are shattered the same day we make them. Turning over a new leaf is hard. What we need is transformation, not inspiration. Not a resolution, but a revolution. We need change in our lives that comes from God. What each of us need is something that will permanently affect our life situation. What we need is something that will truly satisfy our longings, something that will bring true and lasting change. What we need is for God to do a new thing within us. And that can happen. God loves doing a new thing, especially when that new thing reorients our lives on God. This brings us to the second thing God loves to do.
God loves giving people a new name. A new name symbolizes new beginnings, new possibilities. Consider Simon Peter, the disciple who forgot Jesus’ teaching about turning the other cheek and slashed a man’s ear off with a sword; the disciple who fled when danger neared, and the one who denied his Master with a curse. Jesus dared to call him the “Rock.” Jesus knew his real name. Everyone knew Simon as a man with volatile emotions. He was impetuous. He was quick to speak and to react. There were times that he was uncertain of himself, and times that he couldn’t make up his mind. His emotional reactions were, at best, unpredictable. A rock was the last thing most people associated with Simon.
Everyone knew his vacillating emotions were his weakness, but Jesus saw through Simon’s weakness and told him that his weak point could be his strength through the transforming power of God. Jesus determined that he would use Simon’s fiery emotions and his impetuous actions to accomplish God’s purposes in the world. And so, Jesus renamed Simon what He needed him to be, a “Rock.” This is what we need as well.
What each of us need is for someone who can look beyond our faults and short comings and not only love us, but also expect the best from us. Someone who will believe in us, who will give us another chance, someone who will call us by another name. But this can be hard, it requires honesty on our part and a willingness to accept criticism and change. Another problem we experience is that we can be our own worst critic.
Often, we’re far more aware of our own weaknesses and imperfections than we are of our strengths. Again, we must be careful here, one extreme of self-awareness is arrogance, and we can’t fall into that trap. The other extreme is, that if we’re not careful, we can fall into the snare of feeling inadequate and guilty. When we do this, we feel like much of what we do turns out wrong. We’ve all had more than our fair share of failures. Sometimes our short comings negatively affect others. There may even be times when our short-comings cause others to only expect failure from us. These types of feelings can cause a sense of self-doubt and lead to us looking inwardly rather than to God. In these cases, Jesus longs to bring about change and to give us a new name. He longs to provide us with the needed changes that transforms our lives.
Listen to the words the Lord spoke through Isaiah: “The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” (Isaiah 62:2-3). It’s sad to see the number of people who think God sees only the bad in them. These people believe that God is more focused on their failures than He is on the good that’s in them.
These folks think that God wants nothing more than to find something that they say or do wrong so that He can pounce on them and punish them. These people need to be reassured that God is much more concerned over the good in them than He is about their short comings. God loves us as His children and wants what’s best for us, even to prosper us. We need to bear in mind that while we’re condemning ourselves, God is trying to help us realize His love, concern and forgiveness.
St. John records in his first epistle, “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20). While we’re busy calling ourselves “failures,” God longs to strengthen us and when we turn to Him, to forgive us. God wants to give us a new name, but far too many want the status quo and keep insisting that their name hasn’t changed. You may remember Cervantes’ story of Don Quixote.
Cervantes was thrown into prison in Seville, Spain. Finding himself at the mercy of a band of cutthroats, he tries to divert their ill-meaning intensions by telling them his story of Don Quixote, the “Man of La Mancha.” In the story, Don Quixote pictures himself as a chivalrous knight. He goes forth to right all the wrongs of the world, but he’s a man who lives in a world of impossible dreams. His armor is shabby, and his horse is aging. He rides for his fair lady whom he calls Dulcinea, which means, “Sweetness.” But Dulcinea is far from a fair lady. She’s a prostitute in a country tavern. She assures him that she’s “the most casual bride of the murderous scum of the earth.” Her real name, she says, is Aldonza. She resents Quixote’s intrusion in her life and screams at him, insisting that she is no kind of lady. But Don Quixote persists, “And still thou art my lady.”
He says that he sees heaven when he sees her, to which she replies that all she can see is a dream covered with rusty tin. Don Quixote’s family tries to make him face reality. They want him to see the world as it really is. They try to shock him into reality. As they begin to succeed, his health and his spirit begin to break, and he’s at the point of giving up his impossible dream. But just then Aldonza comes into his room. She looks at him with grateful eyes and says, “You looked at me and called me by another name, Dulcinea.” Aldonza had become a lady; her life was renewed because someone dared to believe in her, and call her by a new name. On Broadway Don Quixote’s life is summed up in the wonderful song, “To Dream the Impossible Dream.”
We forget that the first impossible dreamer was God when He created humanity. He sees what we are, yet He insists on calling us by another name. We often talk about believing in God, yet we forget that God also believes in us. At times we might even yell and scream and flaunt our wickedness before God, refusing to believe in His amazing grace, but, through the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, all at once we begin to wonder if perhaps it could be true.
Stirred by God’s Spirit, we begin to ask, could God love me after all, even when He sees what I really am? Could it be that my life could be different? Is it possible that the Bible is for real when it says: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)? And what about the verse that says, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Could it be that God really has given us a new name?
Are we calling ourselves failures while Jesus is calling us friends? Are we calling ourselves losers while God is calling us “my beloved?” Are we only seeing our short comings and sin, thinking we’re nothing more than sinners while God also calls us His saints? Could it be that God is giving us a new chance, a new lease on life, a new name, no matter how many times or how miserably we’ve failed? God loves doing a new thing within His people. God loves giving people new identity.
Finally, we need to realize that God’s new name for us means a new beginning. It may sound unbelievable, but it seemed, I’m sure, to sound unbelievable to Abram when God changed his name to Abraham. Abram and Sarai were childless, but God called him Abraham: “Father of Multitudes.” He made him a father of a nation, and all nations have been blessed because of Jesus. Sarai He renamed Sarah: “Princess.” God has a transforming vision for us. God’s heart is filled with love; this is why St. John wrote, “God is love” (1 John 4:7). And His Spirit is powerful; powerful enough to change our failures into a future. How amazing of God who took a people who were headed nowhere and used them to fulfill His plan for the world.
When people talk about other people, they sometimes say: People never change. That person will always be that way. They’re hopeless. But God has a better plan and way. We must never underestimate God’s power in a person’s life when they trust, obey and focus their life on God and on His plan for their lives. Genesis describes the life story of Jacob.
From birth he was named Jacob, a Hebrew name which means “to supplant, a schemer, trickster, swindler.” And he lived up, or down, to his name, as his name implied. He cheated his brother out of his birthright; he deceived his father and cheated his father-in-law out of his possessions. But when the angel of the Lord came to him, he asked him his name. When he said that his name was Jacob, the angel replied that he would no longer be known as Jacob, but as Israel, which means “Prince of God.”
Think about that: Not only did God change Jacob’s name, He also changed his heart. Because Jacob trusted God, he was never the same again. Levi was called a tax collector, Jesus called him Matthew and a disciple. Other followers were called fisherman; Jesus called them companions. Those scorned as immoral, Jesus called forgiven. A crucified thief He called an heir of paradise. By what name are we known to the world? God has a new name for us, and that name can mean a new lease on life in this new year if we trust, obey and center our life on Jesus.
The New Year is also a good time to give others a new chance. It’s a time to expect the best from them; to realize that perhaps with a little help and trust from you, they could be different. We need to give people a chance to begin over again with us. You and I are commanded to forgive those who have sinned against us. If we cannot even forgive each other, how can we ever hope to experience the unconditional love and forgiveness of God? Remember what Jesus said right after He taught the disciples to pray? Jesus said, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matt.6:15).
God wants something better for us in this new year than we’ve experienced in the past. Think about the names God has called us in our Epistle lesson for the day. He has called us blessed, chosen, holy, blameless, and His adopted children. Are we clinging to an old name, a name the world knows us by? In this new year, let us instead trust, obey and focus our lives on God and He will give us a new name, a name that means we live a life as blessed, chosen, holy, blameless, and adopted children of God.
Amen
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