New Year Message

Let me shift a few things here.

I was told by a good friend, Chris, here

that I needed more stickers to show where I work

and went to school and love.

It's a little confusing to get.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you missed me.

Yeah.

I want to thank Pastor Greg and the church

for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you guys today.

It is truly an honor to be able to do so.

Well, exactly a week ago, we as a world

experienced the yearly phenomenon called the New Year.

Our calendars show that just over 2,000 of these

we have celebrated.

But of course, history, science, literature,

and your run of the mill paleontologist

will tell you that perhaps a few billion of these years

have come and gone.

Another annual celebration that comes along with the New Year

or at least annual ritual is the quest

to begin anew in some way, to resolve to become something

more or less, to pursue something greater,

to pursue to become something greater

than what had previously been practiced.

Whether it is to become healthier or read more books

or get better sleep or manage your money better,

we often use the New Year as a springboard

to achieve newness in some way.

For some, a resolution for the New Year

comes in the form of either establishing or renewing

their faith.

Perhaps we return to a church or practice we used to experience

or we take up an offer from a friend or family member

to attend a church they've been talking years about that they

said would both be uplifting and fulfilling in all

of the most important ways.

The one thing about resolutions, though,

in order for goals to be reached,

there has to be action taken, a series of acts,

sustainable acts, over a significant period of time.

Oftentimes, months, even years must

be spent to achieve our desires, whatever the original goal was.

I'm 52 years old.

And 30 years ago, I was visiting my cousin's church

on the south side of Chicago.

I went because she loved her church,

and she had been asking me to visit for quite some time.

It was a large, beautiful, and predominantly black church

that had all the bells and whistles.

Large congregation, charismatic pastor,

an elaborate choir and band, way too many deacons,

and women in every row of the pews wearing hats.

On this day, there happened to be a call to the congregation

for those who desire to be baptized

in the name of the Lord.

While I sat and watched others rise,

suddenly a warm, compelling sensation completely

took over my body and mind.

And I stood up to be counted among God's children.

Here at the house, when we quote the Bible,

we like to show respect by standing,

if you're willing and able.

2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17 says,

2 Corinthians 5:17

therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

You may be seated.

When my baptism was done some time later,

I walked out of the church anew.

But I remember feeling no different than I had prior

to entering the church.

I still felt hungry, and I still had

to get on the bus to get home.

I don't know what I expected, but I

thought there would be something like perhaps maybe

a visible glow surrounding me, or maybe I would float

over the ground instead of walk, or if anything,

electricity would spark from my fingertips,

occasionally perhaps conveying a new power of some kind.

Supposedly, I was new in the world, born again,

and I was waiting for evidence of said newness.

Come on, super speed.

What I found over time, however, was an ever-present perception

of appreciation.

And what I mean by over time was years.

I started looking at my life and my experiences

and marveling at the wonders I had encountered.

I thought about my youth growing up

in a single-parent home in a challenging neighborhood

and enjoying the memories of my mother's love,

the success I had in school, the joy I

had playing basketball in both high school and in college,

though my dribbling, shooting, and defense

were average at best, if not downright mediocre.

I noticed I could still laugh at hilarious things that

happened years before, and I could be moved emotionally

by music and movies, even if I hadn't heard or watched them

in a while, just by their memory alone.

Everybody wants to rule the world by tears for fears.

To this day, stirs delightful nostalgia in my youth

every time I hear it.

And recently, I'm pretty sure I'll

be laughing at this for the rest of my life,

I could be stirred by something my wife said,

where she's an alum of Michigan State.

So of course, she's not a fan of anything Michigan,

University of Michigan.

So of course, they're also in the national championship game,

which happens on Monday.

So while watching one of the games this year, she said,

and I quote, Michigan's offense is so boring,

it's like watching basketball play with only five centers.

I saw.

Oh, ho, ho, ho.

Ow.

It's true.

But that was an opposite.

At that time, again, being a new,

I began to appreciate my friends and family a lot,

more than I had prior to.

Cherishing the love they had all showered upon me

over the rest of my lifetime, I realized

that what I had experienced possibly was not

experienced by everyone.

How many hugs and pats on the back and words of encouragement

had I experienced?

How many miracles had I witnessed?

A blackboard from the South Side of Chicago

being given opportunities to excel and achieve,

knowing and believing so many of my culture

were not to be as fortunate, even in my own family.

How blessed I had been treated to how blessed I had been,

had to be in order to be treated so well.

To sum it all up, I've been on a journey

to appreciate all of my experiences,

all of what I had seen and enjoyed,

but also what I survived.

For no life exists without peril and pain.

No life goes without tears shed and skin torn.

Nose broken, jaw broken, and if I put the microphone down

by my knees and my ankles, you would hear rice crispies

and milk.

Despite, yes, snap crackle pop, yes.

Despite any pain, loss, or disappointment

I had experienced over the course of my life,

I believe knowing of God's existence and presence

allowed me to actually be more rational.

For some, believing in an almighty power

is irrational or super fantastic.

But for me, it has allowed me to see what the world is

in all of its facets.

Sad, exciting, painful, dangerous, loving,

and extremely mundane.

Think about this.

Most of our waking moments are uneventful.

We brush our teeth every day.

We make a sandwich of some kind.

We sit at a desk at school or at work.

We watch TV.

We look at our emails.

And every now and then, we help somebody do something

real simple like put on a shirt.

None of that is exciting or causes

a rise in your heart rate.

Most of us aren't professional athletes performing

in front of millions or ER nurses in a major city

or construction workers who stand on a scaffold.

What we do daily, for the most part, is quite manageable.

My rationale gave me the opportunity

to find peace and beauty in all things, especially sandwiches.

From that time in my early 20s, I

began to notice little beautiful things all around me.

A father lovingly holding their children's hands

on the street, hardened athletes consoling each other

in difficult moments, the cheerful sounds of birds,

even the pleasant hum of a train somewhere in the distance.

And then there are the extremely beautiful moments

we all have that leave scars or beauty marks, perhaps,

on the soul.

I was once on a truck in Southeast Iowa visiting family.

I was with Uncle Jimmy, a farmer.

And we were driving to his mother's house about a mile

and a half down the road.

We were on a gravel road and we were surrounded by farmland.

For miles in any direction, all you saw

was earth and its natural splendor.

On this short trip, Jimmy noticed

out in the middle of a green pasture

to the west a very large black bull.

The property we were driving by was Jimmy's,

about 300 acres worth.

And all of his livestock was on the other side of a fence

about half a mile away.

So he knew it wasn't his.

I think that's the Johnson's bull, he said,

although I'm uncertain about the name of the family.

And he got out of his truck.

With the sun beginning to set directly in the location

we were looking, Uncle Jimmy opened a gate

to a barbed wire fence and started

to trot towards the bull running and yelling and waving his hands.

The animal gets startled, then turns away

and runs in the direction towards some tall timber

to the north, possibly where it had wandered out from.

And that wasn't the most amazing part.

With the sun, a stunning orange setting directly

at where we were looking, you didn't

have to squint at the sun.

Through the trees came three people on horseback,

straight out of a lonesome dove movie.

Jimmy waved at the riders.

The riders waved back at him and the bull trotted right past them

into the timber as they all disappeared.

Jimmy then walked back through the pasture,

opened the gate, closed it, got into the car,

and we proceeded to drive.

My jaw, the entire drive, actually his mother's house,

was right around here in the middle of my chest.

At the time watching him chase a bull,

I watched a human chase a bull.

That was arguably at the time the most beautiful moment

I had ever experienced.

And it was my rationale, my understanding of God's love,

my knowing what the world was with all of its flaws,

corruptions, and blemishes that allowed me

to experience such amazement.

If I could give you time, could you

imagine a moment in your life?

If not several, you were fortunate enough

to be part of something that was awe-inspiring,

if not completely spiritual, and maybe even heart-rending.

Could you not be moved emotionally and appreciatively

at those thoughts where perhaps it

would be difficult for you to speak at the moment?

Or maybe you'd be so moved that you

want to tell every single person about that moment in your life,

perhaps where it might have left a mark on your soul.

I know the world is harsh, and evidence of that harshness

is ever present.

When we watch the news, the first seven segments

usually supply these subjects not necessarily

in this order, car accidents, political scandal or intrigue,

fire, death, war, governmental discord, illness.

If we spend too much time on the internet,

we can find so many examples of the world's pain

just by listening to all the doomsayers, skeptics,

and bullies, and or watching the videos they promote.

And then there are the numerous historical examples

of leaders and important people, many of whom

being devoutly religious, causing the greatest

atrocities, war, slavery, prejudice.

So much is their impact that many of those who would possibly

seek God's love and hope would abstain because the examples

displayed by those we are supposed to follow,

those that are supposed to show us God's love and mercy,

have done so many terrible things.

Back in 2008, I had the pleasure of attending

the presidential inauguration in Washington, DC.

And as I was walking the street and enjoying the city

and the mood, there was a religious group

standing by the road trying to get people to come over to them

and hear God's word about, trying

to help folks figure out what God's path was

and purpose would be for them.

The problem I had with this group, as did many others,

was the gigantic sign they held aloft behind them that said,

you're going to hell, in big bold letters and in all caps.

Also, there was one guy with a bullhorn

shouting and pointing directly at people saying the same thing.

It took much strength from me not to go over there

and yank the bullhorn from his hand

and tell them that they were the example of why

many people avoid religion in pursuit of God

as intolerance and labeling often

appear within the verbiage of devout Christians and others.

We must be careful in our relations

so that we may provide them opportunities

to be and feel new in God's love so that they may know

of his wonder and his fulfillment.

All of this pain I have witnessed and learned about

and will continue to do so because we are not

perfect as people.

And our individual experiences will shape

how we view the world.

But I will say there is so much evidence of love and beauty

and grace and opportunity and hope in everything, everywhere,

all at once.

See what I did there?

See how's the movie reference?

OK.

I think it is important for each of us

to become anew, not just in baptism,

but also in how we see our own lives and the world as it is.

Can we seek out the beauty presented to us

and appreciate what we have despite our own shortcomings

and those of the world?

Life is what we have.

For however long we have it.

And to go through our days loving and listening, feeling

and dreaming, seeing and appreciating

is the best formula for me to understand

God's love and purpose for my life

and possibly for all those who believe in him.

Try your best to appreciate all there is, for all there is

is all we have.