January 1, 2017 - New Year Reflections

Ready to revel in the church rummage sale this year?

Phyllis Tickle wrote, "Every five hundred years or so the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale. And we are living in and through one of those five-hundred-year sales.”

True. Looking forward, this is the Fifth Centenary year of the Protestant Revolt or the Reformation's 500th year anniversary. The popular legend goes that on October 31, 1517, All Saint's Day, Luther defiantly nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Castle church door. The reality is likely not so dramatic as the film still on the left suggests; Luther probably hung the document on the door of the church matter-of-factly to announce the ensuing academic discussion around it that he was organizing.

Certainly there is condemnation and celebration both at the thought of many Catholics and Lutherans commemorating the anniversary of Luther's actions together. This should make for some interesting future worship responses in this blog.

Huston Smith, a scholar of religion and author of "The Religions of Man and "The World's Religions" passed away on Friday.  He taught many important lessons in the field of comparative religions. Smith was a man who knew that life was a miracle and it came across in all that he wrote.

This seems an appropriate time to look back and examine what has been posted in this blog as well.

Intentionally the first entry in this blog was on January 10th, our Farewell and Godspeed acknowledgment of Pastor Dayle's retirement.  I remember her commenting before the service that day "It feels like Easter to have so many people already busy here at church."

The gospel was on the baptism of Jesus so there was a strong sense of new life embedded in that farewell day in both the service and the party that followed.

This blog started off as my personal response to those who would ask "Why go to church every Sunday?"  It was a question I asked for years. I stopped attending after college for years because I did not want to attend based on an internal obligation I no longer believed in.  I could not see the value of the church as an institution at that time to my personal salvation.

I don't think about "personal" salvation in that way anymore. Certainly not when reflecting on Creator as a community and the importance of the church in my life,  

The church is a reflection the spiritual life of all who are gathered.  I transitioned from an understanding that going to church was a responsibility (like being a good citizen) to an ever-changing response to, in my case, Christian life.

The readings used to hit my ear as words that were hard to hear because of the constant repetition.  However meaningful, sooner or later you knew what you knew and they no longer contained mystery but offered something akin to banal platitudes

In 2016 most Gospel readings took on new meanings and contained the deepest mysteries.  At the beginning of the year we read the words that Jesus said at the beginning of his ministry in Luke 4:21 - "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing".  The today in Luke 4:21 has stuck with me ever since.  Jesus was quoting from Isaiah 61.  So this today rippled forward and back from the today of Isaiah to the today of Jesus to the beginning of 2016 to this moment.  There is a truth in the scripture:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

We may be blinded to the point where we cannot understand or proclaim that 2016 is the year of the Lord's favor but that truth is always being fulfilled.