New Year’s resolutions
by Shawn Stevenson
By Shawn Stevenson
At the beginning of each new year, many of us are in the habit of
making New Year’s resolutions. It is a moment in time where we pause
and briefly look back. We review the year that has just passed and ask
ourselves, “What do I want to do different this year?” or “What do I
want to change about the coming year?” Perhaps the motivation is
regret about things left undone, or maybe bad experiences we do not
want to repeat. Yet, other times it is a reflection on how we want to
embark on some particular self-improvement in the new year.
John Wesley, the eighteenth century pastor and theologian, father
of Methodism and the Wesleyan movement, encouraged Christians to take
time in each year to renew their covenant with God. This practice was
outlined in a booklet Wesley wrote entitled, “Directions for Renewing
our Covenant with God”. To this day, many Wesleyans and Methodists
participate annually in a Covenant Renewal Service on or near the
first Sunday of the new year. For Wesley, what it meant to be a mature
disciple of Christ was the joining of believers in a covenant “to
serve God with all our heart and with all our soul”. In my own
journey, I have come to look forward to this annual intentional time
of renewal and focus on God.
Quoting from a modern paraphrase, one of my favorite parts of the
Covenant Service contains this corporate responsive reading: All:
“Make us what you will, Lord, and send us where we are to go. Let us
be vessels of silver or gold, or vessels of wood or stone; as long as
we are vessels of honor we are content. If we are not the head, or the
eye, or the ear, one of the nobler and more honorable instruments,
then let us be the hands, or the feet, as one of the lowest and least
esteemed of all the servants of our Lord.”
Pastor: “Lord, place us in your kingdom in the roles you have designed
for us.”
People: “Lord, make all of us your servants.”
Pastor: “In exalted places, or humble places.”
People: “Let us be full; let us be empty.”
Pastor: “Let us have all things; let us have nothing.”
People: “We freely and gladly embrace our places in your kingdom.”
As we embrace 2017 I am challenged once again to ask, “Do I know
my place in God’s kingdom?” or “Do I know where I am to go?” For me
these questions lead to a self-assessment about whether there is
evidence that my faith makes any difference in my life or the lives of
others. This doesn’t come from a place of guilt or drought, but from
an acknowledgement of what God has done for me and those in my life.
In the Bible, James puts it this way, “Do not merely listen to the
word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens
to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at
his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and
immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently
into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not
forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in
what they do.” (James 1:22–25, NIV)
So once again, with a new year upon us, we are given an
opportunity to reflect and ask, “How do I demonstrate I am a doer of
the word?” Once again, James helps me answer this question when I
encounter his challenge, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if
someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save
them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but
does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same
way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
(James 2:14-17, NIV)
Admittedly, many of us hear James’ admonishment, and think, “Well,
surely it isn’t my job to provide clothing and food to everyone in
need.” But James’ rebuke is unrelenting in its scope, he does not give
us an escape clause that can get us off the hook. He simply concludes,
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself
from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27, NIV) This twofold
challenge seems a great way to reflect on how I demonstrate I am a
doer of the word.
As believers it seems we are naturally better at the second part
of James’ challenge, “to keep oneself from being polluted.” We are
generally good at creating boundaries intended to keep us pure and
undefiled. We can sometimes be quick to list the things we “don’t do”
as a sign of our righteousness, but I’m not sure this is the point
that James is trying to make. Instead, it seems James is alluding to a
reality similar to Jesus’s call in John 17:14-19, that we are to “be
in the world, but not of it.”
The only way we can fulfill the first part of James’s challenge,
“looking after orphans and widows,” is to be engaged in impacting
lives “in the world” around us. In the modern day, I understand
James’s call “to look after orphans and widows” to reflect this idea;
How am I coming alongside those who are experiencing a broken family?
How am I supporting those who are seemingly powerless to change their
predicament on their own? This was the plight of the “orphans and
widows” of James’s and Jesus’s day. So as we begin 2017, I ask you the
same question I’m asking myself, “How am I demonstrating my faith by
coming alongside broken people?” The need around us so great the
question can be overwhelming, where do we begin to make a dent on
looking after today’s “orphans and widows”?
While there are no simple answers, I believe we can multiply our
efforts to be “doers of the word” when we partner with local Christian
ministries uniquely positioned to come alongside people in need. In
our community we are blessed with many great organizations who fit
this description. From UGM to Safe Families for Children, from Life
Services and iChoice to Hearth Homes in Spokane Valley, from HRC
Ministries to the Salvation Army, as well as dozens of churches with
their own compassionate outreach efforts, these ministries specialize
in coming alongside the broken and powerless.
In this new year, I believe the challenge for each of us is to do
something because of our faith. Perhaps we can do that by engaging
with one of these groups above; maybe we can send them a check or
signup to volunteer. The world is watching to see if our faith makes a
difference in how we live our lives. Like James, I believe the Lord
desires our faith would lead us to action. My prayer is that in 2017
you and I will find meaningful ways to demonstrate our faith in
action.
Pastor Shawn Stevenson
Executive Director, Life Services
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