A New Resolution

The Rev. Joseph Winston

January 2, 2011

Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.1
This is the time of year when people look back on what they accomplished in
the past twelve months and set their goals for 2011. Probably the most popular
New Year’s resolution is to spend more time with your family. You can see why.
With a million different jobs to do at work along with all those everyday chores
found at home, it sometimes seems like you cannot stop long enough to have a
date with your spouse or a game night with your children. A review of last year’s
calendar makes the decision for you. This year will be different.
Starting a heart healthy lifestyle or loosing a few pounds normally checks in
at number two of the most mentioned ways that your life will change in 2011.
Houstonians love to eat. We have some of the best restaurants in the nation, if not
the world. Add in the fact that this is not a pedestrian or even a bike friendly town.
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.

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What do you have? Out of shape people. When it finally is more than you can bear,
you go to the store, buy a workout uniform, and select a gym, maybe a twenty-
four hour one so you have no more excuses about them being closed. Finally, you
psych yourself up for the first meeting with the personal trainer. Twelve pounds
off by spring is your modest goal.
The next most cited item on the New Year’s resolution list is to stop smoking.
Smokers already know all the reasons why they should quit: they have a higher
cancer risk than non-smokers, it is getting harder by the day to find a place to
smoke, and then there is the price. The taxes on twenty Class-A killers are too
high. This just might be the year to stop. You make the appointment with the
doctor and think to yourself, no more cigarettes in 2011.
We know why we make our plans during this time of the year. We have some
sort of idea of what is good for us and what it not. Mix in a few popular self-help
books, or talk-show hosts, or even a professional that really knows what to do, and
we can set out a new strategy for 2011.
Perhaps we do this sort of thing because it is in our nature. We just make
resolutions because that is what it what we do. Maybe our understanding of what
is good and bad for us comes from something outside of us. Being created in
God’s image comes to mind as a possible answer on why we act this way. It really
just does not matter why we make plans for the New Year. This is what we do.
If it is difficult for us to make sense out of the all the different reasons why
we want to make changes during this time of year, consider for a brief moment
trying to unravel all the threads why someone else makes a New Year’s resolution.

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Is she spending more time at home because they have cut back her hours at work
or does she want to have a child? Does he now go to the gym because he wants
his old college figure back or did the doctor tell him that if he does not change his
lifestyle soon he is a candidate for type 2 diabetes? Could it be his girlfriend told
him to stop smoking in her car or did she get tired of not being able to taste her
food?
Now ask yourself why the Son of God became just like you or me with arms
and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes. You know all the problems that a body
faces. After a hard day of work, you hurt. His body does too. You need to eat and
drink just to make it through the day. So does He. You cut and bruise. He does
also. The coughs and colds slow you down. There is nothing different for Jesus.
You need your sleep. His body needs rest.
The Apostle Paul works on the answer to this question in the letter to the
Romans. He tells us there that Jesus must be exactly like us in order to save us.2
But, Paul along with the rest of the Bible do not provided us with any easy solution
to the statement we hear proclaimed to us in today’s Gospel Lesson, “And the
Word became flesh and pitched a tent among us (John 1:14a).3 ”
Now I know, we no longer put up tents when we need a place to stay. maybe
that is the reason why the translators of today’s Gospel Lesson used the verb to live
in the place of actual phrase pitching a tent. Nevertheless, you will have to agree
with the following. Saying that a person lives does not give he same impression
2
Romans 5
3
The verb σκηνόω, translated by the NRSV as “lived (ἐσκήνωσεν)” literally means to pitch a
tent.

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of putting up a tent. When you live, we tend to think of the good life as in, “He
lived it up or she really knows how to live.”
Tents are more every day. They are ordinary. They are plain.
Now, as in the time of Jesus, tents are for the people who have not made it.
Caesar, the ruler of the strongest country on the face of the earth, generally does
not spend the night in the tent. Far from it. He has many different palaces all over
the world to choose from and the best that the world has to offer decorates every
one. The only time the Emperor of Rome sleeps in tent is during a battle that
occurs far from civilization. Herod, the leader of a no-count, off the beaten path
country like Jerusalem has several official residence with gardens and artwork
that tourists still visit today. Even the merchants in the towns have houses and not
tents.
Tents are the invention of people that must move. These men and women fol-
low the wild animals as they migrate across the face of the earth. Families take
their herds of cattle, sheep, and goats from one pasture to the next. These are the
classic tent dwelling cultures. There is another group that uses tents: the vulnera-
ble. The ones who cannot afford a home live in tent like structures. The refugees
in Haiti are but one example of using tents as temporary places to live. The un-
employed, the mentally ill, the runaways also are found in shelters that resemble
tents.
Certainly, the One who called all of creation into being has the potential to
have the best the world has to offer. A palace on the Mediterranean Sea would be
nice, would it not? A staff that waits on you hand and foot would make the hard

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days at work a little easier to bear do not you think? An unlimited budget that
allows a life of leisure definitely cannot hurt can it?
Jesus chose none of these. He took a tent. He lived with the everyday, normal
people and not the nobility. He studied with the other Jewish boys and did not
attend a private school or have a tutor. He worked with the other craftsmen and
did not have everything given to Him on a silver platter. He ate with the turncoats
that worked for the occupying forces, He dined with the leaders that called for His
death, and He enjoyed meals with His friends.
Most of all He went.
Read the rest of the Gospel according to Saint John and pay attention to how
much Jesus moves. He goes down to Capernaum for a wedding. He leaves and
travels to Jerusalem for the Passover. He crosses over to Samaria for a drink of
water. He makes His way back to Galilee to heal a sick boy. On a another trip to
Jerusalem, He cures a man at the Pool of Bethsaida. He walks up a mountain and
feeds a great crowd. He goes to the Mount of Olives to pray. The troops lead Him
to the cross where He dies.
There is something deep inside of us that wants to pin Jesus down, to take away
His tent and replace it with a house. You can see it in the worshipping communities
that want to control every part of your experience from the songs you sing all the
way down to the shops you frequent. You can hear it in today’s translation. Jesus
lives with us and does not set up His tent. This is not a new issue at all. The King
James Version from 1611 uses the verb to dwell. You can experience it in all the
churches that act more like country clubs that let members in rather than shepherds

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looking for that one lost sheep.
No matter how hard we might try, we cannot keep Jesus all to ourselves. For
all the churches that want to be known as gated communities where all the rules
of the subdivision are followed to the letter, Jesus is out on the streets looking
for that one person who does not know Him. For all the groups that believe the
authorized English translation of the Bible is what should be exclusively used in
worship, Jesus still trains people that listen to the original language and then tell
others what the Bible really says. For all the congregations that want to limit Jesus
to the four walls that they think they own, Jesus is taking His tent to new areas of
the world.
You can see that happening right here. You help to run the Heights Interfaith
Ministries pantry that touches the lives of people every week. Since its opening in
June of 2009, more than seven thousand people have been served. Every month
you make sandwiches that you take to the homeless. For over forty years, you have
taken care of preschool children. You came today to worship to hear the Word and
to receive the Lord’s Body and Blood. All these are examples of not trying to take
Christ’s tent away from Him but instead moving wherever Jesus takes you.
New Year’s Eve traditionally is the time when we make our choices on what
we will try to change in the upcoming year. For some, it might mean spending
more time at home. For others, it could entail a new way of life.
Churches should use this time of the year to reflect on the past twelve months
and to see where God is leading them in 2011. Your charge is no different. The
pastor you expected to be here is not. There have been difficult decisions regarding

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the budget. You will have five different pastors in the next ten weeks. And next
Sunday you will discuss Zion’s future. What do all these changes mean? As an
outsider that was privileged to spend two weeks with you, it is hard for me to say.
All I can do is repeat the words of today’s Gospel, “And the Word became flesh
and pitched a tent among us.” And to tell you one more time that no matter what
you do, Jesus is already packed and ready to travel with you.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”4

4
Philippians 4:7.