How to live a new life.  That is the theme for today, and for a brief series of four sermons.  How to live a new life.  I can almost hear Brenda chuckling over here, figuratively speaking, as she listens to her husband preach on this, her husband who is the most staid, predictable, risk averse person on the planet tell all the rest of you, “how to live a new and different life.”  New and different are not really my specialties.  And Brenda knows that I don’t like to take advice from people who I don’t think know what they’re talking about.  I will not, for example, take dieting tips from people who are fatter than I am.  I will not take financial advice from people who never seem to have any money.  There are all these people out there handing out all this free advice, and it doesn’t appear to me that they always know what they’re talking about.  If I were a woman I would not take advice on when to wear midriff-baring clothes from every woman who wears midriff-baring clothes.  You get the idea. 

So there is an irony here, I freely admit this, that I would be telling anyone how to live a new life.  And yet I have things I want to tell you.  I mean, here I am with some thoughts on this, and there you are, some of you, needing help, so what choice do I have really?  I saw a Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown is sitting behind a booth at the county fair, and the sign on the booth says, “Swift kick in the pants: $1.”  Someone comes along and asks him if he’s had any customers, and Charlie Brown says that no, he hasn’t had any customers.  But then he says, “I don’t know why people aren’t buying this.  I’m only trying to sell them what they need.” 

I feel a little like that this morning, that I want to give you, and give myself, a swift kick in the pants as we start this new year.  Even though I’m not sure there are going to be many buyers for what I’m selling.  And I’m not sure why exactly.  I’m only trying to sell you what you need.  How to live a new life; there is something desirable, isn’t there, valuable, I think, in not settling for what you are or who you are right now.  There’s something religious in this idea, something Biblical.  Surely there is no one with a life so satisfying, who could not stand to discover something new, at least one new thing, about the world, about God, about yourself. 

John Maxwell, a bestselling author on leadership who I know some of you are familiar with, has said that one of the greatest discoveries you can make in your life is that you can change, you can grow, you can learn something new, you need not be tomorrow the person you are today.  And a great preacher from some years ago now, Harry Emerson Fosdick, wrote that the greatest moment in a person’s life is that moment when he turns the corner and runs into a new idea. 

Change, growth, discovering that new idea, that new thing, is in so many ways the very essence of life.  Now, we resist it, we resist it.  We resist what is new; we resist change.  We resist change no place more stubbornly than in the church. 

There is an old joke (I guess is the proper word) on how many members of various denominations does it take to change a light bulb.  For example, how many Charismatics does it take to change a light bulb?  Only one, their hands are already in the air.  Or how many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?  None, lights will go on and off at predestined times.  How many Mormons does it take?  Five.  One man to change the light bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.  How many Amish does it take to change a light bulb?  What’s a light bulb? 

Okay, how many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?  At least 15; one to change the light bulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad.  How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?  Three.  One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks and one to talk about how much better the old light bulb was.  And finally, how many Methodists does it take to change a light bulb?  And the answer is: You’re going to change that light bulb?  I’ll have you know my grandfather installed that light bulb. 

Whether it’s a church or an individual, to just try and stay the same, to try and maintain where you are right now, maintain the status quo, to say that this is the way things are and they will never change, this usually leads not to staying the same, this usually leads to decline and death.  You may not even realize it, you may not look any differently, but to try and stay the same, to hoard what you think you have now, this usually is dying, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, dying. 

The thing is that change is really not an option in life.  We may fear what’s headed our way, what we think may be coming, but change of one kind or another is going to come.  The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said 2,500 years ago that the only thing permanent is change.  I remember hearing about this physicist who understood all the atoms and molecules that were swirling around inside the human body, and he would tell people, “If you want to speak to me, you’d better hurry up, because I am changing all the time.”  One of the leaders in the Arab world told a large audience of other Arab leaders in a speech at a conference recently, “I say to my fellow Arabs: if you do not change, you will be changed.” 

I think this is true for all of us.  The question is not whether you will change, whether you will be the first person in the history of the world to keep from changing.  The question is how are you going to change, will you just wait for it to happen, react, fight it all the way, or will you help to initiate change, initiate the right kind of change, will you go in search of some new thing that will affect your life, and maybe affect this church, in a positive way.  Paul tells us in II Corinthians that, “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 

All the time we are either growing into more and more, as an individual, as a person, a personality, as a Christian, or all the time we are growing into less and less.  And so much of this depends on our attitude.  We know, deep down in our hearts we know, that what this new year will bring for us, whether or not we will live a different, a new, a happy, a fulfilling life, we know that what this new year will bring will largely be determined by what we think this new year will bring, by what we look for, what we expect.  This new year will largely be determined by our attitude. 

King Herod looked into the future and he saw only something to fear, he saw something to dig his heals in and try to prevent from happening.  Over my dead body will I allow this to happen, he must have said, or rather, if you continue to read the story of Herod in Matthew, over the dead bodies of all of these little children.  Herod looked into the future and he saw something to fear, something to crush, if he could, something to kill, something to destroy.  The Wise Men looked into the very same future, and they saw something to follow, something to embrace, some great work for themselves to do, something to which to give their lives. 

I heard about a reporter for a newspaper who for some reason interviewed two bricklayers.  He asked the first man kind of an open-ended question, “What are you doing?”  And the response was to complain that he was virtually a slave, he was underpaid, he was wasting his days laying one brick on top of another.  But the second man, when he was asked the same question, answered, “Why, I’m the luckiest person in the world.  I get to be part of important and beautiful pieces of architecture.  I help turn simple pieces of brick into exquisite masterpieces.”  I mean, here were two men who did exactly the same work, they were on the very same job, but they saw things very differently.  They looked into the future and saw two very different visions for themselves of what that future might be. 

I felt that I just couldn’t end this first Sunday of the new year with words any better than the words of Tennyson, who wrote:

Come, my friends.

“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;

It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, --

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.