Re-Imagining You: The Unseen You

As 2009 drew to a close, it was a time of celebration for many people.  Their glee was not so much about joyfully ringing in 2010 as it was about leaving 2009 behind.  Over this past week, I couldn’t help but notice all the news stories, tweets and status updates from those who had a bad year being positively giddy about kissing 2009 goodbye.  A friend with whom I used to work and lost her job last year wrote, “Good riddance 2009.  You stunk!”

 Regardless of how 2009 went for you, we are all familiar with the feeling of gladness that can accompany bidding good riddance to the past.  Sometimes when leaving behind a town, a relationship, or a job, it gives us a sense of hope for the future.  Sometimes it’s as simple as cleaning out a room or throwing things away, which gives us a sense of optimism.  We long for fresh starts, unencumbered from that which weighed us down in the past.  They make us feel that anything is possible for us.

Fortunately, for those of us in the church business, Christianity specializes in this area.  Following Jesus is all about leaving the past behind and being given a fresh start.  In our various Christian traditions we call that experience by different names - conversion, being born again, being saved, or as we say here at Vision, transformed into disciples.  Unfortunately, for some of us, we locate that experience only in our past.  It was a one-time event that happened years ago.  We made a fresh start with God in our past and now we find ourselves out of steam or off track. So we wonder, how do we get a second, third or fourth fresh start in life.  Some of us need one.

Equally unfortunate, is that others locate their fresh start off in the future.  Their fresh start is something God has in store for us when we die and go to heaven.

At first glance, it may seem that that is what the apostle Paul has in view in the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians.  We spent some time this past summer exploring what this letter of Paul’s had to teach us about being a healthy church.  This month we’ll explore it further, and what it has to teach us about re-imagining ourselves as human beings and as God’s people.

Paul writes about our outer nature wasting away while our inner nature is given new life by God.  Then, he goes on to describe that these physical bodies of ours are temporary dwellings, like tents, that will one day be folded up and put away when we take on new resurrection bodies.  Given the influences on us of everything from Greek philosophy to ghost stories, we might assume that what Paul is writing about is our immortal soul - that there is something immaterial in us that is truly us which leaves our bodies when we die and goes to heaven.

But that isn’t what Paul has in view here.  Actually, that idea has more to do with Greek philosophy than orthodox Christian teaching.  Through Paul’s other writings, we learn that for Paul, our inner nature is not some wispy ghost-like entity, but a new creation and new life that Christ brings into being within us.  It’s not perfect or complete yet, that is something we receive in the future.  In the meantime, however, this inner nature of ours, this new creation in Christ, grows every day and is renewed every day.

For a follower of Jesus, each day, each moment, is like New Year’s Day.  We live in infinite opportunity for new resolutions, not limited to the start of new years or decades. We have a constant power within us to put our pasts behind us and make fresh starts.  Yet life doesn’t always feel like that, does it?  Often, it seems naive and hopelessly idealistic to believe all things are possible for us, or that we can leave the hurts and disappointments of our past behind us.

A few years ago, I was working on a documentary project with a very low budget.  Since money was tight, I couldn’t afford to hire a video crew and equipment in every city in which I shot.  For this project, I would have to do the camera and sound myself, as well as bring my own equipment to each location.  I packed all my equipment and clothes into six cases, and spent a month flying around the country, shooting this documentary.  In the first cities I visited, I really struggled in the airports.  I had a tripod case over one shoulder and my laptop over the other.  I held a piece of luggage in each hand, while simultaneously dragging two wheeled cases behind me. 

I trudged through each airport, dropping cases, and tripping over things.  It seemed I was always running late and always angry.  I was angry and resentful about doing all this work for so little money, and for not having any help along with me.  To any passerby, I must have looked ridiculous. Finally, at what must have been the fourth or fifth airport, someone came up to me said, “You know they have luggage carts over there you can rent for a few bucks.”

I felt like an idiot.  Why was I carrying around all this baggage, and making myself miserable, when there was no need to.  Yet you and I do that every day.  We carry around the baggage of our past when there is no need to.  There is help available.

Les Parrot, author and clinical psychologist once said, “History is what happened, but baggage is how you feel about it.”

You and I may not be able to change things that happened to us in 2009 or in any year, but we can change how we feel about it.   Sometimes we don’t even know we’re hauling this stuff around with us.  Have you ever been in a disagreement or argument with someone and found yourself saying to them, “Well, too bad.  That’s just the way I am!”  That’s your luggage talking.  Apologies to Billy Joel, but you don’t have to stay just the way you are. 

Think of all the baggage we carry, that keeps us from moving into the future.  We’re hurt in a relationship, so we’re afraid to be open and vulnerable again.  Someone cheated on us and dump all of our jealousy and suspicion on a person in a new relationship. We lost a job  or faced financial hardships and now we feel like a failure.  So we lose our confidence in our abilities and give up taking risks and trying again.  We got involved in a church and things didn’t go so well, so now we’re hesitant to serve again.  We make a promise to lead a more spiritual life, and when it doesn’t solve all our problems, we abandon that path.  Now we’re cynical about God.

Sometimes our baggage is our own self image.  A parent or teacher once told you that you would never amount to anything, and that stuck with you.  A religious person, maybe even a pastor, put you down at one time in your life, and even thought you got mad, you worried that they were right about you - that you’re just no good.  Many churches have served as the voice of that parent, that teacher, that pastor.  They speak from that perspective. That’s been going on a long time. In Jesus’ day, much of the religion around him was all about saddling people with burdens, rules and regulations.

One of the things that’s different about Vision, is that we seek to be the voice that says something different, “You are not the loser people told you you were.  You are not who other people say you are or even who you tell yourself you are.  You are who God says you are and we will relate to you based on who God says you are and not who people say you are.  You are not the things that have happened to you.  You are the glorious future God has for you.”

In his letter to the Corinthian church, Paul gives us an alternative to looking backwards and carrying around our baggage.  Although things around you may look like they are falling apart, and others may point the finger at you and say you are falling apart, inside of you, Christ is putting everything together.  What is seen around us may cause people to lose hope.  But what is unseen within us is the hope we have in Christ.

Rather than dwell in the struggles of the past, Christ brings us the bright promise of the future.  Rather than drag our baggage form the past into the present, we reach into the future drag its hope into our lives today.  That’s what church is about. When we look at the life of Jesus, we see a sneak preview of what God has in store for us.  His Spirit working on our inner nature is really a down payment on this glorious future that God has in store for you and for me.

If you’re walking around today, saddled down with baggage, struggling and stumbling through the terminal of life, listen to Jesus who says you don’t have to carry all that around anymore.  There are carts available.  Or as he said in Matthew’s Gospel, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  Leave your baggage behind.

Sure we want to learn from our mistakes. We need to draw lessons from the past.  In this new year of 2010, let’s resolve to leave our hurts, disappointments and resentments back in 2009.  Leave them with Jesus at the foot of the cross.  Through his continual working on our inner nature and his ongoing creation within us, let’s resolve to look ahead.  Let’s look ahead with hope to the future, to a new year of growing with Christ, and ultimately to that time when all things are made new.

Through the power of Christ, re-imagine yourself.

Comments

[Deb Holton-Smith]

Thanks Don for such an uplifting message!!! 2010 looks bright and promising already. One of my favorite sayings is: "The best way to predict the future is to create it"! And with Jesus' help, how can we go wrong?
XOXO Deb