do you have any baggage?/ how to face an unknown future Tom Cowan Interim Lead Pastor English Congregation Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday Sermon for 8 January 2012
Our communion message and how we serve communion this morning will come in 2 movements. We will serve the bread, then pause, share some thoughts/some worship, then serve the wine. My grandparents had never been on a plane. My parents only flew after Harriet and I were married and moved to Canada. But most of us are used to flying these days. One of the questions you get asked when you check in is: have you any baggage? And as we usually do, our baggage is tagged with our name. And sent down into some mysterious place and if we are lucky we will get it at our destination. It will be there for us.
Some area in which you felt you failed. You could have done better and you are still talking to yourself about that. That’s baggage. I confess that I do that a lot. Some hurt you felt. Something happened that was not fair. It still stings. That’s baggage. All that and much more is baggage. And it has a tag with your name is on it. We pause and think, but we can never go back and have that moment over again. To say a different word. To make a different response. We think, each event is etched in stone, written in indelible ink and it can never be erased.
Many of us probably have stories about where our baggage actually ended up. But that is for another time.
So we just assume that we are stuck, carrying our baggage with us, year after year, until its invisible weight almost crushes us.
This time/season of year is like a hinge. We turn the corner from an old year and all that happened into the potential and also the unknown of a new year. All that happened in the old year. Some good some perhaps not so good cannot be changed.
If the past is unchangeable, how can we deal with it.
Line from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. -Or as one philosopher comments: we may understand life backwards but we always live it forward. Life does not have a rewind button.
Our society says, just forgive and forget, but the problem there is that we do not forget. When it comes to hurt and disappointment. When it comes to regret and feeling sorry for ourselves, all of us have exceedingly long memories. So our society has created a new way to deal with this unalterable past. Just get over it. That is the mantra for dealing with what has been unfair and unjust. Just get over it and move on. For most of us, that does not seem to work very well either. We do not get over things very easily. Our hurts stay with us, like scars from a wound.
As we approach this first movement of communion, imagine yourself at the airline counter and so ask yourself, do you have any baggage? What I mean by that is is there any personal baggage from last year that you find yourself carrying into this new year? And even in these first days of 2012, already it is starting to weigh you down. If you try to carry it all year, I guarantee it will get heavier and heavier.
Some years ago, an emphasis from some teaching in the church tried to come up with a new Christian way to deal with our baggage. It taught that forgiveness means we look at something as though it never happened. I felt that was wrong, so wrong, in fact dangerous. It meant that we had to stuff things that really happened under some carpet in our lives. I feel that is emotionally dishonest and also spiritually dangerous.
Perhaps some disagreement in your family. Words spoken and it remains a hurt. That’s baggage.
The Bible does not say forgive and forget. Nor does it say just get over it. Nor does it say pretend it never really happened.
Perhaps some disagreement here at VCBC. A decision made by the leadership you thought was wrong and still do. That’s baggage.
It says something much more healing. Much more freeing. Much more liberating. It simply says lay it down.
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It means take the hurts, take the anger, take the resentments. All that has become our baggage in a year. And lay it down. Lay it down at the foot of the cross. Open our hands. Release our baggage and lay the baggage down. Forgiveness says these things really happened, but you can lay them down. In a few moments, we will say together the Lord’s Prayer. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And we will take a wafer of bread, and as you hold it, I invite you very simply but very deeply to bow your head and then lay down whatever baggage you are carrying from last year. The past may be unchangeable. We cannot take a careless moment or a harsh word back. But we can be free from its permanent and unforgettable force. We do not have to live with its indelible script etched into the story of our lives. The way we set ourselves free is through the liberating power of forgiveness. We forgive others. Perhaps someone here. And most of all, we forgive ourselves. As you look back at last year, we cannot say, forgive and forget because that do not work. Nor can we say just get over it. You cannot pretend that something that hurt you deeply did not happen, and sweep it under the carpet in your life. But we can say, I can lay this down. I can lay this down at the foot of the cross. I do not have to deal with this any longer. I can let God deal with this in his own way and in his own time. This table where we remember our Lord and all that He did for us. This table is the best place to lay it down. As you take this bread this morning, I invite you in your own moment of quiet, to lay your baggage down. Do not carry it with you any longer into 2012. Lord’s Prayer Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. We call them new year resolutions. Promises that we make for the new year. What’s the most common new year resolution that people make? It is to lose weight. I like the person who said he had started a 30 day diet and so far he had lost 10 days. We are keenly aware that we stand before a new year with absolutely no idea of what the year holds for us. It might be good or bad. We do not know what might happen to us. I have thought for a long time that one of the signs of God’s grace to us is that we do not know the future. Many people say that they would like to see their future but I do not think we could handle that. We could not handle the anguish of knowing that something would happen to us perhaps in the summer or the fall and we had absolutely no way of stopping it. So here we are, facing the vast unknown of 2012. Unable to change whatever might lie ahead. It can make us feel helpless, powerless, almost at times paralysed, afraid, how can we live? While we do not know what lies ahead, the Bible assures us that we actually can be in control of a great deal of this unknown. We can actually be in charge of and have power over whatever is barrelling towards us. It lies in a powerful human ability. The ability to make promises. When we make a promise, we establish an island of certainty in the heaving seas of uncertainty. We actually harness what we cannot see. We control what has not yet happened. While we do not know what will happen to us, when we make promises, we decide how we will respond when it comes. One example of this: many of us are married, and a year or so ago or perhaps many years ago we stood at front of the church and we said to each other, I promise to love you in sickness and in health. We were saying we do not know what will happen, but I will decide now that whenever and whatever happens, I will be there beside you.
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Frankly none of us knew what we were getting into when we said those words – but we made a promise.
this year. But as I make this covenant, I trust in God who controls the unknown. He knows what I do not know. He sees what I cannot see.
A promise like that takes charge of the unknown. We may ask, how is that possible? It is because we have a promise making and a promise keeping God. In the Bible these deep promises are called covenants. We have a God who makes covenants. We have a God who says, I will always be with you. This is His covenant. It is His word.
Promises and covenants are how we take control of the indefinite and the unclear.
When we make a promise and put our hand into God’s hand and we promise together. It becomes a covenant. Jesus makes promises. I go to prepare a place and when I return, I will take you to be where I am. That is covenant. We do not have to live lives that are random or reckless. We do not have to live lives that are chaos, confusion, turmoil or hopeless. We are not the victims of chance and life is not a gamble.
This means that we can enter this new year with confidence rather than fear, with assurance rather than alarm, with quiet determination rather than with panic. That is how Jesus faced the cross for us, and trusted the Word and will of His father. So as you take the wine in a moment, perhaps you have to renew a covenant. You have to tighten your grip on one of God’s promises, or you may have to make a new covenant. When we do this, we are taking control of the unknown. We are building an island in a sea of uncertainty. We are harnessing what the future. This cup is the cup of the new covenant.
We live under the umbrella and under the care of a God who makes covenants with us as his children. Who gives his word and who keeps his word. Who reaches down to us in the promise of covenant. When Jesus gathered in the upper room with his followers, he said to them, this cup is the cup of the new covenant. He was saying to them, you do not know what lies ahead, but I am making you a promise that is backed and guaranteed by God. I will never leave you. I will be with you. I will come again. In a moment or two, you will take a small cup of wine that represents the wine that Jesus shared with his disciples and shares with us. Before you drink it, is there a covenant promise that you need to renew at the start of this year? Perhaps about how you covenant with God in the area of money and finances. And as you do this, you are not driven by the Dow Jones. Perhaps you covenant about reading His word. Perhaps it is renewal of a covenant with a person. Or some aspect of your life here at VCBC? When you make a covenant, you are putting your hand in God’s hand. You are placing your trust in his Word. You are saying I do not know where the future and this year will lead, what lies ahead in 4 DOYOUHAVEANYBAGGAGE?/HOWTOFACEANUNKNOWNFUTURE