NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION FOR 2011

I am pretty excited right now.

I probably share that with a lot of people as we anticipate celebrating the birth of God coming to live with us as a Human.

I know I also share another excitement with other college students. I am finished another semester! Thank you Jesus! 4.5 years down and only 3.5 years to go at my rate.

I’m also excited about my January term course, “The Holy Spirit and Christian Spirituality”. I wonder what changes that will bring in me. Usually the changes are not at all what I expect. That probably makes sense, since if I expected a particular change, it probably wouldn’t really be a change at all. I wonder if anyone remembers my “Transformer 101” sermon. We talked about change and how some of us like it, but most of us don’t. When I get right down to it, I think I look forward to change because I find it exciting, but at the same time I fear change too.

One of the authors on my personal reading list is Shane Claiborne. I’m actually a little scared to read his stuff. Because it might bring changes in me that I don’t think I’m ready for. I don’t want to pre-suppose what Claiborne’s work will do to me. But, I do suppose that is exactly what I’m doing when I fear reading him. I have heard just enough about “ordinary radicals”, which I believe Claiborne is one, to know that if I follow his suggestions, I may have to make some radical changes in my life that I feel uncomfortable with.

What scares me is that I believe Claiborne is probably right-on, and that not just Claiborne, but Jesus the God-Man whose birth we celebrate now, also calls me to the same changes. I believe I will discover that Claiborne will act as a prophet to me, and as such his work will challenge me in some major ways. Just as much and probably much more than my courses at seminary challenge me to become someone a little different for every course I take. At the same time, I hope that Claiborne can help me learn how to love and place God’s value on my neighbor, and that I can realize who my neighbors are. If I get what God and Jesus are telling me all over the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, I am told that my neighbors are everyone, but most especially the broken, the poor, the aliens among us, and the oppressed. I think Claiborne is going to teach me that I need to love my neighbor not just with my prayers and my money, but in the way that seems the hardest today, with my presence and my time. That scares me. I don’t have any time to give away, do I? I’m not rich. But I’d rather give my money than my time.

Then again, I don’t know that is the change I will be called to. I guess I need to start reading to find out. So on January 1, 2011, I will begin my New Year’s Resolution. I intend to open up Claiborne’s work, “The Book of Common Prayer: A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals”, and begin to find out, how it might change me.

Who’s with me?

Happy Hiking and God Bless,
- allen