September 16, 2007

A Spiritual Checkup for the New Year

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

Leviticus 23:24-32

Opening Illustration

New Year celebration happens during holiday season. Not always a good time to stop and reconsider life.

Maybe beginning of fall isn’t such a bad time to evaluate life.

(Slide) Israelite New Year instituted by God after harvest. Part of large holiday season. Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Simchat Torah

New Year festival includes:

Sounding the Shofar – trumpet
Holy Convocation
Sacrifices
Day off from your job
Modern Jewish practice involves eating apple dipped in honey; sweetness of new year.

Christians don’t observe Rosh Hashanah.

Are we so different from Israelites?

We try to call God’s attention to our situation – community prayer. Long theological tradition of bringing the needs of the community to God.

We gather for Holy Convocations – we hold Thanksgiving Eve service with other churches. Faith is not individual – it is experienced in community with others.

Sacrifices – portion of our earnings goes to church – acknowledgement that God is the source of everything we have. Crops will start showing up in the sanctuary in a couple months.

The real meaning of Rosh Hashanah is forgiveness. People forgive old grievances, they seek to be forgiven or make things right with those they’ve wronged, and they attempt to start the New Year off with a clean slate.

A Rabbi’s students once asked how to prepare for the High Holidays. He sent them to observe the simple innkeeper, Moshe. The students took a room in his inn, and waited to discover the answer to their question. At midnight before Rosh Hashanah they heard Moshe rustling about in the front room. They peeked out and saw Moshe taking down two large notebooks from the shelf. He sat down on a small stool, lit a candle, and began reading from one notebook.

The notebook was a diary of all the misdeeds and transgressions the innkeeper had committed in the course of the year-the date, time and circumstance of each scrupulously noted. His "sins" were quite benign -- a word of gossip one day, oversleeping the time for prayer on another, neglecting to give his daily coin to charity on a third -- but by the time Moshe had read through the first few pages, his face was bathed in tears. For more than an hour Moshe read and wept, until the last page had been turned.

He then opened up the second notebook. This, too, was a diary -- of all the troubles and misfortunes that had befallen him in the course of the year. On this day Moshe was beaten by a gang of peasants, on that day his child fell ill; once, in the dead of winter, the family had frozen for several nights for lack of firewood; another time their cow had died, and there was no milk until enough pennies had been saved to buy another.

When he had finished reading the second notebook, the innkeeper lifted his eyes heavenward and said: "So you see, dear Father in Heaven, I have sinned against You. Last year I repented and promised to fulfill Your commandments, but I repeatedly succumbed to my evil inclination. But last year I also prayed and begged You for a year of health and prosperity, and I trusted in You that it would indeed be this way.

"Dear Father, today is the eve of Rosh Hashanah, when everyone forgives and is forgiven. Let us put the past behind us. I didn't always do what was asked of me and You didn't always do what was asked of You. I forgive you and you forgive me, and we'll call it even."

So many things are new in September; new school year, new football season, new job opportunities, new chance to connect with people we haven’t see all summer.

This year, how about a new conscience? How about a clean slate? How about a fresh start with God? Those things you always said you were going to do like spend more time reading the Bible, doing devotions or meditation, volunteering in that ministry you just feel you’re too busy to do?

Don’t wait until after Christmas when you’re stressed and broke and mired in the bad habits you told yourself you wouldn’t continue. Take some time this morning to think about who you are and who you want to be and who God has called you to be.

I’m going to give you all some moments of silence, and then I’m going to lead us in prayer.

O God of the universe, we marvel at the passing of time, though the flow of years is nothing in your sight. We again recognize today that all we are, all we have, and all we hope for originates in you.

When we forget you as the source of our being and fool ourselves into thinking we are the masters of our own identity, remind us of our place in the universe.

We all come this morning with lives that need renewing. We have wronged other people and we haven’t made things right. We have neglected important people and failed to pay attention to important issues in our lives.

Some of us have done a poor job of guarding our own health and wellbeing in a fruitless attempt to advance our own status in the minds of other people. Help us to realize the destructive result of living that way.

We have not loved you with all our heart soul and mind. Our choices during the past year are evidence that we sometimes love ourselves or other people or other things more than we have loved you.

This morning we want to make it right. As you called your people to pause and take time to reflect on their lives at the end of each year, we also recognize the need to put past mistakes and wrongdoing behind us.

Clean our slate, O God. And as you write off the debt of sin through the blood of Jesus, help us also to erase the debts we believe others owe us.

May this next year be different. Guide us as we walk through life and help us to be faithful to our calling. Help us to treat people around us the way we want to be treated and give us hope that we will be treated in like manner. And help us every day to consider again the many ways in which we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Send us into this New Year with your grace. Heal our diseases, bring us spiritual prosperity, and bless us in ways we could never imagine. Every new year is another year closer to the time when we will be with you eternally. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.