My sermon on January 1, 2023 at Bluegrass United Church of Christ in Lexington, Kentucky.
The audio is available at kennybishop.com/podcast or on your favorite podcasting service.
Philippians 3: 13-14 (CEB))
[Siblings], I myself don’t think I’ve reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.
Happy new year and welcome to 2023!
Welcome to the 2,023rd year of the Common Era and Anno Domini - also known as CE and AD. As of midnight last night we are now in the 23rd year of both the 3rd millennium (2001-3000 /21st to 30th centuries) and the 21st century (2001-2100), and the 4th year of the 2020s decade (2020-2029).
2023 is designated a common year because according to the Gregorian Calendar
the first day of the year is on a Sunday
the last day of the year is a Sunday
it’s not a leap year
The last time that happened was back in 2017, and the next common year will be in 2034.
As has always been the case, a lot will happen this year, both expected and unexpected. Some things we do expect before this year is over - Several nations around the world will elect or re-elect their leaders, India is expected to surpass China to become the world’s most populous country, Charles and Camilla will be coronated as King and Queen Consort of the United Kingdom.
Some expected good news! There are no federal elections on the calendar this year! Of course, that won’t keep the talking heads on the national news channels and the peddlers of all things politics from making noise about something - that is what they are paid to do - but at least we’ll have a little bit of reprieve in that regard.
Except that here in Kentucky, this year we will either elect a new governor or re-elect Governor Andy Beshear. There are a lot of people in the opposing party lining up to challenge him, so we’ll see what they have to say about each other and what they do to each other as they narrow down their field and choose a candidate. As we all know very well, politics is too often ugly, mean, divisive, and not always honest, but hopefully, we’ll discover this time around, in this race anyway, that there’s a way to campaign without making it a blood sport.
Let’s hope so anyway. If new starts and new years can do anything, they can give us new hope.
So, what are you hoping for this year? What promises are you making yourself? What goals? 365 days from now, what do you hope you’ve been able to accomplish?
A year ago I was standing right here in this same spot and I shared with you that nearly two-thirds of adults here in the U.S. will make some sort of New Year resolution. Most of them center on lifestyle choices and being more healthy, more fit, and just all-around better well-being. Of the millions who begin their new new-year effort, about half of them will give up within the first six weeks. But that means that half are still hanging in there! Go 50%!! By late summer or early fall, around 73 percent of folks will have given up on reaching their goal. But that means that over a quarter of those who started with a goal is still staying with it. How awesome is that? Go 27%!!
I’m a believer in making resolutions. Every year I resolve to read more books and listen to more records - honest-to-goodness vinyl records on a record player - not an iPhone or a smart speaker or earbuds, but an old-school record player with big old boxy speakers. Mason and I have hundreds of records and a record player plugged in and ready for the needle to drop, so there’s no excuse not to enjoy them. But for whatever reason, I never read as many books as I want, and I never listen to as many records. But every year I convince myself that this year will be different, so I resolve - again - to read more and listen more.
These may seem like trivial things, and in the bigger more significant world they certainly are, but I believe that these two small things can make a difference in my personal happiness and productivity, so I want to make them something to strive for. And the hope is that my productivity and my happiness will will be a good thing for someone else.
I know that there are some who don’t subscribe to setting goals like that. They don’t want the self-appointed pressure. I understand that. I appreciate that. For some, it’s not easy to set a marker or to even know what they want to accomplish somewhere down the road. In Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery programs like AA, when a task seems too big, participants are encouraged to just do what is manageable, and just do the next right thing.
For some, it’s easier to work through the next moment, the next task, the next day, than it is to try and figure out what to do with a whole year. For some, success is identifying the next right thing, not all the things.
I’m learning to apply that to my own life. When I feel overwhelmed and the big task looks too big to take on, I zero in on the next part instead of all the parts. I try to focus on what must be done next to get to where I ultimately want to be.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is the next thing.
Sometimes we have to just focus on the next minute instead of the next year.
“Five hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes,
five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes.
How do you measure, measure a year?”
One of my personal Christmastime traditions is watching the movie version and the stage version of the Broadway musical RENT. I’ve discovered that most folks who are familiar with it either like it a lot, or really don’t like it at all. I love it!
I love it because it reminds me that I / WE are loaded with opportunities to make something beautiful. That’s the point of the song “Seasons of Love” that recounts those 525,600 annual minutes - every minute of the year that is a marker for a moment, a chance to make a meaningful memory that might look like something as simple as a smile or a laugh or a hug or a wink or a word of encouragement - things that can be done inside a minute..
It might express itself in an outstretched hand, an invitation to a cup of coffee, a phone call, a note, a thoughtful reminder, or a text.
RENT reminds me that every sunrise and sunset, every midnight and noontime is the perfect place to start again.
Thanks to the song, we know there are 525,600 minutes in a year. A year is made up of 8,766 hours. In that year, according to the folks who track such things, the average American will have worked at their job a little over 2,000 of them. They will have slept a little over 2,500 hours, watched about 1,100 to 1,500 hours of television, and spent nearly 1,000 hours looking at social media. By this time next year, if we’re average Americans, we will have checked our phones over 35,000 times. That’s how we will use our hours.
It’s expected that here in the U.S., around 3.7 million babies will be born this year and about three and a quarter million people will die.
Those at the close of their lives will have made their mark and left an impact one way or another - some in big and loud ways, some in quieter, but just as powerful ways. Those just beginning will come into a world full of promises and tragedies and obstacles and opportunities, all largely defined by the environment and circumstances they were born into.
Here’s what I don’t want for me - or for you or for our church. I don’t want any of us to look back and see times that we could have loved - but we didn’t. I don’t want to get to the end of this brand new year and see opportunities that we could have helped - but we didn’t.
I don’t want to look back and see us sitting when we should’ve been standing, whispering when we should’ve been shouting, laying down when we should’ve been marching on.
I want 2023 to be the year that BUCC became known as the most loving, embracing, supportive, affirming, compassionate, caring church in all of Lexington. Pam and I are committed to that.
We want this time next year to look back and say to ourselves, “We did it!” Our people, our church, we lived large and loved hard!
There’s another song in the show RENT that really speaks to me. It inspires me to live forward instead of backward. It reminds me that I can live in regret, or I can live in the moment.
There’s only us, there’s only this.
Forget regret or life is yours to miss.
No other road, no other way.
No day but today.There’s only now, there’s only here.
Give in to love or live in fear.
No other road, no other way.
No day but today.
Welcome to the 2,023rd year CE and AD. As of midnight last night we are now in the 23rd year of both the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 4th year of the decade.
If we’re counting every day this year as a new opportunity to make our world a better place, someone else’s life a better life, God’s promises more meaningful and God’s love more real, if we’re measuring our days like that, that means we have lots of opportunities to live up to our calling.
By all accounts, in a years time, we can do it - we can be God’s hope and presence in the world 365 times.