A Resolution about Resolutions

This past Sunday I referred to an ancient heresy that challenged the faith fairly early in the "church."  It was the one that tried and failed to explain how the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth was at once both human and divine.

Apollinarianism taught that "Jesus could not have had a human mind; rather, Jesus had a human body and lower soul (the seat of the emotions) but a divine mind."  The response of the faithful was to say that "that which is not assumed is not saved."  Even before the heresy was spread John's gospel reminds us that nothing was missing and that what was present was "full of grace and truth."

Most of us are not practitioners of Apollinarianism. That's a good thing.  Also good is that most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about heresies or even worse about being deemed heretics ourselves.  But heresies do not end just because "the authorities" say so.  Most of them morph and evolve into modern iterations.  

Another "heresy" that predates even Jesus has morphed and morphed and morphed and persists even today.  I call it the boot-straps heresy.  Like all heresies it becomes such when it goes too far and allows us to refuse a necessary tension of balancing human volition with divine authority.  

The first time a boot-straps heresy shows up is in Genesis 11:1-9.  Verse 4 says, ". . . let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

The end result was that the tower fell and God made it so that the people were separated by their languages.  Most scholars understand the story as answering the question about from where all the different human groups and languages come.  Whether or not it works for you as an explanation -- don't we prefer something more scientific? -- you have to admit that it begins with a quintessential boot-straps moment.  

There are many other biblical stories that remind us to be careful and respect the tension that our "boot-straps only" efforts avoid.  Human volition says we must choose faith in order to be faithful while recognizing divine authority says we must always yield to God's authority and power.  Both/and not either/or and thus an uncomfortable tension.  Babel was a choice that failed to acknowledge God's power and authority.  

The tension is there whether we acknowledge it or not.  That tension is with us now as we join our neighbors and friends to celebrate the new year and . . . make resolutions.  

Making resolutions is not heresy.  But it is easy to slip in our resolution making and think that our "improvement" depends solely on our muscle, our plans, our resolve.   

There are many choices before us as the people of Advent, Madison.  There are always moments and will always be moments when our faith calls on us to decide, to choose, to want.  These same moments will just as much call on us to trust in God, to honor God's authority and to have confidence in God's power.

Let's resolve together to trust in God AND keep pulling.