New Year and Covenant

Welcome to the weekly Dulin Podcast, a ministry of Dulin United Methodist Church in Falls Church, Virginia. Each week, we share a short reflection on faith and life in community, exploring how God's grace moves among us and through us. We're glad you're here.

Hello, Dulin Church. It's me, James Henry, your pastor. And I want to wish you a happy new year. This video is coming out to you as you probably know if you're watching it live or if you're watching it later on, it is happening in the new year. If you're listening to it on the podcast, it's the new year.

In any case, when we come to a new year, since we often talk about our Wesleyan rootedness, our traditions, what is traditionally United Methodist. And one of the things that is very traditionally United Methodist all the way back to John Wesley is a sense of when we come upon a new year to invite reflection on setting a tone for that year, being clear about it. What is it we anticipate doing? What are we about in that new year? What can we covenant to do?

And so Wesley has the Wesley Covenant Prayer that is often done at a watch night service. A watch night service, lots of Methodist churches around the world, particularly in the African, Asian and even European context do the watch night service, which is held late night on New Year's Eve and flows into the new year. We don't so much here in The United States traditionally. But I thought I'd share with you the Wesley Covenant prayer and invite you to reflect on ways that you might live into this same covenant. So I have it here and I thought I'd read it to you.

This is the prayer. I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will. Rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing.

Put me to suffering, let me be employed by you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full, Let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, oh glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen. You can hear the echoes in this prayer, in this text.

A recognition that my life as much as I like to think of it as my life really belongs to God. It originates in God. It finds its grounding in God. And as I am intentional in my living, I will recognize that I'm not my own, but God's. And that the way I live, whether I'm suffering, whether I'm successful, whether I have all things, whether I have nothing, whether I have lots of people around me or I'm all by myself in any of those instances, I belong to God.

And I invite God in this covenanting prayer. I say to God, put me to what you want. Let me be about doing your heart's desire, your will in this world. So it's an opportunity to set the path for the coming year. So I invite you on this January or whenever you're watching this.

I invite you to consider if you're willing to chart this kind of path with God. A recognition that all you are, all you have originates in God and belongs to God and will ultimately return to God. If you can with me commit yourself to doing what it is that God wants you to do. This is the idea of the Wesley Covenant Prayer. It's about action.

Because as we've talked about many times before with John Wesley, his concern about faith is that it would become an intellectual dance or a weekly habit and that he wanted to encourage the church, invite the church, maybe demand of the church that we take our faith seriously. And faith that is taken seriously becomes action. It becomes the way we live. The kinds of things that we say and that we do and that we always are measuring what we do not by what everyone else does, but by what God might want from us. What our own perception of the way God has gifted us might be used to bring transformation in the world around us.

How can we help those who are most hungry? Whether it's a physical hunger or a spiritual hunger? How can we help those who are imprisoned, whether those imprisonments are literal crimes that put them in jail, in prison, or whether they're imprisoned in their own thoughts or traumas from a lifetime or addictions. Whatever they are, how will we be about God's work You know, announcing good news to those who need it the most in the world. So as we've entered this new year world, this new year, this invitation from John Wesley and from me, from Doolin, from the United Methodist Church, from God to take seriously the path we're charting for this year, to be intentional about the way we live, to recognize all that we have in our belongs to God is a gift from God, and we are meant to give that gift back in service and loving this world that God already loves.

How will we do that? So if you have some time today and in the days yet to come as the year begins, take an opportunity to let go of the things that are no longer yours to do and pick up those things which God may be calling you to do. Do you have the courage, the will, the intention to give yourself over to whatever God will put you to doing? Because those are the kinds of people that transform the world in very small, quiet ways as well as sometimes big ways. But each of us has a part to play.

I'm going to read it to you one more time and let you reflect on it. I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will. Rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing put me to suffering let me be employed or laid aside for you exalted for you or brought low for you let me be full let me be empty.

Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, oh glorious and blessed God, father son and holy spirit you are mine and I am yours so be it and the covenant which I have made on earth let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

I wish you all the best in this new year. I wish you all the best and all the courage and all the mindfulness of what God is already doing in your life and what God is inviting you to be about in your life. Until next week, when I come back for a moment with you, I wish you the best. Thanks for joining me. Feel free to share this with anyone you wish if you think it might be helpful.

Godspeed to you.