Our New Year’s resolutions reformations


Living Lutheran in 2017


Text by Meghan Johnston Aelabouni Illustrations by Melanie Hall


Wherever January finds us—among city lights, frozen fields or sun-drenched palm trees—it brings the promise of a new year. With eager anticipation or weary relief, we turn the page on our calendars and look ahead to the future yet to be written. Many of us also make New Year’s resolutions, setting out our hopes and plans for what might be different from and better than the past. Yet the past stays with us and, if we pay attention, we may find that our history has insights that still matter for our lives. This year Christians worldwide will observe


the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. To mark the anniversary, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton has encouraged congregations and individuals to study Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Luther intended this short volume, containing his explanations of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the sacraments, along with daily prayers and Bible verses, to be used by ordinary people in churches and households. “The catechism is built on the experience of a


God who loves us,” said Kirsi Stjerna, professor of Lutheran history and theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif. She said that experience was, first and foremost, Luther’s own: “Luther was so burdened … he felt like an utter failure. Then he read the word and felt free from the burdens of his conscience. He was able to see himself in a new light as someone who is free, and he wanted to share it.” Luther described the burden of sin as being


incurvatus in se (curved in on the self). That inward curve can be marked by pride and selfishness, but Luther found that sin is also manifested in the ways we focus on ourselves with anxiety or shame. We know “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), but often we don’t stop there: we pile on the ways we have fallen short of our expectations and those of others. Whether we curve in on ourselves in self-righteousness or self- deprecation, the more inward our focus, the more isolated we become.


14 JANUARY 2017 Even our well-meaning New Year’s resolutions


can contribute to the inward curve. Commitments to lose weight, save more money or try to make the world a better place are not, in and of themselves, unhealthy choices. But it’s worth asking: Why do we make resolutions? Are we the problem we are trying to resolve? Resolutions focused on making ourselves better often arise from the deep fear that we aren’t good enough. This fear is reinforced by a commercial culture that profits from our feelings of inadequacy, promising that freedom lies in the right diet, the right look, the right product. Anyone who has ever made New Year’s


resolutions knows that these often fail. Even when they succeed, our best efforts can’t free us from the trap of incurvatus in se. We can’t free ourselves—but then again, we don’t need to. This is what God does for us through Jesus Christ. For Luther, this was the gospel and the good


news was more than just news. As Timothy Wengert, emeritus professor of Reformation history at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, remarked, “The gospel is not just information, but an experience of God’s mercy.” The catechism, then, offers not a new “to-do”


list but an experience, a new posture of freedom. In Christ, God gently reaches into our hearts to liberate us from self-focused anxiety and turns us outward so we may recognize how we are called and gifted to serve our neighbors. “What are you free for?” Stjerna asked. “You’re never free for your own sake, but for others.” In that spirit of freedom, this article explores


how insights from Luther’s Small Catechism might “reform” some common resolutions, creating “New Year’s reformations” for living Lutheran in 2017.


Lose weight Lose shame


I believe that God has created me together with all that exists. God has given me and still preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and all mental faculties” (Luther’s explanation of the Apostles’ Creed).


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