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LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
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| The Times They Are a Changin'
I attended a church development
seminar last week and spent a night at the Marriot hotel. As you
know, one of the fun things about hotels is all the little stuff
they leave around the room that you can take home: the little bottles
of shampoo and conditioner and the little round soaps. There are
the note pads with the hotel logo on it, a ball point pen and three
envelopes (the agreed number seems to be three). Sometimes you get
a bag for your dirty clothes and a cloth to polish your shoes. In This time I found something new: a plastic envelope with a mysterious cord in it - some sort of connecting cord with metal fixtures on both ends. At first, I thought it was a head set for the TV so you wouldn't disturb your neighbors through the paper-thin walls. But the connectors were all wrong and there wasn't any ear piece. So, as a last resort, I read the bag. (That's my preferred method, to only read instructions as a last resort - it's a guy thing). The cord, as it turned out, was to connect your lap top computer to the internet. For a $12 fee you could be instant communication with the world. I remember when you had to go down to the hotel restaurant just to make a local phone call. How the have world changed. Some of you out there can't imagine living without some things that didn't even exist for the first half of my life. I hate when I talk like that; makes me sound like my dad who often began proclamations with the phrase, "Back when I was a boy." Back when I was a boy, we knew the value of a dollar. Back when I was a boy, I have to walk three miles to school - through blinding snow storms - and it was uphill both ways. At the risk of sounding like an
old foggy, I forge on; I remember the first time I heard computers
mentioned. It was the thing of the future, we were told in college
- and that our slide rules were obsolete. And, if you really wanted
to be assured of life-long employment, get training as a key punch
operator. Remember when your bills that came in the windowed envelope,
came with a card that you were supposed to return with your check?
The card had mysterious little holes in it - sometimes Lily Tomlin when she used to do her comedy routine about the phone company (of which there was only one) said that if you really want to drive them crazy, you take that card and soak it in vinegar water then dry it in the oven. Those holes will shrink up just a little bit: the early precursor of the hanging chad. I was six when we got our first TV - about the size of a washing machine with a picture the size of an envelope, and a flickering black and white picture which we stayed glued to all the way through the National Anthem at 9:00 pm. Then we watched the test pattern. The last show at night was the news: no cutting away to the reporter on the scene, no graphics over the anchor man sitting at a desk reading from some papers, a televised radio show. But I was transfixed. I still remember the name of that TV newscaster a half century later. It was Randall Jesse. I always thought it was a funny name because it was backward. (Should have been Jesse Randall) I figured that when he applied for the job, the form asked for his last name first, like they do, and he didn't do that - so the producers got it wrong. The point is that I not only remember before TV, I remember what we did before TV. We used to sit and watch the radio. My dad was the only one allowed to touch the dial. My grandparents didn't have a radio because they didn't have electricity. So, we sat around the kerosene lamp and sang songs while my grandfather played harmonica. I remember riding on the back of plow horse and my grandmother cooking on a wood stove and the daily visits of the ice man. And I remember chamber pots and the out house with the quarter moon in the door - but I don't want to talk about that. From that to getting cords to hook yourself up to the world, all in one lifetime - and I'm not as old as many of you. I have a friend who doesn't even need cords - has an automatic up-link. "Up-link." There's a word that didn't exist when I was in college - neither did "down load" or "Software." "Hardware" did but it referred to things like nails and hinges. My favorite toy was an erector
set. Now kids grow up without knowing the pure joy of putting a
nut on a bolt and tightening it with a wrench. Everything they do
is virtual, from drawing to killing - even exercise - all accomplished
with the click of a mouse or the movement of a joy stick. Things
changed fast. The guy who invented the micro-chip just died a couple
of years ago. The guy who invented the Except, some things don't change:
the love of God for his creation, the amazing grace of our Lord
available to all, the constant beckoning of the Holy Spirit to be
reconciled and come home, and the need of all humanity to get reconnected
to the source of our being. "The same yesterday, today and
forever," that's the declaration of scripture. Ever since God
breathed into Adam, the breath of life, or The good news is that more and
more people in our society seem to know that. According to studies,
there is a greater interest in spirituality than at any time in
recent history - a spiritual revival of sorts. People are more aware
of the spiritual vacuum in their lives. The bad news is that they
don't know what to do about it, because we don't tell them. And
for good reason: because people have found convincing ways to accommodate.
They fill the void with other things: family, work, good deeds,
and electronic toys. And they convince themselves and us that they
are whole, complete - that the hole is filled or at least shrunk
like the holes in the phone bill card. Most of us are just as convinced
as they so we see no need to bring up spiritual issues. For the
first time in history a spiritual revival is Maybe because what God offers is perfect. Maybe because the hole is still there in spite of appearances and when life crisis comes along our cover is blown. If the shoe almost fits, it's not Cinderella. Maybe because neither Paul in his letter to the Romans or Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus will allow for any second rate substitute. Anything less than perfection doesn't work in God's kingdom. Paul Tourneur, the French psychologist,
uses a powerful image. He said it's like person with a large nail
in their head. They know it's there and that they can't be whole
until they have it removed. But, they don't know where to go to
get it removed. Besides, they are afraid that the removal process
will be too painful. So, they decide to just live with it; but they
don't want anyone to see it, so they We went to Las Vegas last month and saw Paula Poundstone, the comedian. Her humor all stems from how messed up her life is: in and out of rehab for alcohol and drugs, no satisfying long-term relationships, three children each with their own quirky problems and eleven neurotic cats. At the end, after she has told us all about her disastrous, dysfunctional life, she announced with some pride that she was an atheist. And I was thinking, here is an obviously very intelligent woman; why doesn't she connect the dots. Maybe the absence of a spiritual center contributes to the out-of-balance character of her life. Of course, had she been grounded in faith and become spirituality whole, she might not have material for her comedy routine. But, some of the people with Tourneur's spiritual comb-overs are in the church. They come to the well but they don't drink; the nail is still there and so is God-shaped vacuum. When we are made whole the church will be whole as well, and can be seriously address the spiritual vacuous ness of the world beyond our doors. There is a country song that
moans about "looking for love in all the wrong places."
It's not Dylan but it is equally prophetic. But you and me, we know
the right place to look. In Christ there is perfect love which reconciles
us to God and makes us whole. That's why people get baptized and
join a church; because we want out lives anchored to the rock that
holds steady when the times, they are a changin'. As always you can get a DVD of this sermon. Contact the church office.
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