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 PERSISTENCE IN UNFAVORABLE TIMES 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Psalm 119:97-104
Here's a newsflash for you: times are changing, and technology is changing. Bet you didn't know that, did you?!
Scholars both inside and outside of the church are investing a lot in analyzing religion and society. They're studying what we can do to deal with people like the ones our scripture reading talks about this morning: people who have itching ears. Intellects like Alvin Toffler who wrote the classic book Future Shock, and Diana Butler Bass who wrote the new classic Christianity for the Rest of Us, and Loren Mead from the Alban Institute, and Jill Hudson from General Assembly, they've all written and studied and analyzed and pondered. Here's a little bit of what they came up with. Your nickel history lesson for today!
Many who are studying the history of humanity agree that human existence can be divided into three eras.
The first era they call the Agrarian age. This period lasted from the beginning of time till about the 1400's. So, about 1400 or 1500 years. Human society in that time was fairly simple. The economy was based around agriculture, people died within miles of where they were born, and not many could read or write, so most stories were memorized and passed down by word of mouth. This was of course the period of time in which the Christian church was born. And in that day, most churchgoers could understand parables about sowers. They could relate to carpenters and fishers and women who carried water in jugs. So most people could identify with the stories of the bible because that was exactly how their lives were. ----------------------------- Then came what scholars are now calling the Modern Age. This period began around the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and went for about the next five hundred years. One of the greatest inventions of the Renaissance, the printing press, almost single-handedly got the Reformation off and running. And because printed words were now more easily accessible, more of the common people began to read. Church services began to be held in one's familiar language instead of only in Latin. Education was valued and encouraged. and far more accessible than they had ever been before. Inventions began to flourish and multiply. The period that gave us steam engines and telephones and printing and music and art and world exploration and electricity and THE CAR - that period was a huge leap away from the agrarian society before it. Things would and could never be the same again. -------------------------------------------- Most of us were around for what scholars call the advent of the third period in civilization, because, actually, we're in it. We are living in the postmodern age. Those who study these things maintain that the postmodern age began sometime between 1955 and 1963. That means that we're about forty or fifty years into it. But did you notice something? Look how fast the cycles are changing. The first cycle lasted for about fifteen hundred years. The modern cycle for only about four hundred years. And this one's only about fifty years! And there are those who are calling this time "early postmodern," and claiming it is about to give way to yet another cycle, the real "postmodern" time, by the year 2010.
Frankly, these ideas are conjectures at worst and educated guesses at best. No one is sure which direction it will go, or how long it will go for. Many say that people won't know what era we're really in right now until after we're long gone. What we are sure of is this: You and I are now living in the age of MySpace, YouTube, the instant message, and the information glut.
Think about it. My oldest sister was born before my parents even owned a television set. And now there are how many channels that I daresay are coming into most of our homes on cable? Glenn Taylor sent me a picture on email last week from a 1950's era Mechanical Digest magazine, showing a "modern personal computer for the home" that would take up at least this wall. And now, Paul and I have a machine small enough to carry which prints, faxes, scans and makes copies, all for not all that much more money than the four-function calculator I got for my high school graduation. The last time Paul went to only about ten years ago, the cost for long distance was about $7.50 a minute. This time, we were able to do instant messaging on our computers for free! And when we talked on the cell phone for about $2.50 a minute, it sounded like he was in Telephone, not Tamil Nadu!
For good or ill, we can find out anything we want to know on the Internet. And even something as entertaining as Nintendo's Wii game system is changing the way that we think and learn. Alex uses it to play football - a lot; others are using it to teach trades which require repetitive motions like exterminating or assembly work.
We have all begun to take for granted the quick and easy access we have to incredible amounts of information. Our scholar friends who are studying all these trends note most of all that such easy access to such mounds of information has shortened our attention span. Not only do we have itchy ears these days, they say that we also seem to have itchy eyes and itchy minds. Advertisers now know that they don't have much more than 2 seconds to get your attention, and if they want to capture our attention, it had better be good! We want and expect much of our education to be like a Nintendo DS, and most of our meals to be McDonald's: fast, fun and entertaining. And if we don't like it, well, all we have to do is switch the channel or change the DVD or go to another fast-food place or add another gig of memory or click on another icon.
That's right: I said unfavorable.
We pastors are supposed to teach you about a loving God who gave us a son for our salvation. But our allegiance to the Bible has locked us in to using concepts with which many of us have no personal experience. Like slavery. And shepherds. Camels and mustard seeds. Drawing water only from wells. Shaking dust from your sandals as you walk from town to town. For people with itching ears and eyes and minds, the Bible at face value doesn't have a whole lot to offer. There's not much the church has to say that could keep up with the drama of "American Idol" or Judge Judy or Dr. Phil. And just as soon as the church tries to "get relevant" and keep up with the times, society will find a way to head off in a different direction. ----------------------------------- This second letter to Timothy that we read this morning was written to a well-established Christian community regarding how the church should be about doing its ministry. And one of the things our scripture reading this morning is up to is warning us as the church not to get itchy, either.
The folks who study these trends, like Toffler and Bass and Mead and Hudson, have been doing so to try and tell church leaders the best ways to keep up with our changing society. Some say that we preachers should have five three-minutes sermons during worship instead of one fifteen-minute one, because your attention span these days is too short to keep up with me any longer than three minutes! Others talk about the importance that the computer screen and tv screen have taken on, and they say that not only should we have overhead screens in the sanctuary, but maybe even smaller, individual screens so that everyone could have their own personal worship terminal. These things are all said and done in an attempt to keep Christianity contemporary and "relevant." As if God was around for the agrarian age, but has nothing to do with how we live now. ------------------------------------ Our society has changed. It is changing even as we speak. Growth is happening all around us. We've even got four pizza places in Bonham now! But make no mistake, friends. The good news is this: there's never anything more relevant to our lives than the good news of the gospel. There is nothing that needs to be glitzed up or polished up or smoothed over about the fact that God created us and created us good, that God loves us and has good intentions and plans for us, and that there is nothing so terrible in our lives, or even nothing so postmodern and changeable and new in our lives, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of Holy Spirit cannot overcome.
In this we can be persistent when the times are unfavorable. When our neighbors or our families or our friends are seeking the latest exotic cure or consulting the newest psychic, we need not feel compelled to follow. And if we feel that we must do so in order to keep from being the last one on the block to jump on the bandwagon, even and especially then we must not feel compelled to follow. The only compelling factor in our lives should be, as stated in Second Timothy this morning, the truth that we have always known.
Advances in society and technology and science are wonderful and miraculous. They put to good use the gifts that God gave us. Our lives are better and smoother, our health is improved and we now live longer, we have more time to devote to other interests. But when it comes to our life of faith, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. When the times feel most unfavorable, when we find a hole in our lives that needs filling, we don't have to run to find the latest gadget, or the newest miracle cure, or the hot-off-the-internet expert of the day. Our curiosities can be satisfied with the gift that we already have: faith in our lord and savior Jesus Christ, who has promised to be with us to the close of the age. Our call is not to veer, but to persevere: always be steady, endure suffering, share the good news of the gospel with others, and fulfill our ministry.
Amen. |
