THE SEVEN FIRST WORDS OF THE CHURCH
a sermon by Dan Saperstein
Synod of the Rocky Mountains Opening Worship
June 7, 2013
Texts: Isaiah 43:16-21; Revelation 21:1-5
Sometime in the early 1970s, the president of
AT&T, which then had a legal monopoly on the telephone business, called all
his managers into a large room for an emergency meeting. Attendance was
compulsory. Speculation ran high as to what announcement would be made: was it
a new breakthrough in technology? a disastrous quarter on the stock market and
immediate downsizing? Perhaps someone important had resigned or died. They
could tell by the grim look on his face that something extremely serious was
about to be revealed.
When all were seated, the president went to the
podium and said, "The telephone as you know it no longer exists."
Muffled giggles rippled through the room. What was this? They all knew he was
wrong. They had used phones that morning. He continued: "Anyone who does
not believe that statement can leave this room right now and pick up their
final paycheck on the way out of the building." Sober silence prevailed.
No one left. They all just stared. The
president continued, "Your job today is to invent a new telephone."
He broke the group up into small teams and they spent the rest of the time
coming up with a new phone.
Now, you must remember that at that time, most
phones were the standard black rotary dial variety. There were some novelty designs, but the same
basic technology as had been in use for 50 years. The 12-key touch tone phone
had only just recently been introduced.
But they started to imagine what a new phone might look like. Some people wanted one with no cord. Others
wanted one in the car, or to carry around all the time. Still others wanted to
know when another call was coming in, or to be able to forward calls to another
number, to see the person on the other end, to send other kinds of messages on
it. All told, there were about sixty items that distinguished the telephone
they invented. Many of those items are now the features that we take for
granted, from call-waiting and caller ID to cell phones and smart phones and
text messaging, and the list has not yet been completed. (From ADying Church - Living God@ by Chuck
Meyers pp 37-39, quoted in on-line sermon by Chris Lockley, AThe Church as You Know It No Longer Exists@)
What if I were to duplicate what the president of
AT&T did with that group of managers? What if I said to you: "The
church you have always known no longer exists; it is gone - walls, pews,
hymnals, hierarchy, and – dare I say it – Books of Order. Now break up into
groups and come up with a new vision, a new church." Would you be ready
for that?
When I was in seminary, my worship professor, Donald
MacLeod, a crusty old Canadian Scot, would counsel us eager-beaver seminarians
that life in the parish moves more slowly than we were used to in
seminary. Change, even necessary change,
is usually met with resistance. I
remember him telling us in his most earnest preaching voice, AYou know what the seven last words of
the church are, do you not? >We=ve
never done it that way before!=@
But I am frankly less interested in the seven last
words of the church than I am in what I=d
like to call the seven first words of the church, or more properly, to
the church. We find them spoken by the
Lord through the prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel in exile in
Babylon. They were in despair because
the future seemed bleak. The song at the
top of the charts was Psalm 137, ABy
the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.@
The glory days were in the past.
To this people, the Lord said, ASee,
I am about to do a new thing,@
or as the original Revised Standard Version put it, ABehold,
I am doing a new thing.@
The same message was given to the Christians
undergoing persecution in the book of Revelation. It occurs after Satan and his minions have
been cast into the lake of fire, and a new city of God descends from the
heavens. At this point, the one who is
seated on the throne B
that is, the Lord B says, ABehold, I am making all things new.@
These are important words to hear when the going
gets tough and things look bleakest. Earlier
this week, the annual statistical report for the PCUSA was released, and the
news was not good. As a denomination, we
experienced a net loss of over 100,000 members last year. It’s actually worse
than that. Not counting membership gains, over 150,000 persons left the
Presbyterian Church last year for a reason other than death. The single largest
category of departures was an estimated 66,000 who were lost out the back door,
going to no church or to another faith community without a membership transfer. And while we dismissed “only” 110
congregations to other denominations last year – about 1% of the total, many
more are withdrawing in place, refusing to pay per capita or share resources
with the wider church contributing to the financial meltdown in mainline
churches that Loren Mead predicted 15 years ago.
It is in this situation – in the Synod of the
Rocky Mountains, in the Presbyterian Church USA, in the post-Christendom era –
that God speaks to us these words:
Behold, I am doing a new thing.
The story is told about a man who worked for the
highway department. He was hired to paint lines on a newly resurfaced portion
of an interstate highway. The first day he painted 10 miles, and his
supervisor, impressed by his effort, told him he would recommend a promotion
and a raise if he kept up that pace. The next day he was only able to paint 5
miles. And on the following day he painted only 1 mile. When he reported at
quitting time he was fired. "It isn=t
my fault," he muttered to his boss, shaking his head. "I kept getting
farther away from the paint can." There
are times when we have to go back to the beginning to accomplish things. But
eventually we have to let go of what worked in the past and make adjustments.
The Israelites neglected to make adjustments. They were counting on the past
experiences to help them in the present. The Israelites were stuck. They longed
for newness and refreshment. But rather than strike out into the wilderness
they remained where they were in exile, thirsty, empty and unfulfilled. The
Israelites were traveling with an old map. In the past God had led them through
the Red Sea, provided manna from heaven and delivered them from their
oppressors.
Those past experiences where God intervened on
their behalf were spectacular. But as wonderful as the "good ole
days" were, the best was still yet to come. Clinging to the past would not
help them in the future. God had prepared a "new thing" for them and
this newness awaited them in the wilderness.
Just about all of us resist change, like the man
who kept going back to his paint can. We fail to trust in "new
things" to carry us into the future. Or, we are using outdated maps to
take us where we want to go. We are like the Israelites who were looking to the
past for deliverance rather than to the future. Isaiah is telling us that the
same God who led us through the past will continue to lead us in the future,
only with new navigation aids and newly built highways. (Keith Wagner,
Sidney, OH, ANavigating the Wilderness@ on-line
sermon April 1, 2001)
Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way: "People wish to be
settled; (but) only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for
them." [quoted by
Charles G. vonRosenberg in “on the go” online sermon] What makes the difference, what
releases the power of God in our lives is faith. A willingness to let go of those things that
hold us back, that bind us to the way things are, and to follow in faith to a
future that God has prepared.
God is calling our denomination out of our settled,
comfortable, and familiar ways into a new and risky venture secured only by
God’s word, God’s promise.
In his new book, A
Sustainable Presbyterian Future, former Union Seminary President Louis
Weeks describes what he calls the new ecology of the Presbyterian Church. An ecology is a system in which life grows and
thrives. It is defined by the
environmental factors of its particular setting, but it fosters those organic
adaptations that will thrive in its particular setting. Twenty years ago, he articulated the
traditional Presbyterian ecology in the Presbyterian Presence series as rooted
in the traditions of family devotions, Sunday schools, and Sabbath observance. Those had seriously eroded by that time and
have now been supplanted by a new ecology.
The new Presbyterian ecology, he says, is marked by five
characteristics.
First, the new ecology is ecumenical at its core, rather
than exclusively Reformed. In the old ecology, we were Reformed at the core and
ecumenical at the fringes. But we aren’t raised with a Presbyterian identity as
we used to be. Churches do not look exclusively – or even first – to
denominational programs and curricula in shaping congregational life, but draw
on resources that come from a variety of traditions, or none at all.
Second, the new ecology construes the Christian family
inclusively, rather than narrowly. The principal community of nurture and
devotion is no longer the traditional family unit. Families exist in all shapes and sizes,
including virtual and ad hoc gatherings of spiritual nurture and support. Norms
which excluded or were suspicious of single or unwed parents, same-gender
relationships, and happily single people are changing rapidly.
Third, the new ecology defines Presbyterian work and worship
in fluid terms. Changing economic and cultural norms have pushed “work” into
Sunday, so “church” has broken out of the Sunday morning sanctuary into a
variety of times and settings. The days in which “church” and “real life” are
easily compartmentalized into different times, places, and spheres of action
are gone.
Fourth, the new ecology relies on digital technology and
social media. Presbyterians have historically been “people of the book” who
value a literate, well-educated clergy.
And while we still value books and other printed media, the new ecology
expands the kinds and scope of words and images that inform and communicate our
faith and common life both within the church and to the world.
And last, and perhaps most important for our future as a
synod, institutions and practices bubble up from the interests and passions of
members rather than being received from persons in authority. Similarly, leadership bubbles up rather than
being authenticated externally from participation in successive parochial institutions.
Institutional structures based on preserving and enforcing hierarchy are doomed
to fail. The new ecology is more conducive to innovation, peer networks, and
flexibility rather than conformity, hierarchy, and control.
There is plenty of room to disagree with Weeks, and other descriptions
of what is a sustainable future abound. Nevertheless, we can say one thing with
certainty. The old models aren’t working. The denominational battles in which
we have been mired are less about birthing a new church than fighting over the
estate of the dying old one.
Niccolo Machiavelli – with whom I have sometimes been
compared – wrote in The Prince, “It must be realized that there is nothing
more difficult to plan, more uncertain of success, or more dangerous to manage
than the establishment of a new order of [things]; for he who introduces
[change] makes enemies of all those who derived advantage from the old order
and finds but lukewarm defenders among those who stand to gain from the new
one.” In short, nobody likes change. But standing still is not an option.
Change is the new normal.
God is in the business of doing new things. The central act in the history of the world
was when God did a new thing on a Sunday morning in Jerusalem, and the stone
was rolled away and what was once dead is alive forevermore. The church is an Easter people whom God
continually raises from the dead. We are
set free from our bondage to the shackles of the past, and like those disciples
on the Emmaus Road who broke bread with the risen Lord, become ready to see the
new work of God in our midst.
There is only one prerequisite to the resurrection
future that God can create, which is that we must first die. We must die to the illusion of our own
self-sufficiency and start living the life of God-sufficiency. We must die to the belief that if we keep
doing the same thing the same way over and over again, the result will somehow
be different. And most difficult of all,
we must die to the future we think we can create out of sheer willpower. We must place even our most cherished dreams,
into the hands of God. Only then can we
emerge from our tombs into new life.
As you know, I am soon to leave our synod and my
ministry as Executive Presbyter for a new position as Co-Leader for Mission and
Partnership in the Synod of the Sun. It is a new model of being a synod and a
new model of synod leadership. It might not work. We know that as with all new
ideas it will fail in many ways before it succeeds. But the alternative to trying and failing in
order to succeed is not to succeed at all.
Many of you are familiar with the famous poem,
“Footprints” in which the author asks God why in his life’s journey there were
two sets of footprints most of the time, but when the times were toughest only
one. He asked why God would abandon him
in those toughest moments. Of course, the answer is that those were the times
God carried him. It’s a sweet poem. But there is another anonymous poem of a
similar vein we need to hear. It goes,
One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there were seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore
But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, “What have we here?
Those prints are large and round and neat
But Lord, they are too big for feet.”
“My child,” He said in somber tones,
“For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait.
“You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt.”
“Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”
Friends, the good news is this: the Synod of the
Rocky Mountains, the Presbyterian Church USA as we know it, no longer
exists. The one who sits on the throne
declares, ABehold, I
am making all things new.@ And may our prayer be this day, ALet it begin with us, Lord. Let it begin with us.@
Amen.
a sermon by Dan Saperstein
Synod of the Rocky Mountains Opening Worship
June 7, 2013
Texts: Isaiah 43:16-21; Revelation 21:1-5
Sometime in the early 1970s, the president of
AT&T, which then had a legal monopoly on the telephone business, called all
his managers into a large room for an emergency meeting. Attendance was
compulsory. Speculation ran high as to what announcement would be made: was it
a new breakthrough in technology? a disastrous quarter on the stock market and
immediate downsizing? Perhaps someone important had resigned or died. They
could tell by the grim look on his face that something extremely serious was
about to be revealed.
When all were seated, the president went to the
podium and said, "The telephone as you know it no longer exists."
Muffled giggles rippled through the room. What was this? They all knew he was
wrong. They had used phones that morning. He continued: "Anyone who does
not believe that statement can leave this room right now and pick up their
final paycheck on the way out of the building." Sober silence prevailed.
No one left. They all just stared. The
president continued, "Your job today is to invent a new telephone."
He broke the group up into small teams and they spent the rest of the time
coming up with a new phone.
Now, you must remember that at that time, most
phones were the standard black rotary dial variety. There were some novelty designs, but the same
basic technology as had been in use for 50 years. The 12-key touch tone phone
had only just recently been introduced.
But they started to imagine what a new phone might look like. Some people wanted one with no cord. Others
wanted one in the car, or to carry around all the time. Still others wanted to
know when another call was coming in, or to be able to forward calls to another
number, to see the person on the other end, to send other kinds of messages on
it. All told, there were about sixty items that distinguished the telephone
they invented. Many of those items are now the features that we take for
granted, from call-waiting and caller ID to cell phones and smart phones and
text messaging, and the list has not yet been completed. (From ADying Church - Living God@ by Chuck
Meyers pp 37-39, quoted in on-line sermon by Chris Lockley, AThe Church as You Know It No Longer Exists@)
What if I were to duplicate what the president of
AT&T did with that group of managers? What if I said to you: "The
church you have always known no longer exists; it is gone - walls, pews,
hymnals, hierarchy, and – dare I say it – Books of Order. Now break up into
groups and come up with a new vision, a new church." Would you be ready
for that?
When I was in seminary, my worship professor, Donald
MacLeod, a crusty old Canadian Scot, would counsel us eager-beaver seminarians
that life in the parish moves more slowly than we were used to in
seminary. Change, even necessary change,
is usually met with resistance. I
remember him telling us in his most earnest preaching voice, AYou know what the seven last words of
the church are, do you not? >We=ve
never done it that way before!=@
But I am frankly less interested in the seven last
words of the church than I am in what I=d
like to call the seven first words of the church, or more properly, to
the church. We find them spoken by the
Lord through the prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel in exile in
Babylon. They were in despair because
the future seemed bleak. The song at the
top of the charts was Psalm 137, ABy
the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.@
The glory days were in the past.
To this people, the Lord said, ASee,
I am about to do a new thing,@
or as the original Revised Standard Version put it, ABehold,
I am doing a new thing.@
