GATEWAY TO A
CHANGING WORLD
Dr. Stephen D. Jones, preaching
Second Baptist Church, St. Louis, Missouri
World Communion Sunday, October 7, 2007
Text: Luke 4:24-30
No one
needs to be told or reminded. The world has changed. Truly, changed. And the
world continues to change around us at what seems a terrifying, bewildering
pace. Our grandparents enjoyed a “world” of more gradual change from their
births to their deaths. Who would have dreamed that America might become a
nation where so little is manufactured compared with even a decade ago?
Truly,
the world has changed. This morning I want to focus briefly upon five societal
changes that affect us profoundly.
First,
information has changed. It is no longer the sole possession of the Knowledge
Elite. Information is accessible now to everyone. Young
people take to computers and technology far easier than the older
generation. Thus, it is no longer the older generation that possesses the
know-how. Jan and I have to wait until our daughter comes to town even to
program our cell phones. Now, that’s embarrassing, isn’t it? Many persons my age
and older depend upon younger generations to trouble-shoot our frequent
technology frustrations.
Second, power in the world is changing.
During my growing-up years, there was a Cold War between two superpowers. Today,
the United States is the sole global power. However, you can feel change coming,
and nearly every expert anticipates that we could be surpassed by China and
perhaps eventually by India. The size of those markets dwarfs our own. Who could
have anticipated that the United States would create a $202 billion trade
deficit with China and that the Chinese government would fund our national debt
by holding $260 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds.
What
historically has caused the decline of world empires is that they become
over-extended, particularly militarily. This in part explains what happened to
the Soviet Union. And who could deny that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are
weighing down on America? We are falling behind other countries in funding
quality education for our children. 18% of America’s children live in grinding
poverty while 39% of America’s children live below the poverty line. As many as
two million American children have one or both parents in prison. Among the 21
richest nations, we rank last or 21st in our rate of children in
poverty, twice that of the next country. 22% of Americans under the age of 18
are hungry. And during any year, 1.35 million children are homeless at some
time.
We
have assigned ourselves the role of the world’s police force, of toppling
tyrants for no other reason than we don’t like them. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen,
the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon has recently
stated that he is troubled by the war in Iraq and the way it has distracted the
military from defending our nation and over-stretched its resources. The
admiration which the rest of the world had for our system of justice and values
is no longer what it was even a few years ago. America’s infrastructure is
crumbling. More bridges will tumble and dams will break if we don’t fix
them. Our inability to rebuild New Orleans is an embarrassment before the world.
Our workforce needs re-educated for a changing marketplace. Global power is
changing.
Third,
the world has become interdependent. Hatred
taught in a remote mountain range of Afghanistan reverberates in Spain, London,
and New York. The economic miracle of Bangalore, India has taken thousands of
jobs from Americans.
The
world is smaller. If Israel and Palestine refuse to meet each other half-way,
everyone pays the price. When the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland
reconcile, people gain everywhere.
Fourth, the world stands at the edge of environmental disaster.
The polar caps are melting. The temperature of the world is rising. Global
warming is real, much of it caused by industrialization. The time for denial is
long past. In recent years, this church has taken bold steps toward becoming a
Green Church. And I applaud you.
Albert
Nolan, a South African Dominican theologian, says that because the leading
nations cannot agree upon protocols to halt this looming disaster, that “The
International Energy Agency now estimates that…with the rapid industrialization
of huge countries like China and India by 2040 global emissions will have
increased b y 62%.” (Jesus Today, p 21)
Finally, religion is changing today. It used to be that religions mostly
stayed in the cultural stream of their founders. Christianity migrated from Asia
to Europe as Constantine made it the religion of the Empire. Are you aware of
the tremendous growth of the Christian church in the Southern Hemisphere? Africa
is becoming more and more a Christian continent due to explosive growth of
indigenous churches there. Christianity in China has experienced unprecedented
growth with churches filled to capacity Sunday after Sunday.
Are
you aware that there are twice as many members associated with the American
Baptists belonging to national conventions overseas as there are American
Baptists in the USA? These members are part of our global communion and look to
us as their brothers and sisters in faith, and no longer as their parents.
Now
religions share the same neighborhood. We have Buddhist Temples in St. Louis and
Muslim neighbors. Our nearest neighbor is a non-Christian church. And thus
religions that once were able to say, “We have the truth. Ours is the only
way. Others are condemned to hell,” have to learn better ways of living
together. Christianity has had an exclusivist mentality, which fit well when
everyone in our village was Christian. It fits less well when cities are
becoming global villages, when our neighbors might as easily be Hindu as
Methodist, Muslim as Presbyterian, member of the Ethical Society as
Episcopalian.
There
is no interfaith cooperation when each faith is self-entombed and condemns all
other paths.
Gandhi
said, “If a person reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the
heart of the others, too. There is only one God but there are many paths to
God.” (P. 12)
It has
been said that the major world religions represent different paths up the
mountain of truth. They all reach the summit, each in their own way. If true, we
have to be careful today that we do not espouse a syncretic faith, a little bit
of this and a little bit of that. If each major religion represents one path up
the mountain, you’ll never reach the summit by trying one path for a while and
then switching to another. One has to stay the course to reach the summit.
But
that does not mean that I cannot dialogue with others. It does not mean that I
cannot learn from others. It does not mean that I cannot reach out and embrace
those on other paths.
I view
interfaith relations in our changing world as a calling for all persons of
faith. We have so much to learn, so much to explore, so much to bring back to
our own tradition. We need not fear dialogue.
My
mother recently sent me the kind of story that those of us from the Ozarks like
to tell about each other. A woman from the hills came into town one day and
went straight into the courtroom and told the judge she wanted a divorce.
“Do you have any grounds?” the judge asked her.
“Just two acres,” she said.
“That’s not what I meant, ma’am. I meant, do you have a grudge?”
“No, we park the car in front of the house.”
By now, the judge was frustrated. “Well, does your husband beat you?”
She replied, “No, I get up before he does.”
Finally, the exasperated judge asked her, “Then, why do you want a
divorce?”
She confessed, “Because, we just don’t seem to be able to
communicate.”
For me
to say that Christ is my truth, my way, my life, does not demand the same of
others. I can affirm my truth, a Hindu can affirm her truth, a Muslim can affirm
his truth and we need not exclude the other. The real spiritual competition
today is not between the major religions, but with the secular religion of
materialism and narcissism and violence that saturates the world and numbs the
true religious impulse.
The
Christian bishops of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei asked, “What can the Church
learn from dialogue with other Asian religions?” And they answered,
“From the Muslims, the Church can learn about prayer, fasting and
almsgiving.
From Hindus, the Church can learn about meditation and contemplation.
From Buddhists, the Church can learn about detachment from material
goods and respect for life.
From Confucianism, the Church can learn about filial piety and respect
for elders.
From Taoism, the Church can learn about simplicity and humility.
From Animists, the Church can learn reverence and respect for nature
and gratitude for harvests.”
(The
Asian Synod: Text and Commentaries, Maryknoll, p. 36)
Gandhi
said, “We see today a rivalry, a war going on among different religions as to
the number of adherents each can boast. I feel deeply humiliated…”(p.
33)
When
Jesus went home to Nazareth for the first time, he might have chosen a more
palatable message. At first, “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the
gracious words that came from his mouth.” (4:22) But then, Jesus recalled
during the time of Elijah that the prophet bypassed all the Jewish widows and
went instead to a Sidonite widow. He then recalled that there were many lepers
in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha and none were cleansed, only a
Syrian. “When they heard this, all in the synagogue in Nazareth were
enraged.” Jesus was trying to get them to see beyond their narrow
ethno-centrism, and they were not ready to do so. Jesus was teaching that God is
bigger than our own people or our own way.
Gandhi
once said, “because the life of Jesus has the significance and the transcendency
to which I have alluded I believe that He belongs not solely to Christianity but
to the entire world; to all races and people...” (28)
Are we
willing to share Jesus? To allow others to embrace him in their own way? The
Christianity that is emerging from the Southern Hemisphere looks very different
than our own. It has its own cultural expression, its own biblical world-view.
One of the nearest Christian churches to us is an African congregation. The
Baptists that are streaming into St. Louis are Karens from Burma not Americans
from Atlanta. On Thursday as nine of us stood in the International Institute in
the city, it became very clear: the world is coming here. We must be ready.
We
stand in a gateway with a world changing all around us. We can barely keep
up. Churches that continue with the same old messages delivered in the same old
way will likely be left behind. That doesn’t mean that churches have to join
every passing fad to be relevant. But it does mean that every church needs to
continually re-think and hone its message if it wants to be relevant. We have to
keep up with the world around us, reflect keenly on what is occurring, and
proclaim a message of good news for the new world in which we are living. And it
means that churches will have to learn to dialogue about controversial issues,
about issues that could be potentially divisive, and in so doing model for our
neighbors how to live in this complex world.
Friends, we stand in a gateway of new beginnings in a world that isn’t the
same. When Jerry Keeney left as your last full-time pastor, it was a different
world than today. The issues are different. Thinking is different. The needs are
different. And our message and our compassion must keep up.
We sit
today at a global table as we affirm that we are members of a global
family. Often bewildered, this is the world to which God invites us to share, to
serve, to learn, and to love.
As we
stand in the Gateway to a New World, let us embrace the world that God loves,
even in its perplexing diversity. Let us sit at the common table with our
brothers and sisters around the world. Amen.
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