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The Challenge of Change

Several years ago, a nine-year-old boy died of old age. He was suffering from Progeria, a disease described as rapidly advancing age. At nine years old he had all the symptoms of a person ninety years old. He was bald. His skin was very wrinkled. He suffered from hardening of the arteries and other difficulties of people in advanced age. You may have seen reports within the past few years on television or in the newspapers about several other young people who were suffering from this same illness.

I first read about this illness in Alvin Toffler’s book, Future Shock. He used this boy as an example to describe the rapidity of change in its impact upon the world today. Just as a small nine-year-old boy seems to have lived ninety years within his short nine years, so many of us feel that time has been compressed by the changes which have taken place so quickly. It is difficult to adjust to the rapidity of the changes happening all around us in our world today. It is astounding what has happened so quickly. Look at the areas of medicine, science, and technology over the past few years. The changes that have occurred have been astronomical.

The Rapidity of Change

Two writers, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, have used the metaphor of a clock face to depict the changes which have happened within civilization. The sixty minutes on the clock represent the three thou­sand years since writing has been used. Each minute stands for fifty years. These two men then set some figures on that time clock, so we could see how close we are to many of the great events in world history. Only nine minutes ago on this kind of time clock, the Printing Press was invented. Three minutes ago, the locomotive, the telegraph, and the phonograph were invented. Two minutes ago, the radio, motion picture, rotary press, the telephone, the automobile, and the airplane were invented. The motion picture, which was invented just a few moments ago, added sound only a minute ago. Within the last ten seconds television and communication satellites were invented. Within the last five seconds computers came into existence; and within the last fraction of a second the laser, microchips, open-heart surgery, heart by-pass surgery, and transplants have been introduced. We are told that more has happened within the last split second scientifically, medically, technologically, and educationally than has taken place in all the rest of known history. And we wonder why we are shocked by the rapidity of the change all around us! Many simply do not know how to adjust to it at all.

I am old enough that I can remember the “B.T.” days, “before television.” There are days when we would all like to be free of television. Television, though, has rapidly changed our society. Our homes are often geared around it. Politicians now run their campaigns around television exposure. Many are elected because they are good at public relations and promotion and may be weak in political savvy or insight. It is the image that sells them. Television has changed sports, made it available for instant consumption, and holds an ideal of ability that will forever elude most of us. Television determines products we buy, where we go for vacations, clothes we wear, cars we ride in, and so many other things about our whole lifestyle. This is true even to the point of what has happened in religious services on television. Entertainment is now the chief religious sales pitch and, if we are not entertained, many feel that they have not had a religious experience with God.

The automobile has also changed our society. Our landscapes have mountains of old cars piled high. Cities have been built around automobiles. Courting habits have been changed by automobiles. Businesses and their job markets are determined often by the accessibility of automobiles. Computers, e-mail, fax machines, cell and smart phones and other forms of technology have forever changed our lifestyles. Yes, our society has undergone a great deal of rapid change, and some of us really do not know how to adjust to them.

Snoopy is seen lying on his doghouse in a peanuts cartoon. The night is black; the stars are shining brightly. As he is looking up into the heavens he says, “I am always impressed by the constancy of the stars. It gives me a feeling of security to look up and know that the star I see will always be there. And will ...” Suddenly he sees a shooting star fall across the sky. In the next frame, you see Snoopy lying across the top of his doghouse with his head down and with a droopy look of dismay. We are beginning to discover that even the stars fall and do not last forever.

Some have exclaimed: “Alas, alas the times now are not what the times used to be!” That inscription was written six thousand years ago in Babylonia. Even then times were changing. One of the popular songs of a few years back declared: “The times, they are a-changing.” It is difficult for us to imagine what people tomorrow will think about the changes that will take place in the tomorrows ahead of us.

We Often Prefer the Familiar and Fear Change

What can we you and I, as Christians, do in response to all the changes that are going on around us? How do we react to them? Well, a lot of us, if we are honest, really prefer permanency and fear change. We really do not like change. We want the old shoes and comfortable clothing. We slip into them quickly when we get home at the end of a busy day. Some of us prefer antiques because we know the quality of the merchandise and something about the era in which they existed. We like the security and the sense of permanency in those items. We know their style, history, and value and feel at home with them. We cling to that which is familiar and identifiable.

Halford Luccock said that he once took his six-year-old daughter for an afternoon ride on a merry-go-round in a nearby park. After five rides, she turned to him and said: “I’d like to live on a merry-go-round!” A lot of us prefer the merry-go-round type of life. We prefer to move around in those familiar circles in which we are secure. We want schedules and routineness. We reach out for some kind of security blankets of orthodoxy, customs, or traditions that make us feel comfortable. We desire those things that make us feel secure. We prefer the old paths and traditions that we understand. And we often cling tightly to them. We hug the shore of familiarity.

But…our world today is feeling an earthquake; a tremor that is tumbling the familiar structures all around us. Everything permanent is being shaken loose. The ground seems to be reeling beneath our feet and the important things are passing out of our life. As the walls begin to crack and fall, some of us do not know which way to turn. We look for a toe-hold. We look for something to cling to. We search for some secure, snug harbor where we can put our anchor down and remain secure. We are often terrified and frightened by the changes and do not know where to go or what to do. As the poet, W. B. Yeats, says “All changed, changed utterly.”

“Hold the old way” is the watch-word of this perspective. Too many of us are like the old farmer who was interviewed as he approached his ninetieth birthday. “I suppose there have been a lot of changes in your lifetime,” noted the reporter. “There shor have been,” the farmer replied, “and I’ve been agin every blasted one of ‘em!” A lot of us are that way. We simply cannot stand the changes that are going on around us. We scorn the new and sanctify the old; criticize the different and cling to the familiar; reject the changes and reclaim the customary; throw over the unfamiliar and hold on to the traditional.

Change Is at the Heart of the Universe

Change is indeed all around us and we do not know where to turn or where to go. But we need to realize that change is at the very heart of the universe itself that was designed by God who created it. When God created man and woman and placed them within the world, God created them for growth. On examination, we discover that man/woman and the whole universe are still in process of changing, growing, and becoming. Nothing is finalized or complete. When God looked upon creation, God said “Behold it is good.” Creation was not perfect, not finished, not over. God said, “It is good.”

A church pulpit seems solid. The pews people sit on in church seem solid. But we are told by scientists that they are really particles in motion. If we could put them under the proper microscope, we could see that in actuality they are in motion. Our bodies are all still in process of growing. As one cell is dying, a new one is coming into existence. The atom itself is energy in motion. For awhile scientists thought the atom was a fixed unit, but when it was split, a world was discovered inside of it, also. Heat and light are waves or particles in motion. Matter does not perish but changes. Everything is in process and is constantly changing, sometimes rapidly and sometimes slowly. All creation is continuously growing. And where there is no change, there is no growth. Growth does not come if there is no change. But change, life will and must.

Sometimes Change Is Painful

If you don’t think you have changed, look at a picture taken ten years ago. We all change. Exercise produces for us some sense of pain, if we have not done much for a while, or if we engage in an exercise that we are not used to. You and I know that when we flex muscles that have not been used to being exercised, we feel the strain upon our body. Our first steps were painful. We stumbled and fell several times before we could walk. Learning comes through the discipline of time, energy, and mental abilities. Growth itself is sometimes painful. Pain is a part of life. Ernest Campbell, the late minister of Riverside Church in New York City, asked a friend once “How do you know whether you should be for change or not?” He answered directly: “If it hurts, it’s good.” Real change always produces some pain in our lives because it indicates our need for growth. We always experience pain when the radically new comes into our lives. It is almost always painful when something that is different from the routine crosses our path.

Many people have stood in the way of progress and have simply marked time and watched it march past them, because they have spent too much of their time clinging to the shore of the past and being unwilling to move toward the future. For some of us our motto is “Hang on to the old.” Some ignore anything that is unfamiliar and hang on only to that which is certain and sure. Flexibility is a part of growth. Tall skyscrapers and high bridges are constructed to give a little in the wind. It is tragic indeed when life itself has built into it the whole process of change and growth and we choose instead the way of death-­inflexibility.

When the great leader of Israel Moses died, God chose a new leader, Joshua. God confronted Joshua down by the River Jordan and said to him: “Moses, my servant is dead. Arise go over Jordan.” Moses did a great work as a leader of Israel, but his time was now past. Joshua the new leader was challenged to arise and lead the nation even further. A pastor may serve faithfully a congregation for many years. His dedicated ministry can be affirmed, and the church will continue to build on his or her fine leadership. But, when that pastor leaves, the church will look to the coming of a new leader to guide them into the future.

Change Is at the Center of the Christian Faith

The Christian insight is to see that we are committed not just to a dead past and what used to be but to the God who is marching on before us toward tomorrow. Let us seek to follow the God who is leading us into that which is yet to be. God’s Spirit is guiding us forward to realize the potential as his people and his Church that God has for us to be. Change is the nature of the Christian faith. Christianity has at its center an understanding of the newness of life. Repentance is at the very heart of our faith. We are challenged to turn from the old and turn to the Christ who gives us a new direction in life.

A New Covenant

When we read the story from the book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34), the great prophet tells the people about the New Covenant that God is making with Israel. They had broken the old covenant, and they had rejected it because they had not remained faithful to God. God declared that He was giving them a new covenant which shall be written on their hearts. Jürgen Moltmann, a contemporary theologian, says that it might be better understood today to say that it was written on “our conscience.” God writes upon our own conscience a sense of the newness that God has come to give us. As Christians we feel that it is in Jesus Christ that we find the new covenant fulfilled. It is a covenant placed in your heart and my heart by a vital relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.