It has been said that the seven last words of the church are, "We never did it that way before." A couple of weeks ago I met a young man who is the pastor of a church I used to attend when I was a child. At one time the church was one of the premier churches in town, and Sunday services filled the sanctuary. Over the years the neighborhood around the church changed, but the church itself changed very little. The church continued to be predominantly Anglo in a neighborhood that was increasingly Hispanic. Still the church did little to change, and eventually it died--well, almost. When Sunday attendance had dwindled to just a handful of people, the remaining members handed control over to a Hispanic pastor and his son. Suddenly there were signs of life, and the church began to grow. It is nowhere near the size it was in its heyday, but it has recovered sufficiently to be considered off of life support. Still, the young pastor informs me, the church is having a difficult time reaching the immediate neighborhood. Will it make the changes necessary to meet the needs of the community, or will it settle into an old pattern, comfortable with its present members and content to stay the course for the next several years? No one knows for sure, but the spark of life that the church has shown over the past few years gives me reason to hope for the best. When the prophet wrote to the Jews in exile, many of them felt that they had little reason to hope. The people had been living in Babylonia for fifty years, and few saw any reason for optimism. They expected things to continue as they had, with no improvement, but the prophet had a different idea: "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing," he said in the name of God. I believe that God is a God of new things; it is people who are stuck in the past. We get comfortable with our current surroundings, even when they aren't very good, and we look askance at change. Change just for the sake of change isn't good, but a change in outlook, a change in perspective, or a change in attitude can often be helpful. We live in a changing world, and if our ministries are to stay effective, we must change with the world, adopting new strategies to live out the good news that God has for us, and for the whole world.
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The story of Androcles and the Lion is a timeless tale of compassion and reward that has been retold from generation to generation for more than 2500 years. The slave Androcles escapes from his master and hides in the forest, where he encounters a lion. He turns to flee, but then he realizes that the lion is wounded. Discovering a large thorn in the lion's paw, he removes it and bandages the paw. After that the lion licks Androcles like a puppy, and the two live together in a cave for some time, the lion supplying Androcles with fresh meat. Not long afterward both Androcles and the lion are captured and brought to the arena. Androcles is cast in the middle of the arena, and the lion, who has been starved for several days, is released. He bounds toward the figure in the center of the stadium, but suddenly he stops, realizing it is his friend Androcles. The lion approaches Androcles gently, and Androcles pets the lion, no longer afraid of what might befall him. Because Androcles treated the lion with compassion, he is rewarded by both the lion, who doesn't kill him, and the ruler, who pardons Androcles and frees him. "Happy are they who consider the poor; the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble," says the psalmist. "The Lord protects them and keeps them alive; they are called happy in the land." Does this psalm suggest that those who help the poor will be blessed in a special way? Yes and no. Yes, God promises to bless those who act to bring about economic justice in the world. But no, there is no guarantee that those who remember the poor will benefit financially, which seems to be the only way that some people are able to think of God's blessings. Those who propound the false gospel of health and wealth proclaim that everyone who makes a donation to the minister (i.e., the rich) will be blessed financially, but that's just a con. The primary people who benefit from donations to many televangelists are the televangelists themselves, who get rich off of the donations of the trusting and gullible. The reward for serving the poor is less visible that the claimed rewards of giving to the rich, but it is a truer reward by far. When we as Christians remember the poor, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we're helping other people in the name of Christ, we're proving that our faith commitment is more than just words, and we've earned the right to hear the words of our Lord, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master!"
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Several months ago I saw a video on the Internet announcing a new campaign to fight poverty and AIDS around the world. The video had images of many famous people--actors, singers, and others. One face in particular caught my attention, because his appearance among this group of "liberal do-gooders" seemed out of place. It was none other than Pat Robertson, promoting the One Campaign along with those of very different political persuasions. I have often been critical of Pat Robertson over the years, particularly his frequently outrageous public statements on one issue or another, but I was glad to see that he had the courage to take a stand with people with whom he might otherwise have little in common, for a worthy cause. When Paul wrote his second letter to the Corinthian church, he knew the kind of church he was dealing with: people who sometimes fought with one another, who didn't get along, and who divided themselves into factions--in other words, a church a whole lot like many of our own today. Although Paul was not timid in his pronouncements of his understanding of right and wrong, he also believed that the church should be unified. Regardless of differences of opinion or perspective, Paul says, "It is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment." For Paul, the indwelling Spirit is a sign of our commitment to God through Jesus Christ. He makes no distinction between different types of indwelling, and there are no different Spirits for followers of Paul, Peter, or Apollos. The same sign is given to all, so all should be united on the things that matter. Just as there were in the first century, so in the twenty-first century there will continue to be differences of opinion among believers, personality conflicts, and varied understandings of what it means to be people of faith in the present world. Despite these differences, we have one vital uniting force that binds us together with bonds that cannot be broken if we do not break them ourselves: the indwelling Spirit, God's seal and promise in our hearts.
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One of the catch-phrases of the postmodern world is "paradigm shift." Management and marketing gurus tell us that today's world is very different from the world of yesterday, and in order to be successful, we need to be able to view it from a completely different perspective. New problems demand new solutions, but so do old problems! The solutions that worked well in the 1950s, '60s, or '70s won't work today. We need to step back and view the challenges of today from a different perspective. Although the phrase "paradigm shift" has become almost a cliché, there is a large measure of truth in these comments. However, it's also true that ours is not the only period in history in which major shifts in technology, culture, or worldview have led to the necessity of viewing the world from a novel point of view. In today's reading from Mark, four men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus for healing, but they are barred from entering the house, at least by traditional means, by the crowd. Undeterred, they realize that if all the entrances into the house are blocked, they will just have to make a new entrance, so they climb up on the roof, dig through the dirt covering, and lower their friend before Jesus. The men demonstrated their faith, their persistence, and their ingenuity in figuring out a way to have their friend meet Jesus. In effect, they shifted the paradigm of traditional ways to enter a house and arrived at a new solution. There is another paradigm shift in this passage, however, one that is not as frequently noticed. In response to the faith of the man and his friends, Jesus tells the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven." This statement puts the religious leaders in a turmoil. Healing the sick is one thing, but forgiving sins, that privilege and power is reserved for God alone! When Jesus hears their murmuring, he asks them, "Which is easier, to say to someone, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'?" The answer was obvious, but it wasn't what his opponents wanted to hear. They had a nice, comfortable theology. They had an understanding of God that they didn't want disturbed, yet here was this man upsetting decades and centuries of religious thought in a single afternoon! The main point of the story as Mark tells it demands a profound shift in thinking. Jesus had already established himself as a healer, but now he proclaimed himself as one with the power to forgive sins, a far more consequential power. In asserting his authority on earth to forgive sins, Jesus was making claims about himself that were disturbing to many, but it doesn't stop there. If Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, he also had the right to pass that authority on to his followers. Like Jesus, we are called to provide physical healing for other people, but we are also called to forgive sins, through the authority given to us by God. If we have this authority, we can no longer allow ourselves to hold grudges against others, to hold past wrongs against groups of people, or to look down upon people who have committed certain types of sins that we find especially reprehensible. To all those who seek forgiveness, like the paralytic, we must grant forgiveness. In a dangerous world full of nuclear, chemical, and biological threats, our very survival depends on our willingness to follow Jesus' lead and forgive others.
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