Head and Heart: The Times they are a Changin'

photo by JR P / flickr

Last week I started a three-part series on the Serenity Prayer. You know the prayer: “O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change the what should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish one from the other.”

So last Sunday we talked about the first part of the prayer. There are two realities in our world—the things that cannot be changed and the things that can. So there are things in all of our lives that are not subject to modification. As hard as we would like—there are some things that will not change. Like Adam and Eve there is a tree in the middle of our garden that says: Do not touch. And like it or not we all have to come to terms with the things that just will not change. After a sermon like this one of my members came by one Sunday and said, “I know what you mean about restrictions. Our little girl told me, “Mama, if it wasn’t for you and Daddy and Jesus—I could do anything I wanted.” Well no, there is a tree in the middle of the garden.

Today we look at the second part of the prayer: “O God, give us the courage to change what should be changed.” It is not only a prayer nudging us to change but it is a prayer that deals with the massive changes that take place around us. Of course we have to reckon with the limits of our lives. But that is only part of the story. Look at the infinite possibilities that stretch out before us all. Genesis did say :”Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree…” but also remember Genesis said: “Thou shalt…” And with those two words the doors of possibility open wide to us all. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. Both men and women. They forgot that. And if we ever get our hearts around that idea that all of us could really reflect the image of God—even little girls—what would it do for us?

But God did not stop there. He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” And so the possibilities of creativity just stretched our endlessly. And then God added: “Have dominion over every living thing.” You are in charge. That does not mean to shoot all the animals and pump Lord knows what into the streams. To have dominion does not mean to cut down all the trees and pave it all over with concrete and build yet another mall. Or to cover Hilton Head with oil. This is our Garden. This is the only one we have.

Historically theologians have told us the chief sin is pride. God says something and like little children we stomp our foot: “No.” We will do what we want to do when we want to do it. But Harvey Cox has said that the central sin may not be pride at all—but sloth or apathy. I saw a bumper sticker one time that said: “I am neither for nor against apathy.”Just don’t do anything. Adam and Eve’s sin was that they turned away from being all they were meant to be. They abdicated their roles by refusing to accept responsibility for who they were and what they could do. They were to tend the garden. To make it gorgeous and lush. To look out some morning at the fields and the downright beauty of it all and say with wonder and joy: “We did that. We did that.” That was the great dream.

There are two words in the prayer—change and courage. The Methodist minister Leonard Sweet tells the story that when things got tough he would go to a little cottage in Little Bear, California. Tired and burned out—he said that special place—was like a blood transfusion. He would come back ready to tackle everything again. One night he got there and unpacked and went to bed. And in the middle of the night things started shaking and rattling. It even threw him out of his bed. And then suddenly it stopped. What had happened was that this was an aftershock of the greatest earthquake to hit California in forty years. He was trying to get away from all that he had left behind. And the aftershocks from the earthquake went on for days and days. Scary. And he said it changed the way the looked at everything. And so later he sat down and wrote this book called, Faithquakes. That earthquake was really a metaphor for what is happening to all of us. Looks like everything nailed down is shaking loose. Everything is being challenged. Even truth--especially truth. We all look out on a world that is different.

A friend of mine said a couple of years ago he was a seventh grade teacher. He told his class that he was going to bring a record player into the class that morning. They looked dumbfounded. “A what?” “A record player!” And he asked one of them to go to the shelf behind him and get the record player and put it on his desk. They all gathered in a circle around his desk. Looking down at this record player. Like it was something from outer space. Not a seventh-grader in that room knew what a record player was. He was thirty-five years old and felt like an old timer. So he spent an hour with about 28 kids hunkered down around a record player. He explained that you take this black disc and carefully put in in the record player…explaining that then you carefully put the needle down so you wouldn’t scratch the record. He told them where you put the needle would determine what song you listened too. They rared back and laughed and laughed. But that day those seventh graders learned what a record player was. And I went into a bookstore the other day and guess what was there. A record player long gone is coming back. Crazy.

Change is everywhere. A man heard two women talking. One said, “What are you going to do after the party tonight? “The other woman said, “Oh, someone fixed me up with a date.” “Who with?” The other woman said, “I don’t know who it is. As a matter of fact I don’t even know if it’s a guy or a girl. It’s just so difficult to get a date these days that I don’t care.”

I think that one of the problems we have in the world today is that everything has changed so fast that a lot of people are just scared. And I believe the politicians are taking advantage of our fears. Just vote for me and I’ll take you back to where we ought to be.

photo by col_adamson

So many people are dealing with all this change by denying it. There is a character named Quentin in The Sound and the Fury. He lived in a old crumbled-down mansion in Mississippi. Once a prominent family. All he could think of what he and his family used to be. The Past. And he took his grandfather’s pocket watch and put on on the desk and smashed the glass case and pulled the hands off the watch. He just wanted time to stop. And we would all like to do that some days. The kids grew up too fast. What happened. Where did all these wrinkles come from. Why does my over-fifty daughter keeps asking us: “Where is my Barbie camper?” But we cannot deny what is going on.

There is another way to deal with change. The prayer says: “Give us the courage to change...” So down beside the word, change we put this word courage. We can deal with all the swirling stuff around us with courage. Adam and Eve were given this garden. Nah, they could not do everything but God stretched out this wonderful place and said, “Tend it.” Do we have the courage to do that? So many times through history we have failed miserably. But here and there—almost always in the minority—there was a little handful that made a difference. Dr. Fosdick used to say we can be part of the problem or part of the answer. The courageous ones say: “Well, let’s try something else. Maybe it will work.” And often this made the difference between success and failure. Not Adam and Eve. After they sinned the hid from God. And he came saying:” Where are you?” And they slowly mumbled we are over here covered in fig leaves. Why didn’t you do what I asked? God said. And they replied: “We were afraid.”

We’ve seen it over and over in history. This was the number one emotion that ran through

photo by Flavio Spugna / flickr

Nazi Germany. Fear. Some of you have been to one of these Holocaust museums. Mounds of shoes. A room piled high in suitcases. Boxes of gold pulled from somebody’s teeth. 6 million slaughtered. How did they become monsters—those people in Germany. They were afraid. And in our time just beneath the surface there is a real terror lurking about our kids and families and government and church and stocks and bonds and about everything. Not to speak of the terfrorists. Fear can do terrible things.

Did you know that since October we have taken 700 children from their parents and placed them in foster care somewhere. Simply because their parents are illegal immigrants. This is America. And we are a fearful people today. Some things are just flat out wrong. Where, O where is the courage.

Rollo May has said the French word for courage is heart. Don’t you love that. God give me a heart that cares. So let’s bring the earthquake into the church and into our lives. We gotta have heart too make it today. This church will celebrate our 229th anniversary in three weeks. You’ve been around here for a long time. Some of you 229 years. But you would not be here today unless somebody had stood up in a session meeting or out there in the parking lot or kneeling in prayer somewhere—and said: "With God’s help we are going to do the right thing here.” Mainline churches are having a hard time all over—even the Baptists believe it or not.

And then earthquakes have touched every church and us all. We’ve all had to shift gears. And sometimes it is hard. I’ve talked to enough of you to know already that this new age of ours is not all it is cracked up to be. And the churches that just want to take the clock and stop it and take the hands off cannot turn back the years. Do you know what the seven last words of the church are? “We’ve never done it that way before.”

So we pray this prayer: Give us the courage (heart) to change the things we can…” It will mean something different for everyone of us. Get up Sunday and put your clothes on and come on down to the church. Bring somebody with you. Give your money. Sing in the choir. Teach a class. Pray for your session and for those hurting here. Love one another. Oh I know. Some will leave. Some already have. And some of you have lost folks that you wish were here. You’re going to pray this prayer. You’re going to stand by your church. You are going to bring somebody in. And some of you have whispered: “What are we going to do?” Do? Make this 229 year old lighthouse what it still can be. People need this church in Pendleton. Some are sitting at home in their pj’s this morning have no idea that what you have here could help them in this world of change. This is your moment on stage folks—and God wants you to be a courageous people.

One of the great stories that I love is told in Edmund Morris’ biography of Theodore Roosevelt. One day a book fell into Roosevelt’s hands. It was written and put together by a man named Jacob Riis. That book was called How the Other Half Lives. I’ve seen the book and it is mostly photographs that showed the terrible slum conditions in Hell’s Kitchen in New York. There were pictures of old people who had nothing and had wasted away. Pictures of women who had worked hard and had too many children.There were pictures of little nine years old children working in sweat shops from morning until night. The book showed photographs of ten people living in two rooms of filth and squalor. TB and other diseases were rampant.

The book made such an impression on Theodore Roosevelt who was Police Commissioner in New York City that he decided to pay the author of the book a visit. He went to Riis’ house and knocked on the door. No one answered. So he took out of his pocket his calling card and turned over and wrote some words on the back and left the card in the door. Mr. Riis came home and found the card that Mr. Roosevelt had left. He turned it over and read these words: “Dear Mr. Riis I have read your book and I have come to help.” I just love that. We have all read the book and now it is time to help.

That’s what makes the world a better place. And the church. And us all. Earthquakes are everywhere. But remember the Garden. And the infinite possibilities that stretch on and on. And let’s pray the second part of the prayer over and over. “God, give us the courage to change the things we can.” And who knows, one Heritage Day years from now after we are gone—people will say back there when things were hard—the people in Pendleton Presbyterian made it happen.