Thought for Today
Psalm 102:25 Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away;
Zephaniah 3:9 At that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.
Matthew 18:3 "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Acts 6:14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us."
We did return ‘home’ to worship yesterday. It was grand and glorious. We also hosted our sister congregation with whom we worshipped during July. The expanded sense of community our sharing tradition offers us each summer is a synergistic benefit for us all.
But, as I wrote 2 days ago, some things have changed! Many of us are ‘of an age’ and find that ‘change’ is increasingly a ‘four-letter-word.’ We (I) resist change; we procrastinate in accepting change; we fuss and we grumble. I often remind anyone who will listen, ‘all progress requires change, but not all change is progress.’ It is true . . . but probably an over-used phrase.
It is an integral and probably unavoidable aspect of aging that we resist change and find change disquieting. Some in our family of faith have embraced aspects of our modern electronic age, using and even enjoying computers, smart phones and other devices. Some have done neither.
One change we encountered yesterday seemed very positive and hopefully will be beneficial for all. Through the efforts of several congregants, we finally now have a lapel microphone. First Parish Church of Newbury was first gathered in 1635. Our current facility was ‘completed’ in 1869. Obviously it was not ‘completed’ in the sense of its being exactly the same today as it was then. We have electricity and other modern conveniences that did not exist in 1869. We have expanded and modified the original cellar in the 1960s to create offices, a dining hall, kitchen, etc. That modification has now been extended to provide the facilities for our pre-school program. The First Parish Community Food Pantry now has a stand-alone, modern building on our grounds (all built with donated resources of money and labor).
Yesterday, one of the deacons and I joked that we are being drug kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I actually amended it to our being drug kicking and screaming into the 20th century during the 21st century. Lapel-microphones are not exactly new technology.
Not surprisingly, the Bible does not say much about technology. Many (most?) of the defining technologies of our world today were not even imaginable in the 1st century. The track record of our ancestors-in-the-faith in adapting to new technologies is at best mixed. Christendom has always been slow to accept change. There was resistance to Paul’s missionary journeys, to expanding the gospel beyond the land of its birth. There was resistance, sometimes violent, to the Reformation, to changing the ‘way we’ve always done it.’ There was resistance, sometimes violent, to printing the Bible instead of scribes copying it by candlelight.
I did warn everyone yesterday, before I preached my sermon, that the microphone change was a good news/bad news change. The good news was that everyone would be able to hear my sermon more clearly. The bad news was that everyone would be able to hear my sermon more clearly. Sometimes that is the nature of change.
Christians are called to live in the world, but not to be of the world. We are called to “Luke 20:25 give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." I understand that to mean that we should also embrace any and all change that aids us in advancing the Kingdom of God. We must accept changing technology to the extent it helps us to spread the gospel, to teach and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Christians must stop kicking and screaming and enter into the age in which we live. Hopefully, that lapel microphone will aid us in fulling our Great Commission.
Stay safe, use all the tools we have in God’s service, trust God,
Pastor Ray