When we hear the whistle blowing, we know it’s time to look out for the train.
When we are at home, lying in our beds, and we hear the ear-piercing “beep,” we know it’s time to get up and change the batteries in the smoke detector.
So many signs, so many signals. Our response to most of these signs is so automatic we barely notice the process of interpretation. The alarm clock rings, the toast pops, the coffee-pot gurgles, time to begin a new day.
There are always signs.
Here are some signs:
The vast majority of weddings I have conducted over the past 19 years have been for non-church-members. Most of those couples, usually in their 20’s, had not attended church except for occasional holiday services. Most of their parents, usually in their 40’s, were not members of any church. To find any church members in their family, they have to go back to their grandparents’ generation, and then they might have one out of four grandparents who is an active member of a church.
A recent study of American religious congregations found that every Christian denomination was shrinking. Evangelical churches and mainline churches are all losing members. The fastest growing demographic is “no religious preference.” Also growing in number is the group of people who say they are “spiritual, but not religious.”
These are signs of the times. But how do we interpret them? And what should we do? We know how to interpret the flashing lights and the train whistle and the alarm clock, and we know how to respond to them. But what about these signs of the times? What change in behavior do they require of us?
Most "signs" are identified in hindsight.
It’s hard to say. Most really big events, which become known as signs of the times, are only identified in hindsight. As I wrote in my newsletter article: The birth of Jesus changed everything. But when Jesus was born, who knew what was happening? Most people had no idea that a child was being born who would change the world. If the innkeeper in Luke’s story knew, he would have made room in the inn.
Just so, most events that are considered signs of great change are identified only after the fact. Consider the Guttenberg press. This technology—the printing press—signaled the dawn of a new age of enlightenment. It enabled people to print their thoughts and share their ideas more broadly and quickly than ever before, and this sharing of ideas enabled the development of other technologies which eventually grew into an industrial revolution. That printing press changed the world.
But at the time, who knew? Guttenberg’s neighbors probably complained about the horrible racket this new contraption made. Some people were probably worried that this printing press be a threat to “family values.” If anybody could get their ideas printed, for anybody to read, well, who knows what might happen?
Changing the Conversation: A Third Way for Congregations. by Anthony B. Robinson
Some of us have been reading a book called “Changing the Conversation.” In it, the author writes about a monumental change in culture, a sea-change, he calls it. The world has changed, and the church has changed, and we know this is true, and most of the change is for the best. Think about the world of Dick, Jane and Sally, those characters who taught us how to read. Some of you only had Dick and Jane—but I came in late to the series and so Sally was a part of that family too, by then. And Spot. “See spot run.”
In Dick, Jane and Sally’s world everyone went to church. Everyone. Some of our neighbors went to different churches, but everyone went somewhere. The shops weren’t open, so there was nothing else to do anyway. And when we went to church, men wore suits. And ladies wore dresses, and hats, and white gloves. Remember the gloves? Maybe if we started wearing gloves to church again we could shake hands without worrying about the flu virus. Maybe we should bring glove fashion back. But the rest of it, the suits and the dresses and the hats, they are gone, and most of us think it’s a good thing.
So, this group that has been meeting, and reading, we have been considering how to be the church in a new world. How might we respond to the signs of the times, these signs of a missing generation?
One common response to this information (I have heard it so often!) is to say, it’s normal that young people leave church for a time. They will come back once they have children of their own. Well, right away I can identify a couple of flaws in this logic.
First, most of that missing generation have no church to go back to. They never were involved in church. Their parents didn’t take them to church. It’s not even something that they consider “normal.” It’s not that they don’t like church, they just don’t think of it at all, except as a place to go for weddings and funerals. The kids are not coming back, because most of them were never here in the first place.
Dick and Jane don't live here anymore.
The second flaw in the logic is that even the young people who were raised in a congregation live in a different world from the one which formed our reasoning. Back when “Dick and Jane” went to church in their suits and hats and white gloves, it was a different world. In Dick and Jane’s world, young people graduated from high school, went to work, and got married. Then they started having children about 9 months and 10 minutes later. So that period of being “out” of church, between high school graduation and parenthood, was only a few years.
But today, today we have different expectations. Today, we don’t want our children getting married after high school. We want them to go to college, and then get established in their careers. Then maybe when they are about thirty, they can have their first serious boyfriend or girlfriend, and then get married, and then a few years after that, when they are ready, they might have children. Or not.
So, if we accept it as “normal” that children will leave church after confirmation, at age 15, and come back after they have children, that could be, what, 20 years later? That is a long time to go without the support and love of a congregation.
That’s why it is urgent that we begin to find new ways to be the church, in a new world. It is urgent. But I want to make it perfectly clear that there is a difference between urgency and anxiety. I'll say it again.
There is a difference between urgency and anxiety.
Anxiety is a worthless emotion. Anxiety interferes with our ability to think creatively. Anxiety causes a change in our brain chemistry, which diverts blood flow from our cerebral cortex, the problem solving part of the brain, and sends it to the brain stem, the basic animal brain, the part of the brain that gets the body ready to fight, or run away. So anxiety is no good, because it starves this beautiful cerebral cortex that God designed for reasoning and creating, and we will need all the reason and creativity we can muster.
What did Jesus say, time and again? “Be not afraid.” Do not be anxious. The signs of the times, the change that is coming, is not something to fear. In the gospel lesson today Jesus says when you see the signs, Look up! Because your redemption is drawing near! Freedom is drawing near! Salvation is drawing near! It’s not the end, it’s the beginning, it’s new life!
Like I said, Jesus changed everything. Jesus changed the way people thought about their religion. That’s why he was always in trouble with the religious authorities, the good, upright and pious people of his day. The Pharisees, the scribes, the leaders of synagogues accused him of being irreligious, because he and his disciples didn’t follow all the traditions. What Jesus taught was that some traditions are not essential. Some traditions, in fact, just get in the way of being in a right relationship with God. The essential tradition is mercy. Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes, “Go learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” It is mercy, love, and forgiveness that really matter, and the rest is like the chaff that the wind drives away. Let it go. Hold on to mercy, forgiveness, distributive justice, and love.
And be not afraid. There is a future, with God. Behold your redeemer comes! Thanks be to God, for the signs of the times.
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