SERMON           

               We Are Called to be God’s People

      

                                      Joshua, Chapter 3

      Pastor Robyn Hogue                 September 27, 2015                Skyline Presbyterian Church

 

We’re going to look together this morning at transformation, at change. We’re going to look at a very specific kind of change, using a term that may be new to some of you. We’re going to look at adaptive change. While the term adaptive change may be new, the idea behind it is as old as the Bible. In fact, we’re going to learn about adaptive change from the Bible! Adaptive change is the kind of change that is necessary when we face major disruptions in life. I chose as my Bible text one of the major stories of disruption in the life of God’s people—the Exodus from Egypt, in Joshua 3.

 

Read the passage.

 

The toughest challenges we face come when our lives are disrupted by new situations for which we are unprepared; situations in which our knowledge isn’t enough, our previous experience doesn’t apply, and the tools we’ve always used to fix things don’t work. There are challenges in life where we don’t really know what to do or where to go. We’ve not passed this way before and we are called to be God’s people.

 

These challenges require new ways of thinking, new behaviors; even new values to fit our new situation. That’s the kind of change portrayed in the recent film “Moneyball.” It’s the true story of the disruptive challenges faced by the Oakland A’s baseball team and their manager Billy Beane, twelve years ago and the way they began to rethink how to build a winning baseball team when the old ways no longer work. The A’s began to change. They developed new ways of thinking… new knowledge…valuing what had been undervalued…thereby transforming not only baseball, but the way that professional athletes are sought across the sports world.

 

While the language of adaptive change is relatively new, the concept isn’t new at all. Humanity has always faced new situations and new challenges brought on by major shifts and disruptions. The exodus of the children of God from Egypt to Canaan is a prime biblical example. In the story we read this morning from Joshua 3, a ragtag band of runaway slaves had escaped their oppressors and set out on a religious pilgrimage to an unknown destination. The trip took a lot longer than anyone had thought – about 40 years longer! They’d spent those 40 years as nomads in the wilderness. In the story today they transition from sojourners to soldiers and began a campaign to take by force a land inhabited by nations who would not make it easy. They had no roadmaps or strategic plans. The reports of the spies they’ve sent on ahead predicted fierce battles against armies of Giants – a challenge for which neither brick-making in Egypt nor camping in the desert provided relevant knowledge or experience. When they muster on the east side of the Jordan River, God tells them, through Joshua, what they all knew painfully well: You’ve not passed this way before!

 

I can easily imagine that fear, anxiety and outright panic was running high. “What will we do now? What’s next?”

 

But the question that kept them moving forward was the spiritual question, “What’s God up to?!” That question likely burned in their minds and hearts as they talked around cooking fires at night for 40 years. They knew that God had delivered them from slavery and had promised them a safe and prosperous new life in a new land. But exactly where and how loomed beyond the raging river just in front of them. Verse 15 says now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest.” Let’s pause here and imagine standing there.

 

I’m struck by the fact that Israel has not only not passed this way before, God is calling them to walk headlong into the Jordan River that is rushing by at floodtide. Those of you who ever attempted steelhead fishing know how treacherous it is to wade even thigh-deep into a swollen river. The river may look shallow, it may not be that wide, but the force of the water can easily knock you over even when you know what you’re doing.

 

The leaders – the Levites – have to step in first. I think this is one of the amazing details of the story. In the Hebrew scriptures, water is a sign of primeval chaos and danger. These Levites hadn’t had swimming lessons at the YMCA back in Egypt. They hadn’t swum laps in hotel swimming pools in the wilderness. I suspect few, if any, could even swim! Add to this reality that they had either seen or heard tell how Pharaoh’s army had drowned in a similar event crossing the Red Sea on the front end of their trip. God says to the Levites--the leaders--take that heavy, gold-plated Ark of the Covenant and step off the bank and into the river. And when the leaders step in, the rest of you...FOLLOW THEM!

 

The only thing that enables them to take such a bold step into an unknown future is the faith that God is up to something! That God not only understands their situation, but is already there around them and ahead of them! That God who released them from slavery would lead them to shalom! That God who got them through the Red Sea would get them over Jordan!  They had not passed this way before, but God had been here all along. Their knowledge was insufficient, but what they didn’t know, God knew! Their experience did not apply, except for their experience of God! Their tools for making bricks or herding sheep would be useless against the armies of Canaan, but they trusted that the arm of God was stronger than the armies of flesh. So, facing the Promised Land, they stepped out into the river. And when they stepped OUT, God stepped IN!

 

What looked like a barrier became a doorway to a whole new world. They began an adaptive change. They stepped out contrary to traditional wisdom because they believed that God had called them.

 

Change that requires new ways of thinking, new knowledge, and new values in order to survive in a new situation is called adaptive change.

 

Let’s apply it to the Church.

 

Churches in North America, across the denominational landscape, are waking up to the reality that the landscape has changed. The North American church is in decline. The Crystal Cathedral is a church in the Reformed Church in America (They’re like the first cousins of Presbyterians as a denomination.) For the latter half of the 20th century, it was the model of a modern, seeker-sensitive, growing church. But they failed to adapt to the changes in the culture. They went bankrupt and have sold their campus to the Roman Catholic Diocese. The Diocese held a contest to rename the Cathedral. One submission (tongue in cheek) was to name it “Our Lady of Perpetual Windex!”

 

Keith Tanis, our Executive Presbyter has been coaching a process of adaptive change in the American Baptist Churches. They have entered the process because they no longer know what it means to be American Baptist Church in today’s culture. They feel they are losing their connectedness. And their denomination, the church of Dr. Martin Luther King, has lost its impact on the culture. The church in North America is in decline. They’ve not passed this way before!

 

The tools and strategies we used in the past no longer seem to work. New strategic plans generate enthusiasm for a while but leave our un-churched neighbors unaffected. The next big program from mega-churches like Willow Creek or Saddleback don’t work in Olympia, Tacoma or University Place like they did in Chicago or Los Angeles. We build new buildings and call new pastors, but the un-churched people in our community don’t care, and are not interested in coming to church. We’ve not passed this way before. And God calls us to be God’s people. The landscape has changed. We live in the time of disruption, disequilibrium and discontinuity. Some of the names of these changes are: post-denominational, post-modern, and post-Christian.  We’ve not passed this way before. We’re beginning to realize that we need new ways of thinking new knowledge, and new values in order to survive in the new situation. We need to learn adaptive change.

 

Today we stand on the bank of a whole new world. We stand on the brink of a new chapter of life as the New Israel, the covenant people of God. We need to be willing to get our feet wet. We need to be willing to follow God who is already present and active in our community. We need to step into the river in order to engage people on the other side who may look and sound and act as foreign to us as the Canaanites did to Old Israel. But we MUST cross over to their side of the river!

 

When we do, God who worked wonders for Israel will work wonders among us. When we do, we will discover that God is already at work in our neighborhoods, workplaces and classrooms. As we step towards others, we will overcome them not with hostility, but with hospitality. We will win them not with confrontation but with compassion and grace.

 

We do not need a strategic plan where others are only objects for evangelistic crusades. Instead, we need a simple faith that the Spirit of God who lives in our minds and hearts will connect with the Spirit of God already at work in others who may not yet recognize God’s divine Presence. We’ve not passed this way before, in the Church. But as we step out in faith, God will step in!

How do we do that? We’re getting help from our presbytery. We’re experimenting. We trust God to guide us to the next step of our journey. We may not have passed this way before, but we trust God will guide us into new ways of thinking, new habits, and new knowledge.

 

You may need to make adaptive changes in your personal life. Many of us have faced disruptive challenges. Some of us are facing them right now. Some of you have been speeding down the road of life with the top down and the radio on and suddenly run into a physical or mental roadblock for which nothing could have prepared you. You or a family member is diagnosed with cancer or dementia or a chronic condition that appears without warning, and, more importantly, without an easy fix. Your life changes. You’ve not passed this way before. You learn to adapt.

 

When your marriage, or the marriage of someone you love is disrupted by infidelity, addiction or boredom, you learn painfully that the marriage that took two to begin, can be ended by one. The fabric that provided warmth and safety unravels quickly leaving spouses and kids out in the cold. We’ve not passed this way before.

 

Sometimes disruptive challenges are a positive natural part of life—when we leave home to go to college, when we leave school for work in the marketplace, when we marry and have children, we learn new ways of thinking, new habits, and new values. We’ve not passed this way before!

 

As we face disruptions or new situations in our personal lives we ask God to guide us and strengthen us for the next step of our journey. We may not have passed this way before, but we know God has called us to be God’s people and we trust God will guide us into new ways of thinking, new habits, and new knowledge. Like the Oakland A’s under Billy Beane, God may empower us to find value in people and practices we had overlooked and undervalued in the past.

 

As we seek God’s guidance, God may show us new ways, give us new hope, and open new doors to the future. We are called to be God’s people. As we step out in faith, God will step in. If we are willing to adapt, if we’re willing to change. If we’re willing to go where God calls us, new vistas await!