Immutable and Adaptable
June 10, 2012 | Patrick Preheim | 1st Samuel Chapter 8        

I begin with an encounter found in Diana Butler Bass’ book Christianity After Religion.  (pp. 39-40)

"Why are you going to Minneapolis?” asked my seatmate on a flight out of Chicago.  He was a nicely dressed businessman.
“Speaking at a conference,” I replied.  I hesitated to say that I was speaking at a Lutheran synod meeting.  Sometimes, especially on a short flight, I take my mother’s advice that one should not talk about religion with strangers. 
“What kind of conference?” he insisted.
“Lutherans,” I replied.  [With Lutheran headquarters in Chicago and a huge Lutheran population in Minnesota] I figured he would know about Lutherans....
He looked at me, wondering as well if he should continue.  “I used to be a Lutheran.  I guess I still am, but I don’t go to church anymore.  I’m not mad at the church or anything—I appreciate what it gave me when I was young.  Went every Sunday... Confirmation, youth group, the whole thing.”  He sighed.  “But I just don’t know where it fits anymore, and I just drifted away.  My life if full without church; it seems kind of irrelevant.  They don’t care about my questions; there’s no reason to go.”
“What questions?” I asked.
“Oh, doubt, life, making the world a better place.  You know, questions.  They seem interested in things that don’t really matter.  Church is disconnected from real life.”
“Do the questions bother you?”
“Sometimes,” he said.  “But mostly I’m just trying to figure them out with my wife and family—sort of making things up as I go along.”
“What do you do on Sunday morning now?”
“Sleep in, mostly.  Soccer with the kids.  Read books.  It’s nice.”....
Another thirty minutes and the plane landed.  We went down the jet bridge and he said good-bye.  I watched as he walked toward the exit, home to his own post-Lutheran world.

As this story illustrates, church affiliation is in transition.   I say transition because people still view themselves as “spiritual” even if they are not religious.  According to a recent World Values Survey 40% of Canadians refer to themselves as spiritual but not religious (Ibid, 66; see also the World Values Survey web site at www.worldvaluessurvey.org/).   What does God do with this??  God loves the best of what church and organized religion can be, but obviously the church is not relevant for many spiritual people.  God desires that the churched and un-churched alike might draw water and nutrients from the tap-root of the tree known as God.  This Divine tree offers us stability, shelter, perspective, and life.  God’s desire for humans does not change, and so our highly adaptable God will find ways to strengthen us in the times of our institutional and personal transitions. 

The bulletin cover tries to capture different stages through which we move.  The images look much better in colour, but you get the idea in the black and white pictures.  It is the same tree in four different seasons.  Spring is a time of emergence:  the blossoms of study, discernment of occupation, personal identity.   In summer the blossom turns to fruit:  productivity, wild growth, adventure.  In fall we celebrate and reflect upon the bounty of summer:  the time of an empty nest, volunteering in retirement, active grand-parenting.  The tree of winter hibernates, but the preserved fruit and seed continue to nourish.  The seasons change and yet the tree remains the same.  There are serious questions of identity and meaning in each of these seasons.

Take for example those who are transitioning from summer to fall—those for whom retirement looms.  The most recent census found, for the first time in Canada’s history, there were more people age 55 to 64 than age 15 to 24.  A Star-Phoenix article earlier this week probed the effects of boomer retirement upon the occupation of nursing and hospitals (“How many Boomers Plan to Retire” by Pamela Cowan (May 29, 2012)).  Essentially, the report outlined the social impact of a generation near retirement.  Most articles on retirement in the newspapers, however, focus almost solely on the social impact while leaving untouched the emotional and spiritual dimensions involved in the shift.   The transition from employment to retirement is saturated with questions of meaning.  God is still present in a new stage of life and in the new tasks before us, and yet much will be different.   And how about all those high school and university aged persons?   It is tough work deciding if university is a good idea, declaring a major once in school, selecting an occupation once convocated, making new friends, entering the work force, scouting for potential mates all while trying to earn enough money to enjoy an occasional night out with friends. 

In both these cases a trust to our unchanging and yet adaptable God can provide the foundation which not only allows a person to survive a transition, but to thrive.   The prescription medication for the anxiety all this change creates is trust.  So how do we get trust??  That is a huge question to which I will devote the entirety of next week’s sermon.  Suffice it to say for today, but we get trust by practicing trust.  Trust is a virtue ethic that comes only through practice.  More on this next week.

I return to our biblical story as a conclusion to my thoughts.  At the time Samuel 8 was written at least two forces conspired in leveraging a change in governance within Israel.  One force was the perceived notion that a unified military (rather than the Lord) would be the best defence against external threats.  Another pull was the shift from a tribal system with its discrete and localized economy to a national system in which there could be centralization, organization, and economy of scale (Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel (Interpretation Commentary Series), p. 58).  Both of these concerns called into question the value and validity of the “old days”.   Chapter 8 begins “an interpretive reflection on this difficult and crucial relation between new forms of social relations and an old, honored, well-established theological tradition.  The settlement between the two came only through an ongoing and vigorous dispute and required a bold interpretive act” (Ibid, 58). 

This “bold interpretive act” was to affirm a continuity of the religious values regardless of the social system.  And what are the values of the Lord affirmed from Genesis to Malachi?  Perhaps the prophet Micah summed it up best:  do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before our God (Micah 6:8 paraphrase).   So long as a government cares for orphans, is merciful to aliens, and carries itself with humility—the Lord could care less if it a government operates with direct democracy, socialism, communism, or a constitutional monarchy with a parliament.   The way we do church in the future matters less to the Lord than how we are collectively living justice, mercy, and humility.   And while God might have opinions about the university degrees we pursue, our family size, or our life in retirement, these are all secondary to how we are living the Great Command regardless of our season or station in life. 

God is immutable and also highly adaptable—the same tree, new each season.  At a personal level, God offers us unchanging and eternal peace in every season.  And while our social and institutional forms evolve, God’s Spirit eternally calls us to the unchanging fruit of justice, kindness and humility.  For this stability in the midst of change, we give thanks.  Amen.