GOD IS NO TRADITIONALIST

January 18, 1987, 11;00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Scripture

Isaiah 43:14-21
John 1:29-34
Revelation 21:1-5

"Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold I
am doing a new thing; now it springs forth,..." --Isaiah 43:18,19 (RSV}

“T waited patiently for the Lord,"
the Psaimist confessed,
"The Lord... heard my cry...and drew: _
me up from the pit, out of the miry bog, _
and set my feet upon a rock.
The Lord put a new song in my mouth..”
{extractions from Psalm 40:1-3}

And I can almost hear someone saying from the back pew in a stage
whisper audible to all around, "What was wrong with the old song?" Well,
what is wrong with the old song? Having been rescued by God from an oozing
pit of quick sand and placed on a solid rock, why can't the Psalmist sing
something we know? Why not a familiar tune? There are plenty of them.
Now, this is not an essay on choosing the hymns for Sunday worship,
although after a very few years in this business, we clergy learn that
there is no topic about which people can become heated more readily.

Sexual ethics, church and staté, the morality of war, harboring illegal
aliens - it seems we can survive it all so long as we sing hymns everyone
knows... “Who chooses the hymns?" we are asked far more frequently than
“What was your exegetical resource for your interpretation of Romans 52"
The secret at Fourth Church is that both the pastor and.
organist/choirmaster share the responsibility of choosing hymns. Sometimes
I do it: sometimes he does it: sometimes I choose one and he chooses the
others: sometimes we discuss it, sometimes we don't. There is no. pattern.
That way, when someone corners me and says “Who chose the hymns?" Iocan say
Dr. Simmons, with a bit of accuracy, and he can respond similarly.

What's wrong with the old song? Nothing actually, except that God
isn't much of traditionalist, likes new music, in fact is something of an
innovator,. an experimenter, an expert at doing new-things. God's people,
on the other hand, are inclined to be traditionalists, to absolutize every
high and holy moment, to hang on the past for dear life, to cling to the
present desperately and in the process to back into the future, often
missing the new things God is doing, unable to see ahead, like a driver
hurtling down the highway, eyes riveted to the rear-view mirror. It's a

problem in the Bible, because the Bible is consistently hopeful. Even
when the immediate future looks awful, the Bible finds a way of being
hopeful about it.

_ Human history is often the story of those special people who had a
sense of the newness which was happening at the moment, the ones who

understood that circumstances required a brave new approach. Abraham
Lincoln was one of them. One month before he issued the Emancipation
Proclamation, December 1, 1862, he delivered a speech to the Congress. It
was an extraordinarily troubled time in the life of the nation and in his
personal life. His speech that day was undistinguished, rambling, until
the end when he said one of the wisest things he or anyone ever said..."The
dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The
occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, we must think anew. We must disenthrall ourselves."

That's a very Biblical sentiment. “We must disenthral! ourselves."
It sounds exactly like something a prophet of God wrote to a people 2,500
years ago, who had about decided that the future looked so awful all that
was left for them was to clutch desperately to the memories of the past. It
was a difficult time. All that was left of Judah was in captivity, exiled
in Babylon. In the Sixth Century B.C. a once proud nation was in ruins and
its leaders had been prisoners in a foreign land for more than a
generation. The future did not look good. Babylonian policy was to
welcome the exiled Jews, to invite them to assimilate, to become part of
the neighborhood. It was a seductive and nearly successful policy to
eliminate the Jews by absorbing them. As the older ones sensed what was
happening, actually saw the end of the race, one can imagine them clinging
even more tightly to the past, the stories, the customs, the memories. The
traditions would keep them alive. Now, to make matters worse, Babylon,
their. captor nation, was threatened by Persia.. What would happen when the
nation in which they were held captive was. overrun by Persians was anyone's
guess, but it couldn't possibly be good, ,

So he wrote to them in some of the purest, loveliest poetry-in the
Bible, a prophet whose work begins two-thirds of the way through the Book

of Isaiah. "Comfort, comfort my people...speak tenderly to Jerusalem and
say. to her that her warfare is ended." He gave the world precious images
of God and God's way with us. "Behold, my servant.. I have put my spirit

upon Him. He will bring forth justice te the nation." His theological
legacy would be honored thousands of times when people in danger and stress
and uncertainty remembered. “Those who wait for the Lord shall mount up
with wings like eagles: they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk
and not faint.". The prophet recalled the past and reminded the captives in
Babylon hew God had once led their forebears out of another bondage, out of
Egypt, through the sea and the wilderness. The memory of the Exodus was
the most powerful reality in the religion of Israel. The prophet recalled
it, celebrated it, affirmed it, and then, with no warning...

“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold I am doing a new thing.
Now it springs forth, do you not
perceive it?"

1-18-87

The N.E.B. translates - "Cease to dwell on days gone by.'
"Do not cling to the events of the past," the T.E.V. translates it.

The past is remembered, revered and honored. Those who neglect to
learn from history are condemned to repeat it. What the prophet urges the
people to do is recall what God once did in order to see what God is doing
in the present and will do in the future. If the only place you Jock for
God, that is to say, is in venerable tradition, sacred custom, revered
memory, you are going to miss something. God is already out ahead, in the
future.

f The human dynamic which bumps into this Biblical motif is
traditionalism. It belongs to our humanity, apparently, to deal. with
change and uncertainty by looking backward. And as an apologia for our
traditionalism, let it be said once more that no one in history ever had to
deal with as many changes as we must, therefore, no one ever had more
reason to be traditionalists, to look backward, than we do. A new Arthur
Schlesinger book, The Cycles of American History, documents the thesis that
dealing with change is our first and most important priority. The author
cites the "acceleration" thetry of historian Henry Adams who, around the
turn of the century, realized that the human story’was not only changing
radically, but that the rate of change was accelerating. Adams realized
that his 1860's Harvard diploma was actually closer, intellectually and
scientifically, to the year 1, than it was to 1904. All the human history
until fairly recently, was stable, static. People lived essentially the
same, century after century. People in 2006 B.C. and 1000 A.D.. used the
same methods of transportation, communication, commerce, medicine, and
education... Schlessinger writes, “Humans have: lived on earth for possibly
800 life-times, most of which they spent in caves.. Moveable type appeared
only 8 life-times ago, industrialization in the last 3. life—times...The
last two life-times have seen more scientific and technological achievement
than the first 798 put together." ( New York Times Magazine), 7/27/86. An
interesting aside is that change is happening so rapidly, parents no longer
teach children, children have to teach parents - about the new /
developments. I have to ask my son to reset my digital watch, wait for my
son-in-law to connect the compact disc player and my daughter to tell me
what music to listen to on it.

In a time of rapid and frightening change, the past becomes very
important. A knowledge of the past can help us negotiate our way into the
future. Secretary of State, Gen. George Marshall, in the midst of. the
Berlin Blockade, with the world tottering on the brink of. World. War. TII,
was asked by an aide, how. he could remain so'caim. “I've seen worse" Gen.
Marshall said. (Schlesinger, New York Times, op.cit.)

P

| ‘ys
The fatal human flaw, however, is to try to drag the past into the (a bs

present, to insist that the institutions of the past are adequate for the , Le
present. In this year of the Constitutional Bi-Centennial, scholars’ will 4
discuss the amazing durability of our Constitution, and they will tell us
that the durability of the document and the system has something to do with
its elasticity and flexibility. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead
observed that “the art of free society is...in the fearlessness of

1-18-87

revision. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols
with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or
from the slow atrophy of life stifled by useless shadows. "Symbolism in
Religion and Literature," in Rollo May, My Search for Beauty, p. 171)

Our world, our nation, our city need to know that. The old ways
don't work any longer. The-old ways are making urban unemployment, poverty
and crime, worse instead of better. Someone has to look forward, not
backward. Internationally, history would seem to dictate the violent end
of the world. There is no more venerable tradition than militarism and war-
making; if we are locked intc traditions and custom, someone sooner or
later is going to fire one of those things at someone else. Someone has ta
think anew and have the moral courage to keep thinking anew.

. Some are, but it's a difficult task to. get a hearing. ~The barrier is
_traditionalism, J attended the Global Conference of the World Future
Society in Toronto once, as part of a denominational responsibility. It
was. a remarkable conclave of scientists, inventors, business people,
educators, officials from_all over the world. It was a very hopeful but
disturbing affair. . Everyone who had taken the trouble to attend the
conference was there out of a commitment to the future. The economists
were saying that the two basic ways of thinking economically, i.e. free-
market capitalism and state controlled communism, are both inadequate; one
leads to unemployment, the other to inflation. Someone has to think anew.
The political scientists were saying that what is happening in. Poland and
China is indicative of vast social and political change and that it is
related to what is happening in South Africa and Nicaragua. The world
needs new political structures, new concepts, neither Western nor Eastern,
but new. Meanwhile, the communications people were setting up. computer
networks through which people ail. over the world can have ongoing
conversations, to replace trade journals, they said, because. in computers,
at least, a printed journal is out of date before the ink is dry.

There was a track on religion at the conference. It was not very
well attended. Frankly, it was dull. It didn't have much to say about the
future. I kept returning to it, out of a sense of responsibility, hoping
for a-relevant word, and invariably left to catch the excitement generated
across the hall in workshops on architecture and environmental management.
An article I read after the conference concluded that the religion track
spent’ most of its time “arguing for the past." _

The simple truth is that religion does that much of the time.
“Remember not the former things...Behold, I am doing a new thing" the
prophet wrote. The irony is that the whole Global Conference on the future
was testimony in the broadest sense to that 2,500 year old theological
insight. God the creator is doing a host of new things, now it is
springing forth. And the people who know it should be the very ones
pointing ahead, leading, showing the way, out of a deep trust in the
Creator who the other futurists don't know about, mostly because they have
heard. only about the past. from his representatives.

Jesus said, "do this in memory of me." Memory is important. Our

traditions are precious. But sometimes the memory, the traditions, are all
there is. [t's one thing to preserve the traditions. [t's another thing

1-18-87

to praise the Lord only in music that must be at least.a century old. It's
one thing to remember the past, it's another thing to attempt to
communicate what we believe only in philosophic. categories and religious
language that haven't been. used or understood since the fourth century.
[t's one thing to keep faith with the past. It's another thing to try to
answer the pressing ethical dilemmas the brave new world. is creating for us
on the basis of realities that haven't been around for 100 years.

Ged is ne traditionalist... The dogmas of the quiet past are never
totally adequate for the present and sometimes downright dangerous for the
future. And so you and I, in our time, as people. before us in uncertain
times did, must learn to act and think differently,.in new ways. And the
promise of the Scripture is that. when we do we are going to be surprised.
We are going to find Ged - out in front of us.

1 conclude that when we think about God, our minds automatically oot
shift into past tense. Anthropomorphism, i.e. defining God in human term
is dangerous, but if you insist on it, why a white robe? Why not a
business suit? If we have a concept of God, it. is located somewhere back
in time. If we have any notion of creation, it is something God: started
and completed a long time ago. Let me suggest that those are the kinds of
ideas that need to change.

Distinguished. European theologian, Carl Braaten, helped me with a
stunning new concept of God...He wrote -."God's transcendence can be
conceived of today as the absolute power of the ‘future: He comes tous
not ‘from above! but ‘from ahead. Ted Peters, Futures Human & Divine,- p.
152) :

American Professor, Ted Peters, - in a book on the future, -~
likewise..."The power of creation is at the end, not. the beginning... God
did not create the world once upon a time as a watchmaker creates a watch,
winds it up and then lets it run. Rather, creation is still going on. It
is a process of being drawn toward a final future when everything will come
into its full being.” (Ibid, p. 153). God is not located in the past. The
past is gone. What we have are memories of God's presence in the past. |
God is in the future - ahead of us. Creation is @ pull. from ahead instead
of a push from behind.

For. most of us that is a very different way of thinking about God.
But it leads, I submit, to- hope; not to despair and anxiety but to a.
profound hopefulness about the future. “Behold, I am doing a new thing.
Now it springs forth."

None of us knows what lies ahead, internationally, nationally, “not
even personally. In fact, it is at the personal level where uncertainty
and change becomes most frightening. The Biblical witness is good news.
The Gospel of Christ is fundamentally expectant, forward-looking, hopeful.
It is not, please understand, simply rosy, positive thinking. The Gospel
is hopeful about the future because of the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, that event in which we believe God confirmed his power over every
other authority in life and his presence always with us in life, in the
future, in death, in life eternal.

1-18-87

Christian people have been indomitable when they have remembered
that. 95 AD, for instance, and Roman persecution was intensifying, and
people were ‘being burned to death and hanged on crosses for their faith,
and their weekly meetings were watched and raided, and dear ones beaten and
friends tortured and even one's own children could unwittingly bring

- disaster on parents, relatives, friends. And one of them wrote a letter as
a prophet had done six hundred years before. This writer was in exile on
the Island of Patmos, and he wrote in a cryptic literary code in order to
fuol. the Romans which apparently he did. We know his letter to those
desperate, frightened people as the Book of Revelations. Listen to what he
said.- our first theology of the future: - "I saw a new heaven and a new
earth...God will be with his people...He will wipe away every tear from
their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning or
crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away...Behold,
I make all things new."

They read that. And they understood, even as the arrests and
beatings and torture and executions continued, that the God and Father of
Jesus Christ was out there in the future drawing them:to Him: that the
future is God's And so have countless others; in similar circumstances
across the years, known that the present may be lived in and sometimes
endured because the future is God's. In the Roman Arena, in Nazi
concentration camps, in Soviet. mental hospitals, in jails in the American
South.in the 60's, in prisons in South Africa,...and in hospital rooms, in
every place where people face pain and uncertainty and change — and
sickness and loss and death...in these places Christian people have heard
and understood... "Remember not the former things. Behold, I make ali
things. new.."

God is noe traditionalist. You will find God in the future, making
all things new, and that may require that you think anew. oe

None of us can know what lies ahead. Something Sandburg wrote about
Lincoln's time strikes me as descriptive of our times. “It was sunset and
dawn, moonrise and noon, dying time and birthing hour ~ " (The Prairie
Years and The War Years, p.'191).

We cannot know the future... nor do we know what lies ahead for even
our families, ourselves. We do have a choice to make, however, between two
alternatives. We can spend the time Ged has given worrying about |
uncertainty, change. We can invest ourselves in the task of preserving the
past and inevitably be lured into trying to do our living there as well. Or
we can welcome the future with head held high, eyes wide open, eager,
anticipating, watching, expecting, because we know our Lord and God is out
ahead of us making ail things new. That seems to me a better, and more
interesting, and more faithful alternative, by far.

Amen.

1-18-87