Changing Values, Not Just Furniture

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, let's go now to our sermon text, which is John 13, verses 31 through 35. It's up there on the screen. And again, here we are in our Many Colors book study last week. You can still join a discussion group, give it a try, see what happens. Still learn something new. The goal, again, is to increase our cultural intelligence and proficiency so we can serve God better in our multicultural society that we're in here and as a multi-ethnic church. And I'm just going to repeat again where we've been in this book. There's a lot in this book. We've learned about how God gives us culture. We all have our own cultures. Cultures are different from each other, and we can learn about where we are different on these various spectra to increase understanding of other cultures and how things work between cultures. And there's some challenges. There's some communication challenges between cultures until you understand those differences. Pastor Victoria preached on that one chapter and how power is often at play when cultures intersect and within cultures. And intercultural cooperation requires giving up of power sometimes if we want to have more cultural competency.

[1:13] Storytelling is a powerful way to communicate identity, and we need to tell our stories and listen to stories and value other people's stories. And last week we learned that togetherness and learning and hospitality are one of the ways that we can connect.

[1:29] So if you want to get some great material for for some great material for some great material for some great material great material great material for for for for for I think that would be interesting, you know. I've been thinking we should watch a Ukrainian film, like that would be interesting. He was kind of learning more about Ukraine a lot lately. Or some other, some other film that is, it's got to be watchable though. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's like, I would not recommend some Swedish films because at the end of them you'd be like, what was that about? And why do I feel so depressed? And you know, the Scandinavian film of the last 50 years is, with a few exceptions, is just very odd and morose. But anyway. So today we're going to talk about how to change a culture within the church. And so our reading is from John. It's from the Last Supper where Jesus, in effect, he charts a new course for organizational change with the command to love each other. Which isn't a new command, actually. He says it's a new command, but it's new in the sense in the way he puts it. It's not new in the sense because God had commanded it before, but Jesus is here, is making it a central organizing principle of the faith and a mark by which other people will recognize his followers.

[2:42] So you'll see that as we read. Let's go to our reading now. It's from John 13. Jesus is here saying, And we'll glorify him in himself and we'll glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me. And as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. I give you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it in Jesus name. Amen.

[3:44] Well, I want to look a little bit at the book's content. And so if you haven't read it, that's fine. I'll tell you a little bit about it. And if you have read it, this will kind of be a review. But one thing I'll say is I, I really didn't expect to find the concept of the Hegelian dialectic in this book, but this is the concept I want to get to. There it is. There it is. The Hegelian dialectic. There's some doubt that actually that there's a philosopher named Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. If you want to give your kid a hard time, name him that, you know. And so Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. There's some doubt that he actually formulated in exactly this way, but it does probably build on his teachings. In essence, the Hegelian dialectic goes like this, that you start with a thesis. It encounters something called an antithesis or antithesis, antithesis, and as a result comes a new synthesis. So you notice that the word thesis is in all three of these words, of course, including the first one. And I could put it up, we could put it up here, but it's just three words. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Well, we don't really need to learn this because that's a negative example in this book. For our purposes, and the author says, this would imagine sort of a linear system that has an

[5:01] organizing principle, which is the thesis. And some event or an idea comes along to challenge that organizing principle, which would be the antithesis or antithesis. And the system then processes that challenge and reframes itself in a way that is able to overcome this challenge, which results in a synthesis. And this linear process of synthesis, antithesis, synthesis, antithesis, and all of that could happen again and again and again. Wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat. You could just do this forever. And so the system, of course, is always reforming itself. It's always re-synthesizing itself. But in a sense, it's always reacting to itself. And the author is telling us here, that's not exactly the way the church should work, because that has led to problems in the church. You know, this can happen in businesses. It can happen in the church. The church is always reacting to something, synthesizing itself into something new. And instead, he's offering an alternative paradigm to the Hegelian dialectic for churches, which is what he calls systems. He calls it that, but it really exists. It's called systems thinking or systems, sort of a systems paradigm, right? Because the dialectic is not sufficient to address

[6:20] the problem of the church's deficit in cultural entitlement. It's too linear. The systems thinking is what's needed. The idea that many aspects of how we work as a church are interrelated and affect each other, and simply overcoming one challenge will not lead to the kind of change that can make us culturally competent. And so he gives an example of this well-meaning young pastor who, the first day he's at his church, he walks in the door and realizes that the piano is blocking the way people talk. And so he's talking about the way people walk into the church. And so he helpfully moves the piano. Well, then the very first worship service, the piano player can't play very well, and everybody's, you know, everything is discombobulated. Well, it turns out the piano player wanted the piano there so that nobody could see her play, because that made her nervous. And she played better if she wasn't nervous, makes sense. And so his attempt to fix the system created chaos, and everything was interrelated. And so, and then why, you know, but what's at stake here? Well, you don't want to, the new pastor's in town. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to question him. It's a good idea, you know, but, or it is, actually, it is a good idea. So I'll tell you, this happened to me.

[7:34] This happened to me. The church I served in Iowa, I served a tiny little country church in Iowa. I should show you a picture. It was a beautiful little white wooden steeple church in the middle of a bunch of cornfields in Iowa. In the winter, it was cool because all the snow was coming around. In the summers, there was waving corn all surrounding the church building. And, and for some reason, one day I opened the phone bill. Never do that. I don't know. That's the first thing I would tell the new pastors. Don't open the phone bill. No, you could do that. But I was like, and there was a charge on there for $5. And it was because we had this antiquated phone. Do you know that long ago when there was, you know, before AT&T turned into AT&T and a zillion other things, is that you actually had to rent your phone from the phone company. And some, I don't think you can anymore. Hopefully not. And so the church was renting, the phone from the phone company, it was costing $5 a month. And I thought this is ridiculous. That's $60 a year. We could buy a cheap phone for like $9 and just stick it there. So I, uh, helpfully, you know, it was like within my first few weeks there, I was going to fix it all, you

[8:40] know, and I, I took that old phone out and I called them and I said, let's just, I called the phone company and say, oh, we'll come out and get it. Just kind of amazing. You know? And they, I think, or maybe they told me to throw it in the trash. I don't really know. I mean, it's like, there's not even worth it. They were happy to take the $5 every month. They weren't going to stop us, you know? And I, I went to some store and I bought a, you know, I bought a cheap phone and stuck it there and, you know, and then people are like, where's the old phone? You know? Well, I, I got rid of it and like, well, why'd you do that? Well, I thought it would be helpful. And then I realized, you know what would have made more sense to sit down with the people who pay the bills or the, you know, the trustees and say, you know, we're paying $5 a month for a phone. Why don't we just buy a phone? Should we keep doing that? But I just did it all myself. So I kind of upset the apple cart right on the very first day. The other thing I would always tell pastors is always read the script of the Christmas pageant. Always read the script because you don't know what could sneak in there and offend everybody else. And I didn't do that.

[9:38] That was a big mistake. That's another story. So you can come in, you can, the church is a system. There's all these interconnected parts, all these relationships that you don't necessarily see. They're all below the surface, right? There's the, there's the iceberg, the iceberg, the tip of the iceberg is the piano's in a weird place. The bottom of the iceberg is all sorts of other things going on. So to really meet the challenges of systems or sort of organizational change, cultural change in the church, you have to be in a systems thinking point of view, not in a Hegelian dialectic. Okay, good. So that's the new paradigm. Where am I now? So that's the, what the author then says is that systems change requires us to actually change the way we think about the world. Change our own cultural values, not to change a telephone. That's, that's a very small change, not to move the location of a piano. That's just, you know, that, that uncovers the rest of the iceberg, but that's not changing anything really significant. You have to change your own cultural values. In essence, we have to sacrifice them on the altar and take on new values. And as scary as that may seem, as much as it requires us to give up power and influence and prestige and security

[10:53] and so on. So to actually change our values. And that's, that's not easy. He's not saying it's easy. But we have to look at the system and say what are actual, what are the actual values that are informing us. And what values are we willing to change for the sake of better cultural competency. And that's what. So just as an example. That's what Jesus is doing in our first reading. The reading about Matthew the tax collector. Right. And after that he goes to Matthew's house. He eats there. And other sinners. Come. sit there and everybody's having this wonderful sort of meal together. And actually it's a systems change there, what Jesus is doing. It's not just a stunt designed to shock people. The Pharisees don't like it because Jesus has eaten with them. And so if Jesus eats with them and then the next day goes and eats with these people, there's actually this implied equality between all. You only eat with people that are on your level or slightly above or maybe slightly below. And so if I eat with you tomorrow and I eat with you the next day after that, that means that you guys are on the same plane and sort of this gradated level of honor and shame in our culture. I'm speaking in Jesus's time, but somewhat in our time too. And so they were upset because by eating with

[12:15] tax collectors and sinners, Jesus was equating the Pharisees to the sinner. That the Pharisees really looked down upon. And so they were shocked. They were angry. There was this going on. Jesus says, you know, this is the new way. I didn't come. I didn't come for the healthy. I came for the sick, right? But as we understand later, he came for them too because they were sick in their own way, right? They weren't tax collectors, but they were broken in their own way. And the other, I think the downside of that sort of honor shame system in the way it was, remember, we talked about how God does give us culture. God creates culture, but we can kind of take it off the rails. So honor, an honor shame culture can do a good job of keeping people in line because it's sort of a group oriented culture. And so a child in a family would say, oh, I better not go, you know, do something crazy because it's going to reflect poorly on my family. Oh, by the way, let's just turn off the, let's turn off the text there. It's thanks. By the way, you know, I'm not going to go do that, that this honor shame culture is going to give me some guardrails to keep me from making a lot of big mistakes. That's the good side of it.

[13:26] But the downside of honor and shame culture is that once I have done something shameful, it's very hard to, to sort of rehabilitate my reputation. And so, so some people then would say, well, you already think I'm terrible. I might as well get rich at it. I'm going to become a tax collector, or I just need to feed my family. And there's nothing, I can do. I can't, I can't win in this system. And so I'm going to, I'm going to go and do something else to just to try to survive. And there was no way out of that. So Jesus comes in and he says, there is a way out of it. It's table fellowship with me. Not only am I saying that they're as bad as you, I'm saying that you're as good as them. It's kind of the equivalency goes in the other direction. And it's Jesus that is always giving off his grace and his righteousness. And he's, he's conferring that honor. And he's giving honor to everyone he encounters and everyone he eats with. So he's upending a system. He's upending a system and he's being prophetic about the culture that he's in. He's not, he's not destroying it, but he's saying, let's restore it to what it was intended to do, which is it was intended. It was intended to give people good guard rails. It wasn't intended to keep people

[14:36] down forever and for other people to feel really good about themselves as they look down on the people who are living in shame. That's not what it was designed for. So the new cultural value, there's a new cultural value that Jesus introduced in that story is that anyone may come into the presence of the Messiah and receive honor from him, no matter what they've done. That's the new cultural value. And there's this great leveling, right? There's a leveling of people. And it says also in effect that, um, even the most honored people in the cultures, it could have been the Pharisees, even those with the most honor in the culture were ultimately sinners. And they are sin was just as bad as the tax collectors. And so you remember the sermon on the Mount, this all kind of works together in the new Testament. Remember the sermon on the Mount. If you call your brother a fool, it's as if you were a murderer, right? There's no, you could make a list of all the sins from the worst to the least. And Jesus saying, no, calling your brother a fool, which, uh, that could, I could, that could roll off my tongue fairly easily, but I don't talk to my brother all that often, but the brother means anyone else, you know, uh, calling your brother a

[15:46] fool is as bad as murder. Well then what hope is there? We're all, we're all murderers. We're all adulterers, right? We're all thieves. We're all everything. And so that's the other sort of change to the system is that sin is sin. We may have our list of where we think it is, but Jesus says it's all sin. You still need me. And so we, you know, so the sermon on the Mount and Romans look says the apostle Paul says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And everyone needs the grace that flows out from God's son. So what the book is asking us to do now is a lot harder than watching a foreign film. Okay. I'm going to be honest with you. This is the hard part. You know, we could watch a film. That's fine. We could do some of these other stuff. The book is now asking us to say, we need to examine our own church culture and we need to understand it as an interconnected system, which it is. And then we need to determine which deeply held cultural values are keeping us from developing cultural competence, right? What is keeping us stuck from taking the next steps. And then we have to make a conscious decision together, all together. We have to do it all together that we're going to change those

[17:04] values and start practicing the habits and patterns and events that flow from those new values. And whether we do so or not, whether we actually do those things would be a sign of whether we're going to be able to do it. And so we need to be able to do it. And so we need to do it. And so we need to do it. And so we need to do it. And so we need to do it. And then we've actually changed our values. So what the author is asking for us now is to change our values, to examine what values we're operating on and to change them somehow. And that's not going to be easy. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. That may take time. It may take a lot of thought. It may take a lot of dialogue. I think we need to listen to the spirit while we're doing this. We need to be aware. Okay. So I'm going to end with this. What does Jesus say in our sermon reading today? Right? He says, here is a new commandment. I think it's a new commandment. I think it's a new commandment. I think this is just an example for us. Right? And again, like I said, it's an old commandment. He says, we're to love God, you know, Deuteronomy 6, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That's Leviticus 19. We know those. So loving each other is not a new commandment,

[18:01] but it's new in the sense of this. You know, it has to become the new organizing principle. It's a change to the system. You know, all the laws you could ever dream of hang on the these two laws, love God and love your neighbor as yourself. But at the last supper, he says, this is a new commandment. It's new in the sense that it's a central cultural value that he wants his followers to adopt. It's not just a commandment, but it's a value, right? Love one another as I have loved you. That's, it is a new commandment in that respect, right? People will know it's your central value when they see you do this, that you love one another. And Jesus, we keep saying this. He always does what he tells other people to do because at the very same dinner, he starts to wash their feet. Do you see how this is all interconnected? Love each other as I have loved you. Now, let me show you what my love for you looks like. I'm going to strip down just to something around my waist, you know, and I'm going to get out a basin and a towel, and I'm going to wash your dirty feet like I was your servant. But they would say, but you're the master. You're the rabbi. Even Peter says, you can't do this. You can't do this. And Jesus says, if I, if you don't let me do this, then you have no part with me. You have no

[19:24] connection with me. So then, then Peter relents, right? He always does what he tells everybody else to do. And so he serves them in a way that a servant would. And even that, which is beautiful, is a symbolic moment because it points forward to what happens the next day when he goes to the cross. And he cleanses their souls, not their feet, by being obedient unto the point of death. So this is that love that Jesus tells his disciples is the new commandment, not just to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Love each other as I have loved you. What does that love look like? It looks like servanthood. It looks like sacrifice. It looks like you, I put your needs above mine. It looks like love that would die for another. I think we could use more of that. So our task isn't easy. But it really is worth doing, okay? We need to understand our own system and detect our own cultural values. And some of these are hard to see because we swim in them, like fish swim in water, right? We can't quite see them. And we need to change those values if they do not create greater cultural competence, right? And I realize now that more than a lot of reading and talking and listening, which we've asked you to do, and thank you for that, we're asking ourselves now to do a

[20:43] lot of thinking. And let's let that sink in. We can talk. We can listen. We can tell stories. We can do that. I think we need to spend some time thinking. And I'm not sure what that looks like. We send everybody home for two hours or to some little corner of the church to be alone for an hour or two. Where you think and listen to the Spirit and say, what is it that we're doing that we need to change? Or what is it that we're doing that's right, right? What is the new commandment that Jesus is going to give us? What is the new central organizing principle? What's the new cultural value for our church? What is the new central organizing principle for our church? What is the new central our church. And that's it. We want to take that time. We're going to start next week during this time. We're not going to finish next week. It's not one and done, okay? This is our journey. This is our process. I'm excited about it. I'm really glad, I mean, since this is the end of the formal part of it, just thanks to the racial justice team that put a lot of time in over the last year and a half wrestling with these things. They volunteered to lead these discussion sessions. We found the vision to put this into the church's goals for the year. So thank you.

[21:55] I mean, I'm excited. If you can tell, I'm excited. I'm also worried because there's a lot of work ahead. There's a lot of work. It's not going to be easy. You know what the hardest thing to do, actually, is not to do things, is to think about things, is to contemplate well, is to listen well, is to... Yeah. Is to be attentive to the Spirit. But I think we can do that. And if we keep relying on God for it, we'll do it. There's a new commandment coming. We need to be open to it. We need to be listening for it. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word, for the new commandment Jesus gives. Lord, help us to find our new commandment, our new system, our new way of life, our new set of habits. Father, may that come and may it come in your time. And we ask it in your name. In Jesus' name. Amen.