Moral Drift From The Peachtree Presbyterian Pulpit

January 3, 1999

Lessons: Matthew 2:7-8; 11-12

II Corinthians 5:14-17

Text: II Corinthians 5:17 - [W]hen someone becomes a Christian, they become a brand new person inside. They are not the same anymore, a new life has begun. (The Living Bible)

The ancient god Janus is where January gets its name, and appropriately so, for the god Janus had two faces: one that looked forward to where he was going and one that looked back to where he had been. Here we are in 1999, the last year in the second millennium and the last year of the twentieth century. Nineteen ninety-eight, like most years, was both good and bad. Some people are glad that it is over, others would like to live it again because it was a year of special meaning and accomplishment. Yet, for all of us, it was a year, as we have noted. of poignant losses. We all know, even though we wish it were different, that "times waits for no man." The stories of our lives are stories of success and sadness, of laughter and lament, of humor and heartache and tears.

Edward Shirley, a professor at St. Edwards University, has collected over the years actual headlines that appeared in newspapers around the world. In reporting events in the news and in the lives of people, we see some startling things. He offers us the following:

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case

Killer Sentenced to Die for the Second Time in Ten Years

Plane Too Close to the Ground, Crash Probe Told

War Dims Hope for Peace

Prostitutes Appeal to the Pope (now, that’s startling, isn’t it?)

Two Sisters Reunited After Eighteen Years in Checkout Counter and, finally,

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, it May Last a While (1)

Truth is often disguised and is stranger than fiction in our headlines. The truth of your life and mine is always a mixture. I have returned, as you have noticed today, to a part of the story of the birth of our Lord as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. It seems to me that in the dynamics surrounding the Wise Men’s visit and their encounter with Herod, that in these dynamics we have a perfect illustration of the tensions that surround the New Year. Herod was anxious to learn if they found the Child in question, that they come back and then report to him. He did not wish the Child well, as we all know, and he sought to deceive them by saying, "Come back this way." (Matthew 2:8)

When the Wise Men had seen and worshiped the Child, they were warned in a dream to return home "another way." (Matthew 2:12) The tension of the movement from one year to the new year is just that: stay where you are, ("come back this way"), or move in a new direction ("go home another way"). Shall we stay put or be open to new possibilities? It is a choice that we can make and must make.

The second lesson from II Corinthians 5 points us in the direction of change; not cosmetic change, but real change. There is the possibility in Christ that we can become, you can and I can, new persons. Indeed, the text of the morning says just that:

[W]hen someone becomes a Christian, they become a brand new person inside. They are not the same any more, a new life has begun. (II Corinthians 5:17 - The Living Bible)

So any new year brings change and challenge and possibility, reality and the potential of renewal. What better place to begin the final year of the second millennium and the final year of the twentieth century than to gather here this morning in worship around the Lord’s table?

I want us to begin, first of all, by looking together at . . .

1. REALITY!

What is the state of things as we begin an new year? What are the signs of our times? We all have our lists, don't we? But let's see if we cannot gather all of our thoughts around three that seem important to me. One sign of our times is . . .

. . . Hopelessness! It seems incredible to say it, doesn't it? The economy is good, many have and are prospering. As one businessman said to me sometime back, "If you can not make money in times like these, then you shouldn't be in the business you’re in." But we are learning that all of the stuff we accumulate does not make for happiness. We are also beginning to hear the cries from over the hill and across the tracks, the cries of anger and bitterness and hopelessness because the gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots, is not a just a gap anymore, it is a chasm.

The world is becoming less predictable as it grows smaller and more densely populated, and more dangerous. It is smaller because of transportation and communication. We can get almost anywhere on earth in a relatively short period of time, and we can communicate almost anywhere on earth almost instantaneously. Yet, with all of this capacity, we find ourselves in a world having less and less to say to each other that is meaningful.

Someone sent me a book to read, just out of the blue. I don’t know who sent it. It’s a book entitled, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Brothers Growing Up in the Other America. It was written by a man named Alex Kotlowitz. He tells the story of two brothers, Pharaoh and Lafayette Rivers, who live in the Henry Horner Homes, a housing project in Chicago. He was talking to the boys about their future. He said to Lafayette, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" This is what the child said:

If I grow up, I want to be a bus driver.

Did you get that? If, not when. At age 10, Lafayette was not sure that he’d make it to adulthood. (2) Now, I don't have the time to develop the thought fully today, but I can tell you that the Church must speak to that hopelessness and we must not only speak about it, we must do something about it. We must act to bring hope where there is no hope by acting and working to give a future to those who believe they have no future. If you believe you have no future, then what matters is what you do today. If there are no tomorrows or limited tomorrows, if there is something you want today, you take it. If there is something you want to do today, you do it. This kind of aggressive action is often rooted in the anger and despair of utter hopelessness.

Another sign of our times is . . .

. . . Moral drift! I think we would all agree that is a reality. Nineteen ninety-eight was a year when we heard more about Paula Jones, Monica Lewinski, and were reminded of Jennifer Flowers and a host of others than we really wanted to know. The moral drift of things has reached, as we all know, with intensity to the highest office in our land. The President, to quote him, has acknowledged that he had given in, to his shame.

The former Majority Leader of the Senate of the United States of America, George Mitchell, five years ago in discussing campaign financing said this:

The fact of the matter is . . . every Senator knows this system stinks. . . the American people are right when they mistrust this system, where what matters most in seeking public office is not integrity, not ability, not judgment, not reason, not responsibility, not experience, not intelligence, but money. Money dominates this system . . . money is the system. (3)

The challenge to the Church is that we are tempted to become too much at home and too comfortable with values and standards of the world. I was astounded and disappointed at the statement of so many clergy on the allegations that surround the Oval Office. One minister was quoted as saying that many of the people would be comforted to know that there was a regular person in the Oval Office, a person struggling with very human problems. All of us struggle with very human problems. I do, you do. Jimmy Carter himself said that he "lusted in his heart." What is important, though, is that we have foundational standards that by the grace of God will see us through the struggle, not weak-kneed situational ethics that "go with the flow of things."

The signs of the times include hopelessness, the reality of moral drift, and also . . .

. . . Apathy! There is a story of a man who was asked a question by a friend out of the blue one day. "Please define ignorance and apathy for me." The man thought a moment and said, "I don't know and I don't care." By whatever name you want to call it, there is a lot of apathy operative today, indifference, a reluctance to get involved in essential things. We want things done, we desire that changes be made, and we are wondering why someone else is not doing something about all these changes and all of these problems.

The Church in America has a potential that is staggering. We are at the point of turning things around in this nation. There are those who believe, and I am one of them, that we may be in the early stages of a profound religious renewal in this nation, if we will act upon the opportunity that is ours. In 1993, the total number of people who attended worship in America, the cumulative total was 5.6 billion, a figure just under the total population of the world. That means that in this nation in 1993, on an average, 106 million Americans were in church each week.

In the same year, the total number of people who attended all professional basketball games, baseball games, and football games, including all playoffs, was 103 million, less than two percent of the number that attended church, but consider their influence. The people who attended the professional sports games cheer when they get there, they make a lot of noise. They mobilize the money and the political will to get new arenas and stadiums built. They give local economies a boost, and sign television contracts that stagger the imagination. They also get entire regions of this county to stand up and cheer and take notice of their team. Witness the Falcons this year. Most of the last 32 years, we have looked the other way. Now, we are taking a new look at the Falcons. They are a winner and the fans don’t complain too much when the ticket prices go up and the food at the concessions in the stadiums and arenas are rather pricey.

If the Church is to be the light of the world, then why is it there so much darkness? With 5.6 billion people attending Church, cumulatively in one year, why is so little notice taken of who we are and what we are accomplishing? (4) Could it be apathy or indifference?

We wring our hands at the Presbyterian Church about the shrinking membership of the Presbyterian family, having lost 43% of our membership in the last thirty years. It’s been a passion of my entire ministry to reverse this trend and God knows, and you know, that I’ve done everything I know how to do to do just that. The foundational reality, though, is that our membership losses are rooted in our lack of enthusiasm and exuberance. If we were as on fire as a church in the Presbyterian family as much as the Falcon fans are on fire for the Falcons this year, we would change the world. We had "Bring a Friend Day" recently at the Peachtree Church. We had signs posted, things in the bulletin, pulpit announcements, and on the day when we were to bring a friend, the 11,800 members of this church produced 92 first time visitors. Is it apathy or indifference? Do all of your friends go to church? Ever? If the Church is to be the light of the world, then we have to be more excited about what is happening, both to the world and in the Church.

Now, we have dealt with some of the realities of our time, signs of the times, but note, secondly and finally, that . . .

2. RENEWAL IS ROOTED IN

They are made for New Year’s and forgotten on an average of thirteen days later, say the surveys. Faith is the result of a decision about Christ. I cannot make a new me or a new you, but Christ can make you new and me new, as well, if we decide for Him. Like the Wise Men of old who were warned in a dream to go home another way, we have that possibility before us. Who among us today cannot and should not acknowledge that there are things in us that need changing? Can any one of us sing the haunting ballad that Edith Piaf, the French cabaret singer sang, "I Have No Regrets?" Not one of us can sing that song; most of us could more readily sing what Peggy Lee sang, "Is That All There Is?"

In all candor, would we not acknowledge before God and this holy table that most of us today know better than we are doing? A New Year should be a time for self-examination. Shall I go back, continue with the old ways, or shall I go forward into the New Year another way?

Sometime back, a newsletter, a rather old one, the John Hopkins Medical Letter: Health After 50, came across my desk. It was dated the 6th of November, 1994, and I found this quotation:

[E]ven after bypass surgery, half of smokers do not quit smoking. Even after a heart attack, only about one-third of the victims who smoke, stop.

In every area of our lives, we know better than we are often doing. I want to spend more time with my family, you say, but will you? I want to stop drinking too much, but do you? I want to lose weight but will you? I'm going to get my act together and quit working on Sunday morning and go to church with regularity -- after all, I am now a partner in the law firm and don’t have to work on Sunday, but will you? January 1st can be the beginning of new hope and a new life for you and me, or it can be just the end of another long New Year’s Eve party. Which will it be? I have had the same people for more than 20 years or more tell me at least on an annual basis, "I've got to get my act together," but they haven't and I am beginning to feel that maybe they never will.

Tom Seaver and Yogi Berra were having a conversation one day. Seaver asked Berra:

What time is it?

Berra replied:

You mean now?

I can tell you what time it is, it is later than you think. The time of your life and mine is now. All of our hesitation, procrastination, delay, denial, unwillingness to have a rendezvous with our own destiny is simply a decision to remain stuck in the rut, right where we are. We can see things more clearly if we desire, and seeing we can act, for the promise for us is made by One who always keeps His promises. Listen:

[I]f anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation, the old has passed away, the new has come.

It’s a new year. You can take it or leave it.

Copyright (c), W. Frank Harrington, 1998. All rights reserved.

Endnotes