Sermon

John 12:20-33

A Six-Volt Battery in a Twelve-Volt World

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John 12:20-33

A Six-Volt Battery in a Twelve-Volt World

Dr. Philip W. McLarty

Today’s sermon begins with a brief lesson in auto mechanics.  In the old days – I’m talking about the 30s, 40s and 50s here – cars came equipped with a six-volt electrical system.  That’s all they needed.  The engines were small – a hundred horsepower, or so – and they had few accessories – a starter (you had to crank the old Model T by hand), windshield wipers, a cigarette lighter and, if you were in tall cotton, an AM radio.

As cars got bigger and more powerful and loaded with all sorts of accessories – including an air conditioner – the old six-volt system couldn’t handle the load.  So, GM, Ford and Chrysler switched over to a twelve-volt system.  The others followed suit.  Twelve volts gave – well, twice as much power as six volts, and it proved to be the ticket.  Even with the big SUVs today, our cars and trucks run on a twelve-volt system.

So, that’s your automotive lesson for today.  The reason I mention it is because, years ago, one of my best friends, frustrated with his wife’s unwillingness to embrace new technology, railed out at her and said, “Pat, you’re just a six-volt battery in a twelve-volt world.”

That accusation has stayed with me through the years.  And, from time to time, it makes me wonder: Am I a six-volt battery in a twelve-volt world?  Are you?  The gospel lesson for today brought all this back to me.  Jesus said,

“Most certainly I tell you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains by itself alone.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
He who loves his life will lose it.
will keep it to eternal life.”

(John 12:24-25)

As followers of Jesus Christ, we’re called to let go of the old and embrace the new.  Isaiah said it best: “Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs forth now. Don’t you know it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

The problem is it’s hard to know what to let go of and what to hold on to.  It doesn’t take long to realize the pendulum swings both ways – what’s in fashion one year may be old hat the next, and we do well not to chase every after every fad.  At the same time, life moves on, and if we’re not willing to adapt and grow, we’ll soon be left behind.

So, as we listen for God’s Word in the sermon this morning, I’d like for you to consider with me what it means to cherish the faith of your fathers and mothers without getting stuck in the past; and, at the same time, what it means to embrace new paradigms and expressions of faith without losing sight of where you’ve come from and where you’re going.

I have a friend who works in a Sears repair center.  He’s a young turk who’s up to speed on just about everything.  He describes working for Sears as a walk down memory lane.  For example, a customer will come in needing a part for a Kenmore washer.  “Do you have the model number?” he’s been trained to ask.  The customer squirms.  “Model number?  Why do I need that?  I bought it from Sears.  Can’t you just look it up?”  “Sorry,” he says, “We don’t have access to that information and without the make and model number I can’t look it up in the parts catalogue.”  He says, at that, some customers simply turn and walk away.

According to my friend, Sears is old school.  Parts are shipped from a central warehouse.  It takes two to three days, minimum.  And sometimes the freight is more than the part itself.

So, why doesn’t Sears modernize and get with the program?  I’m guessing, but I suspect it’s a matter of holding on to the past: But we’ve never done it that way before.

 

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Have you been following the current debate over immigration and all the protests?  We’re going to have our own demonstration on April 10.  They say we’ve got about 11 million undocumented workers in the United States today from Mexico alone!  Clearly, our immigration policy isn’t working.  Some say we ought to enforce the law more vigorously, impose stiffer penalties, maybe even build a wall between the United States and Mexico.  Others say no, we ought to change the law and make our borders more porous.

What do you think?  Personally, I think we’re in for a lively debate and that, ultimately, it’ll come down to a question of whether we’re willing to let go of this old image of immigrants standing in long lines at Ellis Island and, accept, in its place, a new image in which workers are able to move freely back and forth across the border.

We live in a changing world, and the question is whether or not we have the courage to let go of the past and the faith to trust God to transform us into the nation God would have us become.  Poet John Russell Lowell said it best:

“New occasions teach new duties,
time makes ancient good uncouth.
They must upward still and onward,
who would keep abreast of truth.”
(UMC Book of Hymns, p. 242)

What does it mean to cherish the faith of our fathers and mothers without getting stuck in the past?  What does it mean to embrace new paradigms without losing sight of where we’ve come from and where we’re going?

We see this all the time in the church: We hold on so tightly to old patterns and practices that they develop a life of their own.  I’ll give you an example.  In the ordination service for church officers, we ask the question:

“Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?” (G-14.0405-3)

I spend one whole session every year in Officer Training just trying to unpack this question. I have a twenty-minute videotape by a seminary professor just explaining what we mean by “essential tenets.” Even then, I’m not sure it’s clear.  For one thing, we have eleven confessions, dating from the 2nd Century all the way up to 1983.  They take up about three hundred pages in the Book of Confessions.  Not only are they long and complex, they’re sometimes at odds with each other.  I seriously doubt that most of you could explain the Declaration of Barmen, say, and compare that to the Scots Confession.  I know I couldn’t.

So, why don’t we just drop this question from the ordination service?   The answer is: YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!  It’s tradition.  If we didn’t ask that question, something terrible might happen.

I’ve just completed teaching a 12-week Confirmation Class.  Eleven 7th and 8th graders will be confirmed next Sunday.  They’re among the best and the brightest, and they’ve done everything I’ve asked them to do.  They can tell you all about the sacraments and how elders are elected; they can recite the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer; they know how many books there are in the Bible and how to look up things in the Book of Order.

But is that enough?  Are they now equipped to withstand the forces of evil in the world today?  That’s the question.  Will they be able to hear God’s Word over the clamor of the marketplace?  Can they hold their own in the struggle between religious fundamentalism and secular humanism?  Do they have what it takes to live a life of faith in a dot.com world?

The point is, if we’re not careful, we can go through all the motions of keeping the faith and never experience the promise of new life in Jesus Christ.  We can spend all of our time and effort preserving the status quo and miss the kingdom altogether.

What does it mean to cherish the faith of your fathers and mothers without getting stuck in the past?  What does it mean to embrace new paradigms and expressions of faith without losing sight of where you’ve come from and where you’re going?

I’ll be the first to confess I love the old traditions of the church.  I love the great hymns of the faith: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, O God, Our Help in Ages Past, The Church’s One Foundation Is Jesus Christ Her Lord.  I love the old gospel hymns: Amazing Grace, In the Garden, The Old Rugged Cross.  I love the liturgy.  I’ve sung the Doxology and the Gloria Patri ever since I can remember.  I learned to say the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed by rote, even when I didn’t know the meaning of half the words.

I love the old traditions.  But I’m coming to love new traditions, as well.  I love this prayer Jane has us singing in the time of confession.  I’d never heard it before; now, I can’t get it out of my mind.  I love most of the new contemporary music and when I preach in the Open Door service, I enjoy using PowerPoint to highlight points of my sermon.

Somehow, we’ve simply got to keep pace with the world in which we live; otherwise, we become hackneyed and irrelevant.  But we have to be careful because, if we become too worldly, we will lose our distinctive witness as people of God and disciples of Jesus Christ.

Several years ago Donna and I were driving along the Interstate when, all of a sudden, we started passing pickup trucks pulling flatbed trailers with perfectly restored old cars on them.  We figured they were on their way to an antique car show.  “Wow,” I said, “Just look at that ’55 Chevy!  What a beauty!  And there’s a ’56 Ford hardtop just like I used to have in high school.  They don’t make ’em like that any more.”

We slowed down so as to get a good look.  As we passed a half-dozen or more, I noticed that each was being pulled by a late-model Dodge Hemi or Ford or Chevy Diesel.  It was obvious they’d found a way of capturing the best of both worlds.

Stan Ott is Pastor of the Pleasant Hills Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.  He’s the guru of the Acts 16:5 Program we’ve been participating in for the past three years.  One of his principles is called, “Bless and Add.”  Bless what’s working and be thankful for it.  At the same time, add new programs, new classes, new expressions of faith.  Don’t just recycle the past.

I thought about this on my prayer walk the other morning, and I asked myself: In what ways am I adding new ideas and experiences to what I already know?  In what ways is my old life of faith giving way to something new?

I came up with three things: My grandchildren, the Muslim students who frequent our worship services on Sunday morning and the Korean congregation that meets here on Sunday afternoon.

My grandchildren have given me a new identity: PawPaw.  To them I’m the old guy who gets down on the floor and rides them around on his back.  But it’s more than that.  I’m the old guy who’s slowly learning from them how to be a child again – how to cultivate the gifts of innocence and trust and unbridled enthusiasm for living.  Jesus said, “Unless one is born anew, he can’t see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)  My grandchildren are helping me learn once more what that means.

Then there are the Muslim students.  We usually have one or two worship with us every Sunday.  They’re part of the Interfaith Dialogue Students Association, and they’re pushing me to think more globally and find common ground with people of other faiths.

And the Koreans who worship here on Sunday afternoon inspire me to rekindle that spark of piety and devotion to God that used to characterize Presbyterians everywhere.  On Sunday afternoon they raise the roof with their singing.  They bring in an evangelist twice a year to hold a revival.  Plus, there’s a small group of men who meet up here every morning at 5:30 a.m. to pray.  They’re polite and meek and gracious to a fault, but unrelenting when it comes to making disciples for the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, here are three areas where I’m slowly letting go of the old and embracing the new.  Rest assured I’m never going to be a child again, at least not literally.  Nor am I going to convert to Islam.  Or join the Korean fellowship.  I plan to live and die as a Presbyterian minister.

But I hope never to stop growing, never to stop shedding those parts of my faith that are out of date and never to stop incorporating new ideas and disciplines that put me more in touch with the world in which I live.  Jesus said,

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains by itself alone.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Charles Wesley wrote,

“A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save and fit it for the sky.
To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill,
O may it all my powers engage to do my Master’s will.”
(UMC Book of Hymns, p. 150)

To be faithful is to let go of who you are and what you have and let God transform you into what God would have you become.  Anything less is to be a six-volt battery in a twelve-volt world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Copyright 2006, Dr. Philip W. McLarty.  Used by permission.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public domain (no copyright) modern English translation of the Holy Bible.