Back to the Future Virtues: A Stitch in Time Saves Nine
By Ken Wilson
Back to Future Virtues: Old-fashioned biblical virtues that have fallen out of favor in past 30 years but are essential to our survival.
First, a fanciful story….I was an old man when it happened, sitting on a hillside overlooking our village early one morning as Jesus and his disciples arrived. They traveled from place to place at break of day because Jesus liked to get a feel for a town before crowds descended
Children were first ones out, those young enough to be eager for day.
They mobbed him like kids do: vying for his attention. Annoying his disciples no end, but he just laughed….at his disciples mainly, trying to swat the kids away like men in a swarm of mosquitoes.
It was a genuine commotion….so out marched the mothers with their babes in arms to see what the fuss was all about.
As soon as they saw him, they held their babies out to the Master. Would the prophet bless their little one? Would the prophet heal a sick one? Would the prophet tell if their little boy might be Israel's awaited one? Their little girl, the mother of such a one?
He took the infants into his arms, over the escalating objections of his disciples, who thought it was their duty to run interference for him.
Finally his anger flashed: "Let the children come to me and don't hinder them. Get in line behind them if you want to enter the kingdom. Whoever welcomes a little child like this welcomes me"
Then I swear, he looked at me. Over to my hillside perch, straight into my eyes, I swear it. A look of great sorrow and a weariness I cannot describe to you.
Please don't mock me because what I tell you now is the truth as I know it. I fell in that moment into a waking dream, and the infants he was blessing were all older now, my sons' age in my other-sight, older even than the Master blessing them.
They had their own children and I could see the terror in their faces for the lives of their children.
I didn't know what was upon them. I just knew that it was too late to do anything about it. .
A horrible thing for an old man to know: when it was time for us to change our foolish ways, we didn't. We started on a path that led to this disaster. We could have stopped it but now the children must pay
This knowing was too much for me and I burst out of my trance sobbing like a woman at the birth of a still-born. Inconsolable, alone.
Until I wasn't alone, though my wailing said otherwise. The mothers and the children and the master and his disciples were around me.
As though they stood between me and the howling wind that was trying to suck out my soul---this storm of remorse.
"It's all right, zayde" a little girl whispered in my ear. And that was it. I went calm in that moment.
When I opened my eyes it was the Master himself standing over me. And when I had caught my breath again and wiped my face and stood up, he looked at me a second time and said, "Follow me."
"I'm an old man, sir. My life is spent. What have I to offer you?"
Tell my disciples what you saw, he said, and don't stop telling them until they hear.
-----------------------------------
When we, as a community, receive a child such as we received Micah Chang today, we receive the child in Jesus' name. [The command to welcome the children is spoken to the community. Parents do this by nature. This is a command to welcome those who are not our own flesh & blood…..to make room for the children in the kingdom.]
To receive the next generation is to adopt a personal concern for the future the next generation will inhabit--not just with us, but after us.
We are called to invest in a future that extends, 70, 80, 90 years out. In fact, the Bible assumes a concern for two generations beyond our own: "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children" (Pr. 13: 22) The generations we can hope to know.
What is an inheritance? A provision for the next generation, to face a future we will not inhabit with them, a tangible commitment to their future, beyond our own.
It's not just money: it's all that we leave behind for them.
This is a concern of the gospels we are blind to: Jesus came preaching a gospel of repentance because his own nation, Israel, was on a path leading to a future destruction that he saw coming down the road, within the span of a generation. Luke 13: 1-3.
Israel was caught up in nationalism. Nursing hatred toward Roman enemies. They turned a nationalistic hope into a messianic hope: The Messiah would come to overthrow the occupation force and restore the kingdom to Israel.
Jesus said, I'll give you the kingdom now if you'll have it. Which means you start living a new way, by a rule of radical love. You are now under obligation to love your enemies. Turn the other cheek, walk extra mile. Pray for those who persecute, bless and do not curse
He knew by the Spirit: if they continued on their culture war-path, there would be hell to pay for their foolish ways. Rome would come down hard--not a stone would be left on top of another in the temple.
Most of them were mature adults [30-50] and this would happen within a generation: And so it did in 70 A.D., a few decades later.
The children he blessed would be raising their own children while the Roman troops were ransacking the holy city.
"How dreadful it would be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!" (Mk. 13:17)
How horrible a knowledge he had: that the babes in his arms would be the mothers of that time, if his gospel message wasn't heeded.
It makes you wonder: What are we doing now to add to the burden of future generations?
1. Unbridled consumption. We Americans are currently consuming stuff--paper, plastic, metal, material that we buy--and energy (oil, gas, coal) at an alarming rate. [Slide personal consumption rate]
If whole world consumed at our rate, it would require 4-5 planets worth of stuff to sustain, but we only have one planet. [32 to 1]
2. Unbridled disposal. Most of the stuff we buy gets tossed. From the point of origin to disposal, 99% of stuff we buy is in garbage within six months. We buy too much and throw too much away.
Have you heard about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch? A swirling mass of plastic debris 2X Texas, in Northern Pacific. Increasing ten-fold every decade. 80% of the plastic is from land use.
How big will Great Pacific Garbage Patch be when Micah is our age? What will his generation think of ours? When they say to us, "What were you thinking?" how will we answer?
3. Combined with increasing population: 6.5 - 9 B. in Micah's lifetime. More people in India-China consuming at a rate approaching ours: Eating more food that takes more energy to make--more meat than rice--more cars than bikes, more air conditioning than open windows, more showers, toilet paper, buying their own plastic stuff from their own superstores. Using stuff for comfort as we do.
4. National debt: It's hard to even read the number, if you don't know what it is already: 11,311,681,705,086.14
Who will pay the piper, but Micah's generation?
Add to this staggering debt, future costs of Social Security-Medicare. God help you if you want to cut our benefits. But who will pay for those benefits if not Micah's generation?
One of the great things about the Bible: you get a window into the assumed values of a very different culture. These assumed values are in a side comment….
"After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children." (2 Cor. 12: 14)
Paul doesn't need to convince of this. He's using this assumed value to convince them of something else. Even the pagans of Corinth know it is for parents to lay up for children, not children for their parents!
Yet we have created a society, a way of life, a culture that requires the reverse. National debt, Social Security, Medicare, out of control consumption, disposal, using up everything requires the reverse!
A local reminder of our foolish ways: bridge over State St. built 50 years ago by our grandparents generations. Have you seen orange cones? Can't bear weight of 4 lanes, so it's down to 2 lanes. There's no money fix it. No plan. Hoping for a bail-out.
Meanwhile UM Stadium (in background) is rolling in dough. Another multi-million renovation, sky boxes--but we forgot to plan for the fact that bridges wear out eventually.
All these varied problems share a common SPIRITUAL root: we don't care enough about a future we won't live long enough to inhabit ourselves. We're not taking responsibility for the world we are passing on to Micah's generation.
Remember what Grandma said? A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE
A stitch in time now, saves the need for nine later. Doesn't sound deeply spiritual to us. But it is!
If we take painful steps in the present to address problems that won't reach crisis stage for another 10, 20 30 years, we can save the next generation nine times the pain. Kingdom of God demands it!
We're a hinge generation just like the generation who heard Jesus warning about the destruction of the temple if they didn't repent.
The looming stuff--how do we pay off the national debt? How do we deal with Medicare and Social Security? How do we transition from old energy sources to new? How do we stop trashing the place?
Is still for most of us, just that--looming. What's hit the fan hasn't reached our faces. It may not for another 10, 20, 30 years.
I used to think these things were, I don't know "political issues." No, these are moral issues. These are matters of personal concern.
Are we energized--filled with the Spirit--to sacrifice now for their future? Yawn: Maybe tomorrow.
Which means this is a moment of profound spiritual crisis. We need to be awakened by the Spirit to concerns that don't concern us now. We need to follow Jesus now, the way of Jesus now, the heart of Jesus now--caring for the least of these, dying to self, being willing to give up creature comforts for a good we may not enjoy!
We need something very like a revelation and a revival.
PRACTICAL TIPS
1. Ask God to show you one thing you could do to decrease you personal consumption. Some stitch in time that could save nine.
Don't just rush to do something. Take a day or two to pray, to ask "Does any of this matter to you, God?"
Something will come into your mind and you'll think gosh I could do that. But then ask, "Lord is this you calling me to do this?"
Without a vision, the people perish. If it's just one more thing, we'll never change. If we believe Jesus is leading us, we may follow.
Our only hope is that he can lead us and empower us to form new habits. That dull, unspiritual word, habits. Unspiritual in our phony spirituality, that is. Our entertainment spirituality. Our showtime spiritituality. Our consumer spirituality! Our meet my needs spirituality.
2. Once you're convinced, tell someone else, and start doing that one thing diligently. Form one new habit to lower your consumption.
There is a spiritual power released when we take a single step believing Jesus is directing us. One step leads more easily to another.
3. If you haven't already, make a "living will." Legal document, get it from your doctor, specifies wishes in event you are incapacitated. Health care costs are crushing us. 27% of Medicare spent on last year of life. If you don't want to be kept alive by extraordinary means for slimmest chance of recovery, put it in a living will.
Is there a lawyer in the house who could set a living will table in the lobby some Sunday?
4. Meditate on Pr. 21: 20: "There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, But a foolish man swallows it up."
In the Bible foolishness is different than wickedness. The fool is the person who doesn't take the future consequences of his actions into account. He acts in the present without concern for the future.
Let it be said of us, "They turned to God, who opened their eyes and awakened their hearts, and they left behind their foolish ways."