Shifted Paradigms
First Congregational Church of Evanston
June 10, 2007 (Second Sunday after Pentecost)
Galatians 1:11-24
Rev. Dr James E. Roghair, Interim Minister
God Changes Things, Ghanian Story
A student mission group experienced a life-changing event firsthand while working in a village in Ghana. They were trying to hold a Sunday morning worship service, but it was too light to show the Jesus film that they usually showed. Unfortunately no one on the team spoke the local dialect.
So, as the villagers gathered, the desperate students searched for a translator. They found a young man who spoke English. He agreed to translate. As a member of the team shared the message of Christ, a large crowd began to form. It was bigger than they usually experienced.
What the team didn’t know was that their translator was a local gangster! The villagers were coming to find out why this hoodlum was talking about God. When the student speaker ended the message with an invitation to follow Jesus, the translator added a challenge of his own. “I want all of you to know that I have decided to ask Jesus Christ into my life,” he announced. “I am going to come forward, and I recommend that you do the same.”
Seeing the change in this notorious gangster – sensing God’s power – many people in this village accepted Christ that morning. The unlikely evangelist served as translator for the rest of the team’s trip and became a member of a nearby church. (Adapted from a quote at www.HomileticsOnline from wycliffe.org/media/SelectWords/home.asp. Retrieved November 22, 2006.)
Surely it is by the power of the Spirit that a gangster becomes a spiritual leader. It was not something temporary or on the surface. The young man’s frame of reference changed – the way that he looked at the world.
God Changes Things, Paul’s Story
This story of from a Ghanian village is almost a mirror image of the story of Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus referred to in the reading this morning. The people in Judea said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.”
Paul had been a zealous Jew – convinced beyond doubt that it was God’s will that the Christians should be put to death. There is a close relationship between being zealous for the right, and going overboard into the evils of zealotry. Paul was a prime example of one who was so righteously wrong!
But the testimony of the Scriptures – the testimony of our own faith is that God can change us – even if we are righteously wrong! What can happen is a ‘paradigm shift.’
Paradigm Shift
What is a paradigm? A paradigm is an example or a pattern. Perhaps if you studied Latin, you remember the paradigms of the verbs. I think it went something like this: Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus Amatis, Amant – is that right? Of course we learned paradigms of English verbs as well. They might start out I run, you run, he (she or it) runs, we run, you run, they run. And we might go on to all the permutations including ran, running, will run, will have run – etc. These are grammatical paradigms.
But in the 1960's a scientist named “Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolution, and fathered, defined and popularized the concept of "paradigm shift" (p.10). Kuhn argues that scientific advancement is not evolutionary, but rather is a "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions", and in those revolutions "one conceptual world view is replaced by another (http://www.taketheleap.com/define.html).”
The paradigm is the pattern in which the scientists holds the facts or the hypotheses with which she/he is dealing. New facts or hypotheses come forward which call into question or refute old paradigms. The paradigm of the sun, moon and stars all revolving around the earth seemed pretty logical until larger patterns were discovered that made that paradigm no longer work. What happened for some was an immediate paradigm shift. For others it took years or even centuries to make the shift. We are still in the midst of such a paradigm shift with respect to the origin of species. And even though for many of us, the issues of evolution and creation have been settled long ago, for others the paradigms are still in conflict.
Social Paradigm Shifts
Kuhn was convinced that his concept of a paradigm shift was not applicable to social sciences, but social scientists and even theologians picked up his language and now use it regularly. Social scientists know that social change does happen, and when it does, the whole view of the world changes. The civil rights movement of the late 20th century shifted the world view of racial relations in the United States. It’s not perfect and not everyone changed. But the worldview of the society has changed. Another shift is happening with reference to sexual orientation. These changes are not complete, but they are examples of paradigm shifts.
The Holy Spirit Shifts Paradigms
In spiritual life, paradigm shifts happen – for individuals and for communities of faith. We may be skeptical about the stories of instantaneous conversions in the sawdust trail revival tents, where the drunk or the bandit becomes the model Christian. Or even what happens in the monumental revivals of Billy Graham. But whether these forms are our individual experiences or not – regardless of how skeptical we might be – the Spirit does work to change people. That is basic Christian experience.
Sometimes the Spirit moves to change people who didn’t even think they were open to any change at all. Witness the story of Paul accosted on the road to Damascus. Ever after, he was an apostle of the faith he had tried to destroy. That’s a paradigm shift – for Paul, of course – but also for the church. What were they to make of this one who had been killing their members? No wonder Paul went first to Arabia!
I encourage you to be open to paradigm shifts that the Spirit may bring. Expect that they are going to happen. Individuals find new passions – those new passions affect the life of the congregation. It’s the work of the Spirit.
A Pastor’s Story
Here is one pastor’s story: During one summer study-leave at a lakeside cabin on the Oregon coast, [a pastor of a Congregational Church] sat on the dock thinking about the question “What is the basis of worship?” As he stared at the water, the largest bass he had ever seen swam past, leaving the water rippling in its wake. “I stood up,” [the pastor] said, “and gasped as a sense of awe and wonder provoked a surge of adrenaline through my body.”
A moment later, [he] had an insight about worship. “This is the foundation of worship. If you can take an hour on Sunday morning and open people to experiencing just a quarter-second of awe, wonder, and surrender you just experienced, it is accomplished.” Although the early Puritans based their faith on a sense of divine wonder, Congregationalists have long since abandoned religious experience in favor of more sedate, intellectual approaches to faith. Opening people to experiencing God? [The pastor] could not imagine how to do this without manipulating people or “tugging people’s emotions and pretending it is a God-experience (Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us, p. 173).”
That snippet of a story is about Rev. Eric Elnes, pastor of Scottsdale Congregational United Church of Christ in Arizona. I had the opportunity to hear him tell his story at the Interim Ministry Network Conference last month.
What Elnes experienced was a personal paradigm shift. With a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary, Elnes had been trained to talk about God. In that flicker of awe when he saw the big bass, his whole world view of worship shifted and he began to think of how to help people experience God.
The Spirit Works in Our Midst
Today in worship we are recognizing the Choir members and the Sunday School teachers. These people have dedicated hours of their time over the last year. At times in their work thy have had high points of the Spirit – paradigm shifts when things suddenly look different – times when they experienced God – or recognized that others had just experienced God. We can thank God for those joys. Music and teaching both give opportunities for experiencing God.
At lunch we will also recognize the newest members. Often joining a church comes as the result of a spiritual experience that changes our way of seeing the world. Not necessarily a dramatic change of world view, but a change nevertheless, when we see ourselves inside rather than outside the church.
What opportunities present themselves for the Spirit to shift our paradigms? Do you find yourself stuck fighting to protect or shield the church? The Spirit may be ready to help you see things in a new way. It is God who offers us the paradigm shifts. And at times the shifts come when we least expect them.
WWII Story
We never know what experience or what adversity God will use to offer us a new look at the world.
Jacob DeShazer was one of General Doolittle's raiders who bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942. He'd been raised in the Christian faith but had given up thinking about God. He bailed out over Japanese- occupied territory and spent the rest of WWII as a prisoner of war. His hatred and bitterness overflowed. After years of confinement, he was allowed to read the Bible. It changed his life and his heart. He began to love his captors.
After the war, he attended college and returned to Japan to preach and teach about God's love for the Japanese. He wrote a pamphlet about his experience which he handed out on the streets of Tokyo. This pamphlet led to the conversion of and then a lifelong friendship with Mitsuo Fuchida, who eventually became a Christian pastor. Fuchida had been the lead pilot that bombed Pearl Harbor. We do not know what the Spirit will use next to change us or to change the world around us. (Adapted from Emphasis www.csspub.com)
Conclusion
A Ghanian thug – Paul on the road to Damascus – World War II enemies – spiritual change intrudes. A pastor on a dock, teachers, musicians, new members, you in the pews – the Spirit changes the church.
What is the Spirit doing, now? Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008