"POSTMODERNISM: & THE STAIRWAY TO NOWHERE"
REV. BILL BOWDLE 01/05/97
Scripture: Genesis 28:10-22
Gen 28:10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.
Gen 28:11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.
Gen 28:12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Gen 28:13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Gen 28:14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
Gen 28:15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
Gen 28:16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it."
Gen 28:17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."
Gen 28:18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.
Gen 28:19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
Gen 28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear
Gen 28:21 so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God
Gen 28:22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
INTRODUCTION:
Can you remember the fun you've had on favorite stairways?
As growing infant,
you loved to crawl up stairways
to places only adults could go.
As a child,
you sat on pillows,
and bounced down stairway steps
with shouts of joy?
Stairways led you to rooms with
hidden treasures from long ago.
Beyond your home,
stairways led you up high places
to view scenery below.
Stairways are built
to take us to special places.
God gave Jacob a vision
of a special stairway.
(One of our songs calls it a ladder)
That special stairway
climbed from earth to heaven.
That stairway
stretched from man to God.
After seeing that stairway
and hearing God's message,
Jacob was astounded.
"Gen 28:16 "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it."
Gen 28:17 "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."
God is using your life experiences
like stair steps
to lead you closer to him!
I pray you'll meet God
& sense his presence
and with Jacob, you'll know..
Gen 28:16 "Surely the LORD is in this place...
Gen 28:17 "How awesome ... This is none other than the house of God...
Before that day,
Jacob stumbled around in the darkness.
His life was a miserable mess.
Jacob plotted with his mother
to deceive his blind father.
Jacob conspired to cheat his brother, Esau,
and stole his birthright and blessing.
Esau's disappointment
flashed into murderous rage.
So to avoid bloodshed,
Jacob, the deceiver
was sent away from home.
He deserved to be doomed,
but Isaac sent him away
with words of blessing
ringing in his ears...
"May God almighty bless you,
and make you fruitful..." Gen. 28:3
Parents, let's touch our children
with kind words of blessing!
Give them hope!
Give them hope for what God can do
on the far side of difficult days.
Jacob left home
as a dishonest manipulating deceiver.
He had his father's blessing,
but he'd not yet found his father's God.
Have you found God yet?
You've come to church.
Are you coming to God?
The day after Christmas,
we traveled to my oldest brother's house.
The food was fantastic,
but I must confess,
"I let too much of it go to 'waist.'"
We talked about many things....
You know how conversations go,
We leapfrogged from one topic to another,
and eventually we started talking about stairways.
One stairway in particular.
Listen carefully to this story.
There is a special stairway
on the Campus of Ohio State University
in the Wexner Center for the Arts.
http://www.wexarts.org
That building, and that stairway
were designed in 1989 by postmodernist architects,
Peter Eisenman of New York
(and the late Richard Trott of Columbus.)
Eisenman also designed University of Cincinnati's
Aronoff Center building.
What is unique about the stairway at OSU?
I'm told that the stairway arises,
as usual from the floor,
but if you climb step by step
to its very top step,
it stops in mid air.
Anyone climbing those steps
would climb for no purpose,
because those steps don't go anywhere.
Instantly, I told my family,
tell me all you can about that stairway,
because that will preach,
and I know the title of my message,
"The Stairway to Nowhere!"
Immediately, I saw that stairway
as a parable of modern man
without God.
Modern man builds great stairways of knowledge,
and wealth, and pleasure.
People climb up them for a lifetime,
but it they all end up
in nothingness of death.
I wonder, how many of us gather
here at this church
and if we're honest,
we'd have to confess,
we've been climbing our stairway like crazy,
but it's a "Stairway to Nowhere."
My family couldn't answer
all my questions about this stairway to nowhere,
so they suggested I browse the Internet.
So I did just that.
The architect's stairway
was a specific reflection of his
view of life.
His view is known as Postmodernism.
In the last 2½ days,
I've pulled about 80 pages of Christian material
about Postmodernism
off the Internet.
All of them suggest
that in the last ten years,
the western world is experiencing
a cultural earthquake
that is vastly re-shaping
the way we think about life
and its meaning.The last 2000 years are divided into three major periods.
Period 1 - Pre-Modernism
From 0 A.D. till about 1700's
the western world had some common beliefs:♦ God is the creator
of all reality and truth
♦ There is a real world,
and we know the ultimate truth
about that world
from the revelation given by God.
Period 2 - Modernism
From about 1700's till 1980's♦ There's a real world of truth and reality out there,
But religion is not the way to discover it.
♦ The modern intellectual decided
God was dead, heaven closed,
Church outdated,
Miracles fiction
Bible irrelevant
♦ Modernism wanted to close the church
and open the laboratory.
Human wisdom would build a better world
based on scientific inquiry
and rational analysis!
But the modern world
has seen two World Wars,
Nuclear bombs,
Communism, Nazism
and lost faith in the powers of reason
to solve the problems of our world.
The modern world
exalted materialism and money,
and was willing to crush anything in its way.
Period 3 - Post-Modernism♦ This period begin decades ago
among some thinkers,
but its sweeping the world.
♦ For post-modernists,
not only is God dead,
but truth is also dead.
♦ There is no real objective reality,
out there which is universally valid for everyone.
♦ You have your opinion, & that's your reality.
I have my opinion, and that's my reality.
No consensus is possible,
no absolutes are permissible.
♦ Rational thought is diminished;
emotional feelings and instincts are exalted.
♦ No one has the right
to impose their beliefs on anyone else,
because their is no absolute truth
to be discovered by revelation or reason.
IN REVIEW:
PERIOD ONE God rules & reveals truth.
PERIOD TWO Reason rules, God is dead, science discovers truth.
PERIOD THREE Nothing rules, truth is dead, so tolerate each other's opinion.
Without God,
truth dies,
and without truth,
community dies.
We have no truth in common,
and so we disintegrate into a billion
different interest groups.
So the Postmodern Architect
builds a Stairway to Nowhere!
He claims there's nothing at the top of the stairs,
there's no ultimate truth to find at the top,
no ultimate reality to discover.
So just enjoy your climb,
and sit on the steps,
and share opinions and experiences
with others nearby who are climbing
their own stairways to nowhere.
Whole generations are now being raised
with these philosophies in mind.
What results? Chaos and catastrophe.
For a postmodern world,
Holiness is out: happiness is in.
A society like this says
Do whatever makes you happy.
Snort some drugs,
Grab a one night stand for a little sex,
Cheat your way to a higher grade
and along the way,
give God the finger, because...
Heaven is hollow,
Judgement is a joke,
and God is gone
and you're only accountable to yourself.
God have mercy on us
when we build our lives
on such quicksand.
I tell you,
the Stairway to Nowhere is a cursed stairway.
and society which climbs it will collapse.
Jacob lied, stole and cheated his way
into a nightmare of family disintegration.
But Jacob ran into a different stairway.
On the way out of town,
he lay down for a night's rest.
And in his dream,
he saw a stairway.
Gen 28:12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Jacob ran from hellish problems,
and stumbled into heaven.
Gen 28:13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Jacob ran from family problems,
and bumped into the God of his fathers.
Gen 28:14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
Jacob ran from a cursed life,
and met a God willing to bless him.
Gen 28:15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
Jacob butchered the will of God
but God came to him with hope
for a new life, and restored blessing.
Friends, we're starting 1997
only 3 years from the end of a millenium.
If you're climbing thru the events of life,
shoving God aside, and
kicking truth over the edges,
I forewarn you that you're climbing
a stairway to nowhere.
Come learn from Jacob.
And climb thru life
on the stairway that leads to God.
Know that God is there for you,
and that his truth will guide you
step by step along the way.
Look at his stairway....
He didn't have to climb it.
God sent messenger angels
walking up and down it.
And eventually, God himself
walked down that stairway in Christ.
HYMN OF INVITATION:
"Standing On The Promises"
LORD'S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
