Phillipians 4:8-9
Bibliography: Cultures Shifts, Lesson 3
The world was forever altered in 1436 when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. Although forms of printing had existed for approximately 400 years, Gutenberg’s moveable type made out of metal revolutionized the printed world. In 1440, he completed the Gutenberg Bible. From that point on, Scripture and information was forever placed in the hands of the individual person. The world was set on a new course, where each individual could make his or her own informed choices about his or her future.
The world was forever altered in 1971 when Ted Hoff developed the microprocessor.
Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs revolutionized the world when they started a new computer manufacturing company named Apple Computers.
By early 2001, approximately 60% of U.S. homes contained a PC, and many homes contained more than one. 63% of the U.S. workforce now use a computer on the job daily, in every conceivable application - from receptionists answering computerized telephone systems to cashiers ringing up sales in Wal-Mart on registers that are tied into vast computerized databases.
The world was forever altered in 1969, when work began on the ARPAnet , grandfather to the Internet by the United States government.
Under ARPAnet several major innovations occurred including email, remote connection service; and file transfer capability.
A U.S. Department report “The Emerging Digital Economy” is quoted as saying
“The Internet’s pace of adoption eclipses all other technologies that preceded it. Radio was in existence 38 years before 50 million people tuned in; TV took 13 years to reach that benchmark. Sixteen years after the first PC kit came out, 50 million people were using one. Once it was opened to the general public, the Internet crossed that line in four years.”
Once again, the world was revolutionized, this time by the internet.
Advancements in technology have improved many aspects of our lives. However, as Craig Miller points out, one of those changes has been to decrease the time we have available for making decisions.
Craig Miller writes:
“We are rapidly entering a multimedia culture that bombards us with images and sounds from a variety of sources...Today people want instant decisions confirmed by fax or email...The pace of our lives has accelerated to a breaking point.”
Craig provides us with some examples. He asks us to consider how his comments that I just shared were generated. He wrote them on a lap top computer aboard and airplane flying over Arizona at hundreds of miles an hour. Within arms reach of him is a telephone by which Craig could call a friend in Seattle on his car phone while he is traveling in another direction at 60 miles an hour, and they would sound like they were standing in the same room together.
Instant information.
What do we do with all the information zooming at us and the rapid pace of technological development?
In recent day I heard it remarked email has made it so much easier and faster to do our jobs. Many times we can select, copy, and paste information in order to share more, faster.
In a survey conducted in the spring of 1995, young Americans between the ages of 14 and 30 indicated that the two biggest events that impacted their lives was the Rodney King beating and the ensuing L.A. Riots and the Gulf War.
For the first time with the Gulf War, and more recently in the war on terrorism we are able, not only to receive updates minutes after attacks and military maneuvers take place, we can actually watch the war AS IT HAPPENS! We are there, on the sidelines. Suddenly our military is faced with an issue it never had before - how to keep operations secret in order to retain the element of surprise.
Certainly the WTC & Pentagon attacks will now be the # 1 event impacting lives. But I can’t help wondering what impact the Gary Condit and Chondra Levi story and the “Hockey Dad” case will have on us, as well. The media has elevated these stories to an unnatural level of importance for our lives. The media is determining what we pay attention to.
A goose named Petunia once noted in a children’s story that, “She who has books is wise.” Events impacting her life caused her to alter her beliefs to indicate, “She who has books and reads them is wise.”
However, if there is one thing we are discovering in our information age, access to more information is not making us smarter.
We no longer must struggle to receive information, we now struggle to leave its presence. Invariably the cell phone will ring and interrupt the person to person conversation we are having.
The barrage of information has not increased our ability to cope. It has not made us all that wiser, as we had hoped. Information once had a purpose. Its intent was to make our life better because we were more aware.
Ignorance,we thought, is not bliss. “To be in the know” is. But is it? What sort of content are we getting in this information age?
In a survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report, there is a discrepancy between Americans who watch television and those who produce it. 76% of Americans feel that TV contributes to promiscuity among teenagers. 37% of Hollywood filmmakers disagree. 81% of Americans feel TV has contributed to the decline of family values while 46% of Hollywood leaders disagree.
We know sex and violence displayed in every media source we are bombarded with has a tremendous impact on us and the National Institute for Mental Health agrees with us. If it wasn’t the case, why then, do advertisers spend billions of dollars on television and media to influence us to buy their products?
*****
From the printing press to the internet, we are on a media rollercoaster that is picking up speed. The newest multimillionaires in the media business are Jerry Yang and David Filo, both who are 27 years old. In 1996, they created Yahoo! The day their company went public, value of stock shares in their company went from 0 to 800 million dollars in one day!
How does your view of the world shift when such an event happens to you? How does one stay grounded in these fast paced times we live in?
When was the last time we “unplugged” from the media blitz?
Last December, thousands of Arkansans found themselves in a difficult and surprising predicament. Who will forget the ice storm of last Christmas? Thousands of Arkansans found themselves without electrical power for several days. It was a scary situation. For many it meant no heat, no water, and even no food or way to prepare it.
But something else happened to those individuals without power. Absent were the televisions, computers, even telephones, and perhaps radios. What did Arkansans do those first few evenings when the power was out and roads still remained impassible? What did they think? What did they hope? What did they fear? How did they pass the time?
Craig Miller notes that even with all our technological sophistication, there is no substitute for real relationships.
He shares the story of Jewel Kilcher, musical recording artist. Living out of her car, she picked up a guitar one day in order to make enough money just to eat. But hear what Jewel has to say about her success in the entertainment business:
“I’m not an obvious radio hit. My music is really honest and it touches people’s hearts, and that’s all I care about. I don’t have any big delusions of fame and fortune. I just want to eat everyday, doing what I love. And as long as I eat everyday - and sing - I’m okay. And I know that hard wood grows slowly.”
This sermon takes it title from a line of Simon and Garfunkel’s 1970 “Fifty Ninth Street Bridge Song” (better known as Feelin’ Groovy) - “Slow down, you’re going too fast.”
We have to take some time to make some decisions about what to do about everything coming at us. Our challenge is to bring meaning to the overwhelming surge of information surrounding us. Craig Miller writes: “Information and technology without a code of behavior brings society to the brink of breakdown.
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In our Bible lesson, Paul writes to the church in Phillipi. Paul is writing there to the saints of the Christian faith. These folks had their heads screwed on right. Paul was pleased with the Christians in Phillipi. They showed themselves to be maturing Christians who were by most indications striving to be devoted followers of Christ.
Paul talked about being made perfect in Christ. It was Paul’s hope and dream to constantly strive to be a perfect follower of Christ. It was something Paul always worked on. I believe he saw that same desire and devotion in the Phillipian church. I think it is why he writes with such high regards of them in this letter . There are a few concerns, but for the most part his remarks are positive towards this church.
This last chapter is kind of a hodgepodge of things. Paul is bringing his letter to a close. As he says goodbye, he urges the Phillipians - and through them, us as well - to pursue whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. His actual words are for us to think about them and to think about them means that we are going to have to take some time to ponder them in order to determine what truth is, which of our decisions are the more noble ones to make - and so on.
Interestingly enough, the terms Paul has used here to describe Christian virtues were terms used frequently in the pagan world of philosophy Paul lived in. It wasn’t that Paul was mixing paganism or Christianity, or that such words hadn’t been used to describe ideals in the Jewish & Christian faith, either. They were, however, popular buzz words of the current trend, which was philosophy. The terms came from Paul’s information age. They were virtues recognized by non-Christians, understood by new Christians and Paul saw in them how they exemplify the life of Christ we are to follow.
Another interesting fact to remember, is that the people Paul wrote to faced some very difficult and stressful situations. Most of them were poor. Many of them were slaves. Security and safety would have illuded them as it often does us.
We can relate to the situation. Financially stable or not, I believe we often feel enslaved -- trapped by the culture and world we live in. Security and certainty of the future escapes us as well.
It use to be something we all knew. There was a plan to achieve the American dream - white house, picket fence, two cars, 2.5 children and the career. Our path might take a detour from time to time, and some might not make it, but for the most part, most of Americans knew we’d get there eventually.
I don’t hear about the American dream anymore. It’s like the bubble popped on that one and we’ve all come to realize it was all fantasy.
Instead of one career, we have or will have three. Serious illness, financial stress, general disillusionment with humanity has cause us to see happiness in not found in a two story home.
Those in Phillipi had no security or safety - nothing they could rely on. We can relate to that. Every time we think we have found something we can count on, a foundation to stand upon, it slips beneath us like quick sand.
The only thing we can rely upon is the grace we have in Christ Jesus. And the only thing we can control, is the kind of Christian we want and choose to be.
To that end, there are 3 things, 3 resolves we can take away from here this evening.
First of all, be aware of the information and media that is speeding at us from all directions. Be aware that nothing and no one is determining its relevance to our life or whether it will make our life better.
Secondly, don’t be rushed. Don’t let the speed and bombardment of the information age direct our lives too quickly. Don’t let the flow of information control us. We must pick and choose what we will attend to, what will receive our attention. We need to slow down from time to time, and get off this media rollercoster.
Finally, in making our decisions -what we will buy, what we will wear, what we will watch, how we will spend our time - let Paul’s principals be our guide in making our decisions. Let us too strive to be perfect followers of Christ, pursuing what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.
John Wesley once said, that our time here on earth is so short. Since this is the case, we don’t have time to waste our energy in pursuits that take us away from Christ. Even in our recreation and leisure - and I believe God means us to play as well as to work - even in these how can we not spend our short time here striving to be that person Christ sees in us? We don’t have time to waste not striving to be more Christ like in every way.
As the Army Reserves would tell us, we must be all that we can be.
Let us pray.
O Lord we pray to you this evening, asking you to help guide us and direct us. Please put us on the path to you. Lead our decisions and our energy towards being the person you see in us.
In the days ahead, strengthen us in this pursuit and don’t let us grow weary. When you see us begin to stray, jog our memory of our goal so that we will return to you. Guide us back to the right path.
We wish to become perfect followers of you. Help us in this endeavour.
We ask this in your name, Amen.
