Dealing with change

The group that gathered recently for our Wednesday night devotion and communion service got to talking about change. We considered whether we liked or did not like change and, as a group, we concluded that change does make us uncomfortable and that we’re more likely (including our teens) to want someone else to change than to change ourselves.

After the service, my mind continued to mull this over. Something didn’t seem quite right about the statement, “change is hard.” It brought to my mind a commercial for zip-top plastic bags that ran years ago. The woman had been buying the same plastic zip-top bag for years and wasn’t going to change, so the guy who was supposedly interviewing her asked if she’d like to handle a bag full of bees, where she would be confident, because the zip-top would change color to assure her that the bag was airtight or whether she’d like to handle bees zipped up into her brand of bags. She said, “You know, change is good.”

I don’t even like changing the flavor of my toothpaste, so I fully appreciate a resistance to change.

What also occurred to me is that we human beings tend to lock into a time period that was “our” era. The music is familiar to us, we remember the dance steps, and even some of the food we remember as our “comfort food.”

I was brought up on a certain kind of canned biscuit and, a few years ago, the company changed it and I don’t like the new recipe as well.

These time periods also had historical events that we watched and that affected our outlook on life that generations from us will simply not embrace the way we will.

For today’s 16-year-old, the Berlin Wall is something they read in history books. How could they understand our rejoicing when it came down?

Chinese youth, I recently learned, view that famous picture of a single person standing before the tanks at Tiananmen Square as old and outdated and they are not grasping the significance of that event, making their parents’ generation indignant. We groan inwardly because what was so significant to us, our younger generation does not embrace the same way.

The same is true with local churches. Talk to folks, say, over 70 years old, and their favorite hymns will typically be much different than people under 35. The style of worship each will prefer will also often be different, with the older generation being more accustomed to a listening style and the younger generation being more comfortable with an interactive style. Still, it’s not completely accurate that we resist change.

My cousin had to have her gall bladder removed in the early ‘70s, had to stay in the hospital five days, and she has a scar halfway around her middle. Nowadays, this is an outpatient procedure.

In the four years between when I started and ended college, desktop computers became not only heard-of but usable. I resisted then, because they were cumbersome, but after I was sick and in the hospital in seminary, my friend led me by the hand and showed me how to use the computers in the computer lab so I could make up the work I’d missed — and I was sold.

I got my books out, parked myself at a computer and researched and wrote a 10-page paper that earned an A-minus in eight hours and I didn’t have to go back and type it on a typewriter.

I don’t want to give up my flat screen color TV, and as a middle aged woman, I also want my central air conditioning.

No time period was the perfect time, no technology or medical treatment made so perfect that new technology won’t be needed, and no music genre will be the perfect music genre.

In Ecclesiastes, Qohelet (often translated as The Teacher) says “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.” (1:4-5) This is not a fatalistic view of the world, but a promise that while grass withers and flowers fade, the Word of God will remain forever (I Peter 24-25). It also means that, whatever generation you belong to, God’s steadfast love endures forever (see Psalms 136).

For those experiencing, either in their churches or within their families, a so-called “generation gap,” I invite you to celebrate together the God whose word and love will never change.

This may mean, young folks, singing some old-time hymns at worship, and older folks, you may have to learn some praise music you don’t know.

In our church fellowships, young folks can respect that Vietnam, Korea, WW II and the Depression were life-altering events for the older folks, and older folks can respect that a youth’s perspective will be different — and often equally insightful.

For worship, we can be up-to-date without having to sacrifice tradition, and vice versa. Rather than trying to get others to change, maybe the best response is to pray for God to change our own hearts and love each other as God would have us do.

Sally Oakes is pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church, 607 Rivers Road, Fayetteville, GA 30214. Phone: 770-964-6999 or 770-964-6992, or e-mail bethanymnc@bellsouth.net.