I. Before we get to the message this morning, I want to provide you with a little background.

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1 Rev 8 The Change: Don t be afraid Luke 5:1-11 first preached February 8, 1998 Re-preached August 21, 2016 I. Before we get to the message this morning, I want to provide you with a little background. A. The sermon that I m revisiting this morning was one that I did at Crossroads UCC in Lakewood, California, the church I served prior to this one. I preached it in February of B. I was beginning to search for a new church to serve. It was probably about then that I discovered a church opening near where I grew up. This church opening was in what I remembered as a little bedroom community between Louisville and Arvada call Broomfield. C. In any case I thought it might be time to start preparing the church for the very likely event of major change coming to them in the near future.

2 The Change: Don t be Afraid 2 D. Now I m not planning to go anywhere but once again the church, our church, this church, needs to be ready and open to some change. E. I will say that it will be very important when listening to the sermon to remember that we re talking about things that happened over 18 years ago. II. Scripture III. So what happened in that scripture? A. I ll tell you what happened, the disciples had too much of a good thing. B. They realized their lives had just taken an incredible change. C. So much change that Jesus could sense that they were afraid of this massive change and told them not to be afraid. 2

3 The Change: Don t be Afraid 3 IV. We too are living in a world that is undergoing massive change at an ever increasing rate. A. Pete, what is the biggest change that has taken place in your life time? B. Jean, how about you? V. In a recent issue of the magazine Wired there was an article entitled, The 5 Greatest Years for Humanity i A. Two developments it mentioned in the last five years were. 1. Free of major armed conflicts. 2. We are squarely in the midst of the most amazing upsurge of knowledge and wealth ever seen on earth. B. The first may be reversed. C. The second, according to the article, is irreversible. But that needs some further reflection. 3

4 The Change: Don t be Afraid 4 VI. So what about this increase of knowledge? A. A single development dramatizes this upsurge of knowledge: the fight against AIDS. 1. In this battle progress has been made that was considered impossible as recently as (5 years ago). 2. Science and industry have produced drugs that are snatching people from what were thought to be inescapable deathbeds. 3. A preventive vaccine that could literally eradicate the scourge may be in the laboratories already... 4

5 The Change: Don t be Afraid 5 4. All this occurred from a standing start in considerably less than two decades. In earlier times, centuries were needed to make even slight headway against killers like leprosy and cholera -- and even then, mainly by isolating the sufferers. 5. The progress with AIDS research demonstrates the awesome intellectual power that humanity can muster against threats to our well-being. 6. The power results from knowledge accumulated during the past millennia, especially the past two centuries. 7. It also flows from our collective wealth of knowledge and our ability to communicate that knowledge almost instantaneously. 5

6 The Change: Don t be Afraid 6 VII.Let s take a moment to reflect on that increased wealth. A. The history of human welfare is divided sharply into two distinct periods. 1. Prior to the middle of the 18th century, a) all but a tiny fraction of us lived almost as poorly as most had lived 2,000, or even 20,000 years earlier. b) For most of history - let alone prehistory - nothing happened to humanity s everyday predicament, except for some slow addition to our population. c) Knowledge grew, but it was of little benefit to most people. 2. By contrast, the past two centuries have seen amazing change. a) Starting around 1750, humans began to achieve objectives they had dreamed of since time immemorial - and fast. 6

7 The Change: Don t be Afraid 7 b) [In the 19th century, the US took nearly 50 years to double its per capita income. China is now doubling its national income every 10 years.} 3. In the last century, there has been a miraculous takeoff in consumer welfare, and it s getting better faster than ever. 7

8 The Change: Don t be Afraid 8 B. It is our good fortune to be living smack in the midst of this most remarkable age. In our era, the standard of living has progressed at an amazing and everaccelerating rate. 1. The most important and striking change is in mortality; a) throughout history, death rates nearly equaled birth rates, with just enough positive margin for slow population growth over the centuries. b) Now, most of humanity enjoys not only good health, but a life expectancy far higher than that of even the wealthiest people in the richest countries earlier this century. c) [In 1850, life expectancy in Manchester, England, was 30 years. In 1996, in the US. it was 76 years.] d) [Now Scientists tell us that within a short time they should be able to increase life span to over 200 years.] 8

9 The Change: Don t be Afraid 9 e) With cloning, good or bad, harvesting body parts and organs, that are perfect replacements; the science fiction of an indeterminate life span is within view. C. Consider the advances in our ability to view the world. 1. Until 1200, the naked eye was our only instrument of vision. 2. Up until the advent of glasses, I, and many of you, would not have been able to survive. 3. Eyeglasses and telescopes emerged eventually, but no further progress occurred until the turn of the 20th century, when the X-ray allowed us to see below the surface of the human body. 4. Now we have radar, microwaves, electron microscopes, CAT scans and magnetic imaging, and electron telescopes - taking us deeper into space and farther back in time. 9

10 The Change: Don t be Afraid [We are nearing the ability to see far enough away, which means farther back in time, that we may soon be able to see the beginning of the universe.] D. This same massive change holds true for our ability to reproduce information. 1. For some 30,000 years, ideas could be recorded only via drawings or various forms of handwriting on parchment, stone, or cave walls. 2. Then, half a millennium ago, Gutenberg invited movable type, and images and words could be published widely. 3. Printing improved with metallurgy and mechanical power in the 18th and 19th centuries but fundamentally little changed until the information age struck. 10

11 The Change: Don t be Afraid Now with a PC in my bedroom a) I can publish a document that within seconds can be read by millions of people all over the globe. b) We can receive and publish in seconds, almost live, pictures from Mars. c) Scientific calculations that once took months are now done in seconds. d) I can visit the Louve, the Smithsonian, read a book from the Oxford Library, and listen to an Opera from New York, and all at the same time if want; and all of this without leaving my bedroom. 5. This can all be done by anyone willing to learn, independent of their economic status, social class, race, sex and most physical abilities. 11

12 The Change: Don t be Afraid 12 VIII.More changes coming A. There is talk of colonizing Mars. B. Thoughts of achieving worldwide literacy. 1. With computers and satellites it won t even matter if your village has a road into it. 2. One will still be able to access all this information. C. With genetic engineering there are virtually no limits to biological creation. D. With our ability to restructure compounds and molecules by altering their atomic structure -- who knows what will be done. E. The teleporting of Star Trek is real or almost Austrian researchers have taken a primitive first step toward creating a perfect copy of matter instantaneously over long distances. 12

13 The Change: Don t be Afraid The feat, reported.. in the journal Nature, involved replicating the exact properties of one light particle, or photon, in another three feet away. Beam me up Scotty. F. There are thousands more examples that we can t even begin to imagine right now. IX. We live in a science fiction world and we feel a bit like the disciples, too much of a good thing. All this change, while exciting, it is also a bit scary. A. Especially I bet if, your 90 years old. 13

14 The Change: Don t be Afraid 14 B. 90 years ago - the general public was just starting to use. 1. electric lights 2. radio 3. telephone 4. cars C. There are people in this congregation who have seen more change in their life time than their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents, great, great, great, grandparents and even more probably, all put together - -ever saw. X. It should be scary --unless we have the faith to know that God is behind all this change. A. God is still creating. B. In fact, change, creation, and leading us into the future is one of the most important characteristics of God. 14

15 The Change: Don t be Afraid 15 C. It is the vision of the creation of God s Beloved Community that keeps calling us forward to create a new world. XI. Even this might be scary if it wasn t for what was unchanging about God. God s love is forever unchanging. A. No matter what new worlds we create or encounter - there is nothing to fear. B. No matter where we go, that comforting womb of God still surrounds us; nurturing us, holding us, guaranteeing that nothing will separate us from God s love. XII.This faith in God s unchanging love give us the optimism to move into the future. 15

16 The Change: Don t be Afraid 16 A. Optimism says Noam Chomsky, is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there in an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours. B. If we truly have faith in God, then we have made the choice. 1. With our faith we have hope 2. With our faith we know the love of God 3. With our faith we have optimism 4. With our faith we choose to move into the future. 16

17 The Change: Don t be Afraid 17 XIII.The truth is out there, and there is nothing to fear, because God is already there. AMEN. i Wired Magazine, 6.01, January 1998, The Five Greatest Years for Humanity. by Julian Simon, p