Postmodernism is a Fact
Postmodernism (or whatever you call the cultural shift) is what it is. In other words, the difference between a problem and a fact is that a problem is something you can fix or change, but a fact is something you simply have to accept and deal with. One doesn’t get angry because the sun comes up in the morning or because a tree sheds its leaves in the fall. Just so, postmodernism is a fact, and trying to fix it or change it is a wasted effort…
This is a quote from author Steve Brown from his book How To Talk So People Will Listen. Reading this hit me smack dab in the middle of the face. I can’t tell you how many wasted words I’ve typed and sermons I’ve preached lamenting and trying to change this fact. A fact that I cannot change. I wish I had come to this realization years ago. My communication could have been so much more effective. Perhaps I could have addressed more things that actually could be changed. Maybe I would have focused on the solutions to actual problems instead of just complaining about facts beyond my control just because I knew my audience would give a hearty “Amen” in agreement. Not just sermons, but countless conversations where I would “fix” all the world’s problems. Wasted. I wasn’t fixing anything and was wasting words and time while letting problems I could possibly help go by.
So, what should my response be now that I have come to this realization?
Repent.
That is what Christians do when they are faced with something that needs to change. A change of mind that leads to a change of actions. In this case, a change of mind that would lead to action at all.
That is one of the largest issues with lamenting over facts, it leads to no action. We have a responsibility to be a light in the world. To be the hands and feet of Jesus. We cannot do that if our time is consumed with philosophizing and, frankly just complaining, about a fact.
Jesus did not once give a sermon about the Roman Empire and how things should be changed with Caesar. He didn’t waste his precious earthly time lamenting the woes of the life of a Jewish man in the Roman Empire. He didn’t call for better leaders or more representation in government. He didn’t long for the good old days of the kings or the judges from Israel’s past. He simply lived with the fact that he lived in Israel while Rome was in control. That was a fact. Could he, as God, have changed that? Yes, but that was not his purpose here. His purpose was far greater. He was establishing a kingdom far greater than Rome or America.
Let us lay aside these facts of life that we cannot, and perhaps even should not, change. Let us be about the work of building the Kingdom of God. Let us work to establish justice and mercy in a land that has little of either. This work cannot be done through earthly means, but heavenly. Devote your time working toward what you can change and leave the facts to God.
Love one another.
