Tomorrow we will celebrate the 246th birthday of this great nation. I am proud to be an American and, I’m forced to admit, there are times when I’m ashamed to be an American. But I am always very grateful to the Lord to have been born in the United States of America.
We have so much to be thankful for. Humanity on this planet has made great developmental leaps in the past few decades that have improved our standard of living immensely. But until recent events have begun to awaken us, most of us had become complacent, concerned with having things and experiencing pleasures. We’ve stopped teaching civics, how our government works, in our schools, and our lack of interest in what the government is or isn’t doing has become a great concern to some of us. An ignorant population cannot maintain a democracy.
Most Americans probably agree that we have made tremendous progress in solving our problems, but will also agree that there are more problems to solve. Some of them, like global warming, stem from our misguided solutions to other problems.
This morning, as we prepare to celebrate our nation’s birth and our democracy, I want to ask the question, "What is real progress?"
General Electric Corporation was number five on the list of Fortune 500 companies in the United States in the year 2000 and had ads all over the media stating that "at General Electric progress is our most important product." As of 2022, General Electric Corporation has slipped to being the 48th largest of the corporations in the United States and Walmart, Amazon, and Apple are first, second and third. In 2000 the top companies were General Motors, Walmart, and Exxon. Waste Management was number 178. Amazon wasn’t on the list. Today Amazon employs 1,608,000 employees, over three times as many as the entire population of Wyoming, and more than any of the lowest ten states. As a facilitator of consumerism, the bedrock of American prosperity, Amazon stands out as the entity that embodies modern America’s current concept of progress.
General Electric has made astounding progress over the years in all sorts of scientific and technological fields, providing improved medical applications, distribution and protection of power supplies, the defense of our nation, and many more advancements that make our lives easier, more comfortable and safer. And General Electric is only one of hundreds, if not thousands of companies worldwide that are contributing to this technological outburst in humanity's history.
The result is that we in the western world, or at least large segments of it, are living as richly as human beings have ever lived as an entire society. But right alongside this wealth, extreme poverty, hunger and disease, the violence of warfare, and the rise of both the temperature of our planet and totalitarian governments are rampant in many parts of our planet and threaten us all. If we believe the advocates of technology and human wisdom, these problems will eventually be overcome by the superior intelligence of human beings.
However, if we look at the reality of the nature of our consumerism, the picture may not be as pretty as we wish it was. Progress may be General Electric's most important product, but perhaps it is time, or maybe past time, to examine what we consider to be progress.
In the very Lirst part of the Bible, the creation stories in Genesis, we are confronted with this question. What is progress and how do we achieve genuine progress in our lives? The story of the Garden of Eden portrays humans living in a paradise, the world as God created it, operating according to God's divine design. That design puts the love of God first, the neighbor, second, the whole world, third, and our self, last.
The trees in the garden represent understanding and wisdom. God's warning not to eat from the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden means that we are not to try to understand spiritual truths from our secular knowledge, and that includes our sciences. We are to understand religious truths from the Lord, through the Bible and by the perception of truth that the Lord pours into us as we seek to understand.
It is impossible for us to really understand spiritual things from natural, scientific investigation. Science only provides knowledge of this physical world, which is a part of God’s creation, not all of it. At its best, science can only show us where the world fits in God’s Divine Design. When we tamper with the physical world without regard for its proper place within the whole of Reality, we invariably miss the mark. We see only the immediate result, and discover the true consequences of our actions only after we have acted. Global warming is a good example of this.
William Bruce, in his commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew, points out that progression is the great law of life. We are to progress. That is what life is for. But we have to understand what true progress is. What we can be sure of is that it is not progress as General Electric defines it. Trying to solve all the problems of life by our own science and innovation does not lead to real progress.
The results of that strategy are obvious if we look at them. We are creating a society that consumes the wealth of the earth and creates pollutants at a rate that is utterly unsustainable on a finite planet. Sooner or later either the resources will run out or the pollutants will strangle us.
Yet we are born to progress. William Bruce also points out that hell operates on regression. Hell perverts the truth, distorts it. What did the snake say to Eve? He whispered in her ear, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree of the garden?” And the woman replies, "We are to eat from the fruit of the tree of the garden. But from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You may not eat from it, nor are you to touch it, or you will surely die from it."
And then that crafty snake, that spokesman for hell, said to her, "You are not going to "surely die," because God knows that on the day when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Hell wants us to think we can overcome anything if we put our minds to it, because the goal of hell is to destroy. Hell is the exact opposite of heaven. The goal of our Lord is creation. Hell seeks to destroy what the Lord creates.
Without the Lord we can do nothing. That's exactly what devils want. They want us to do nothing that smacks of real progress. So our minds are filled with visions of our so-called progress through science and technology and our increased production of meaningless stuff, our politics and our media, and all the stuff we have come to believe in above God. And our feelings are full of wanting that stuff and regretting not having everything we think we want. We have put our selves and the world first.
But we ARE meant to progress. Progression is the great law of life. But we are to progress internally.
Oh darn. That's not as exciting. That's not very glamorous. That's not very profitable. That doesn't make headlines with the latest breakthrough in medical science to prolong our lives on this physical earth...and in the process keep us from entering the heavenly world for which we are actually created.
We seek that kind of progress out of fear. We don't believe the Lord when he tells us that he is the way, the truth and the life. We think we know better. A pound on the ground while we're still around, and forget that pie in the sky by and by. Live life to the fullest. You only go around once. Go for the gusto. Life is short, stay awake for it. I deserve a break today, because I'm worth it. These are the messages of modern progress, progress measured in profits and possessions. 70% of our economy in the United States depends on consumer spending.
But the real outcome isn’t more security or contentment, or enjoyment. The real outcome is “spend more, enjoy less”. There is less satisfaction, because this craving for more and more can never be satisfied. The Lord called upon his disciples to stay awake and watch with him in the garden in Gethsemane. While the Lord prayed for the strength to save us, the disciples were sleeping. Are we sleeping through one of the most critical times in human history? Is the future of humanity at stake? What can we do about it?
Actually, not much. Not in terms of the physical world. Without God we can do nothing.
But it's not all doom and gloom. I’m not saying we shouldn’t work to solve the problems we’ve created. But we need to change the way we look at things. The future of the earth is in God's hands and the Lord will provide for the earth. This is recognizing the truth of what God tells us. As much as we can, we need to live so as to not contribute to the destruction of the earth...or of ourselves.
However, the reality of this society makes that very difficult. What we can do is to try to live in love to God and our neighbor. We can try to understand things not from an external perspective, but from our internal perspective. What kind of person am I becoming? Am I progressing toward heaven or regressing toward hell? To the extent that we seriously ask ourselves that question and apply God's answers, we will contribute less to the destruction of the earth and of our self, and be able to do more good. Progression is the law of life, but we need to remember that real progress is inside of us.
READINGS
Old Testament Reading: Psalm 33:12
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
New Testament Reading: Galatians 5:13
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law is fulLilled in one word: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”