Presbyopia:
Is it Contagious?
A
sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington
Presbyterian Church
October
8, 2006
Numbers
13: 1-3, 17-33
The
Lord said to Moses, 2‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan,
which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral
tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.’
3So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the
command of the Lord, all of them leading men among the Israelites.
17
Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, ‘Go
up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country, 18and see
what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are
strong or weak, whether they are few or many, 19and whether the land
they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns that they live in
are unwalled or fortified, 20and whether the land is rich or poor,
and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring some of
the fruit of the land.’ Now it was the season of the first ripe
grapes.
21 So
they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to
Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. 22They went up into the Negeb, and came to
Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites, were there.
(Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23And they came
to the Wadi Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with a single
cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them.
They also brought some pomegranates and figs. 24That place was called
the Wadi Eshcol,* because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down
from there.
25 At
the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26And
they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the
Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back
word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit
of the land. 27And they told him, ‘We came to the land to which
you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
28Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are
fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak
there. 29The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites,
the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the
Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan.’
30 But
Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up
at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’
31Then the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able
to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we are.’
32So they brought to the Israelites an unfavourable report of the
land that they had spied out, saying, ‘The land that we have
gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all
the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33There we saw the
Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we
seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.’
*
When
I was in my early 40s, I began to have some difficulty reading
smaller print. I made an arrangement in to see an ophthalmologist,
and have my eyes tested. The procedure went relatively smoothly and
at the end of the examination of the doctor informed me that I needed
bifocals. I was taken aback and asked the question why? He
responded, “You have presbyopia.” “What is that?”
I asked. He responded, “You might call it farsightedness”.
I responded, half questioning, “I am farsighted now?”
Yes, he replied. “You have presbyopia.”
I
left the doctor's office that day having learned a new word,
presbyopia. I remarked to myself: “here I am a
Presbyterian with presbyopia.” I mused further, and began to
wonder is this contagious? Of course it isn't. But I thought
wouldn't it be wonderful if Presbyterians could be farsighted. (not
presbyopic in the medical sense, but farsighted!) I realize that I
am making a play on words. Most Presbyterians, I have discovered,
have Pres-myopia. We tend to be short-sighted. (Once again, I am not
talking about eyes, I am talking about our attitudes).
Presbyopia
means old eyes. Our eyes, like the rest of our body age, and
consequently we need lenses to correct the changes brought on by the
years. While most Presbyterians have or will develop presbyopia, my
big concern is can we become truly farsighted in terms of our vision
for the church. Can we begin to think ahead? And when we do, can we
do it without a great deal of fear? Our challenge today is to think
as big as God wants us to think about the future. Our challenge to
Abington Presbyterian Church, is to be farsighted and think a large
when it comes to the future of our church. I want us to catch
"presbyopia" and I pray that it to be contagious.
The
text that I chose for today comes from the book of Numbers. Let me
set the scene: Moses has led to the people of Israel to the land of
Canaan. This was a land that God had promised them. They had
journeyed for short time and here they were on the border of the
Promised Land. He sent in spies to see what the land is like. He
also wanted to find out what the people who inhabited the land are
like. So he picked one individual from each member of the 12 tribes
to explore the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. They were told to
bring back an “intelligence assessment.”
After
40 days of spying on the land, they had good news and bad news.
First the good news. They reported that the land flowed with milk
and honey. They brought back fruit from the land: grapes as large as
melons! Indeed, this was a remarkable land. But then they told the
bad news. They reported that the people who lived in the land were
huge. Not only were they big they were strong. Not only were they
strong they were fierce. And then they arrived at their conclusion:
“There is no way that we can occupy that land.”
You
can imagine the effect this report had on others. The people of
Israel were afraid. They started to whisper in talk among
themselves. “There is no way that we can occupy this land.”
They probably got critical of Moses. They began to question the
wisdom of God. Challenges have a way of exposing the “negatoid,”
the small thinkers who cultivate fear rather than action!
But
there was a minority report. Caleb, told the crowd to hush and
proceeded to share his intelligence assessment. “Let us go
up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome them.”
Caleb saw the same things that the other people saw. He saw the
land that flowed with milk and honey. He saw the large fruit. He
also saw the people that lived in that land…. Why did he have
a different assessment? Why was he not afraid? Caleb was
farsighted. He saw into the future and that future included the land
God promised. He saw the obstacles. He was realistic. He know that
it would be a challenge. But he also knew that they could live in
that land.
The
reality is that the Calebs of the world are probably one 12th
of the population or 8%. Most of us tend to be like the other spies.
We see the possibilities that the future holds, and we shrink from
it. The challenges seem too big. We are myopic, instead of
presbyopic: nearsighted instead of farsighted. We do not consider
the future and are content with the rubble of the present.
There
are consequences for this. The people of Israel did not enter the
Promised Land then. Instead, they wandered for 40 years in the
wilderness. Because of their lack of farsightedness, and their
unwillingness to step up to the challenges that were before them,
they drifted, lost in the wilderness for 40 years.
What
about us? We do not stand on the edge of the promised land…
but we have challenges before us. They are large challenges for this
congregation, but those challenges are combined with opportunity.
During the last six months we have been the spies scouting things out
for the future. We have seen the possibilities for our building and
for our congregation. We have had them drawn and described We can
quibble about the details, but they are exciting. We also have the
challenge of raising the funds for this project. Two million dollars
is a lot money. Here is the question: Does the challenge inspire
the type of fear that leads us to do nothing? Or do we respond to
the Caleb’s in our midst who say, “We can live in that
future… we can do it”?
I can come up with a hundred reasons for not supporting this campaign. You know them: We don’t like the design. We don’t like the priorities… my group doesn’t benefit from it. I don’t like the mission project. I wish it included an elevator, a chapel… A hundred reasons… take you pick. But let me give you two reasons why we should support this campaign. In my book they overwhelm any reason to the contrary, but they require farsightedness on our part.
1.
It is not about us. It is not about us having a nicer place,
or better building. It is about the people who will be here years
from now. It is about the people whose names we do not know and
whose faces we have not seen. It is about leaving a legacy of
faithfulness, building on Generations of Faith, rather than
merely feeding off of the faith and generosity of our ancestors.
There is something very special about sacrificing for future
generations. Some of us have had that privilege and know the joy of
sacrificing for our children’s education. Can we have the same
farsightedness now, to sacrifice for future disciples who will
confess the Jesus is Lord, worship here, study here, and grow in
faith here? It is not about us. We owe a thank you to those previous
generations who were farsighted enough to think about us, though they
did not know us. God calls us to dream and think about about the
future and that takes farsightedness.
2. The people of Israel backed off from the challenge of entering the Promised Land, and consequently they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. I fear that if we do not rise to the challenge that is before us, we too will wander and drift for the next generation. This is an opportunity that we have been given. It is a big challenge but the time will never be better. The costs of construction are outstripping inflation. Waiting and stalling now is saying “no” to our future and to our children. It is time for the Caleb’s in our midst to rise up and say: “We can enter that land and live there.” It is time for us to catch Presbyopia and be farsighted, looking into the future as we act with faith now. It is time to build upon generations of faith with farsighted faithfulness. I hope this is contagious! Amen.
*The
New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Publishers) 1989.
Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania, www.apcusa.org