The mandate

The year is 2026. The culture is full of the slopes I knew were slippery back in the 80s. Things I never could have imagined are happening all around me. Good and bad. Marvelous and terrifying. I find myself in the autumn of my life mystified by the alarming speed of technology and wonder if I can still adapt to the changes. I remember watching my bewildered Granny stand in front of a microwave in the 1980s, wondering how this magical box could possibly heat up her coffee.

Now, that’s me.

God saw all this coming - microwaves, the internet, artificial intelligence. Ethical dilemmas. Moral failures. He knew the secret behaviors of people who wouldn’t control their desires. He knew they would become first tolerated, then accepted, and eventually celebrated. He wasn’t surprised when people gave up flesh and blood encounters with other human beings for a soulless handheld device, promising a false intimacy. He knew that the confused and depressed would be told, you can mutilate your own body if it makes you happy.

I feel like I can watch from the sidelines a little because I remember what it was like before all of these things. I remember when we were questioning if it was ethical to create life in a petri dish. When it was shameful to even speak of evil things done in secret. I know how to have a conversation with another person and am comfortable with being bored for a few minutes while waiting in line. I even know how to write a letter with a pen and paper.

It takes serious effort for my millenial kids to shelter their children from screens and make them play outside. I attend church with twenty-somethings who are struggling to have real relationships or even go on a date. I know young tweens/teens who are confused by new strange feelings about their bodies and yet don’t feel quite right giving in to all the wildness their peers and teachers tell them it’s okay to give in to.

But I, too am affected by this culture, and still have a place in it, though it shouldn’t define me. God saw it coming, and he allowed me (and even my octogenarian parents) to be here for it. So what does he require of me?

He placed me here on earth during these past 6+ decades to be a force. Not to necessarily change my culture, but to draw people to God within in. I must be submitted to him and keep my focus on God’s calling.

John 17:14-19: “I gave them your word; the godless world hated them because of it, because they didn’t join the world’s ways, just as I didn’t join the world’s ways. I’m not asking that you take them out of the world but that you guard them from the Evil One. They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world. Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; your word is consecrating truth. In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world.” (Jesus’ prayer for his followers, The Message)

Many older people are wringing their hands over what we see as the craziness of this culture, and just want everything to go back to the way it was when in their opinion, things were better. They weren’t. Just a different kind of bad. The culture will always be broken. In every season of history we see brokenness. Throughout time, in every land there has existed the same brokenness: hatred toward fellow man, envy, greed, selfishness, arrogance, disregard for human life, murder, strife. It takes different forms, but it is all core human brokenness without God. Sin.

Proverbs 14:6 “Cynics (mockers in the NIV) look high and low for wisdom—and never find it; the open minded find it right on their doorstep!” (The Message)

I read this scripture and found myself in the mocker, the cynic. That side of me wants to throw in the towel and “let it all burn.” I wasn’t finding wisdom there.

However, I was intrigued by The Message’s term open-minded, and began to ponder that. The NIV uses the term discerning. I believe we must have a discerning open mind about our culture. I must look with compassionate to the Image-bearer who is confused about their gender, checking out my groceries. They want to be called she/her when it is obvious they were born male. I can still engage in a conversation that is a blessing to them, a sweet fragrance, asking how their day is going, offering a, have a beautiful day, or how can I pray for you today? God placed me within this community and that means interfacing with all of my neighbors. I will not change them. Only God can. I am the one who must introduce them to this loving God. Shunning them or engaging in an argument with them is not moving that ball down the field.

Instead, we, the gray-haired and wrinkled, have a golden opportunity in these golden years of our lives to demonstrate what it looks like to rise above the culture while living in it and live like Jesus. We should keep our focus on what is true: love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. This will put off a sweet aroma of life to the broken world around us. I have the joy of taking that with me everywhere I go.

2 Corinthians 2:16: “Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life.” (The Message)

The Mandate is not to change the culture, or even individuals. That is in God’s purview. The culture is moving down a path towards tremendous confusion about self and relationships, the role technology will play in our lives, and the despair of loneliness. Our mandate is to draw people to Jesus - to offer relational lovingkindness and bring them to the foot of the cross where he paid the price to rescue us from this brokenness. He made a way to a relationship with God that will end all brokenness. Our job is to participate with God in bringing his kingdom to earth, “Lord, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

God is calling me to find wisdom without being cynical. To be open-minded and live among a culture I am not defined by, and taking that sweet aroma with me.

(and I highly recommend this podcast with Andy Crouch, who speaks eloquently about issues of concern regarding modern technology and where we are headed.)