[SLIDE TWO] Many of my earliest memories are from church. I consider myself to be fortunate in this regard. Of course, some of these memories are memories of boredom—“When will this sermon ever end?!” (loudly pretending to sleep in pew; singing while hiding behind palm branch) However, there are so many things that I remember fondly from those early years of growing up in my small church in my small town:
- Participating in “hymn-sings” with adults on Sunday evening and learning the great songs of the faith that they held so dear.
- Listening to adults talk about God, even if I didn’t always understand what they were talking about.
- Those great flannelgraph Bible lessons that they shared with us kids!
This brings us to our text for today, Psalm 145. [SLIDES 3-7] This passage played an important role within the Jewish tradition. Devout Jews were encouraged to recite this Psalm each day. At the core of Psalm 145 is a call to praise the Lord who is great. The psalmist calls upon the worshiping community to celebrate the Lord’s faithfulness to His covenant and His people.
In the middle of this passage, we encounter a dynamic that bears some similarity to what I experienced growing up in my little church in my little town:
4 One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
5 They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty--
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
6 They tell of the power of your awesome works--
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
7 They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness. (NIV)
This passage emphasizes the responsibility of one generation in passing along the legacy of faith to the next. This emphasis was an important part of the Hebrew tradition from Deuteronomy chapter six forward (vv. 6-7: These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”).
[SLIDE 8] Here, in Psalm 145, we see described a number of key ways in which this was to be expressed:
- Commending the Lord’s works
- Telling of the Lord’s mighty acts and the power of the Lord’s awesome works
- Celebrating the Lord’s abundant goodness
- Singing of the Lord’s righteousness
Despite God’s intentions for them, the people of Israel at times encountered some real challenges in living out this vision. [SLIDE 9] For example, in Judges 2:10, we read, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.”
[SLIDE 10] If we’re being honest, this generation-to-generation dynamic is challenging today, too! We could probably identify a number of reasons why this so. I’ll mention just a couple of them here today.
First, as a society, we have moved from a time when people shared life together across the generations to one where all living generations—young, middle-aged, and old—largely go about day-to-day life siloed and segmented from one another. As a result, we experience less interaction with one another, less shared experience. Even in the church we often find this to be the case.
Second, from ancient times, young people have made an effort to differentiate themselves from their parents. In recent decades, however, various forces have been at work that make this tendency more pronounced. Our society has journeyed through a period of rapid change, which has caused us to be shaped by significantly different experiences of the world. This is profound. On a more superficial level, marketers have been eager to find ways to treat each generation as a distinct “target market” so that they can sell us stuff. However, the results of this can be profound, too. The combined impact of all of these forces is that we have been conditioned to understand ourselves over-against one another.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the word on the street was “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”
By the 1980s and 1990s, it was “Don’t trust anyone under 30.”
Simply put, we sometimes are prone to view one another with mutual suspicion, to see one another through stereotyped lenses. The renowned 20th Century anthropologist, Margaret Mead, spoke to this when she noted that, in a society undergoing major change, young people often look at their elders and say “You never have been young in the world I am young in, and you never can be.” In other words, you don’t really have anything to teach me about how to live in the current world in which I am trying to find my way. Meanwhile, pretty much every generation, when it reaches adulthood, tends to look at the generations coming after them and say “kinds these days…things just seem to be getting worse and worse.”
In the midst of all of this, we sometimes encounter real difficulty in bridging the gaps of understanding that exist between us. As a result, we run the risk of missing out on the chances for wisdom to be imparted, for storied to be shared, and for young and old to express value and affirmation to one another. [Stories from Church] This can be very painful.
And in no place do we stand to lose more in this equation than in the church.
[SLIDE 11] It is clear throughout scripture that God desires for His greatness to be experienced within every generation. We see this in the generation of Moses as they experienced deliverance from Egypt. It is evident also in the generation of Nehemiah that rebuilt the city of Jerusalem and experienced a profound renewal of their covenantal identity. We also see this in the generation of the Apostles, who experienced a profound working of the Holy Spirit and helped to set in motion a global movement.
In more recent times, we can also see examples of how each generation has come to experience for themselves the greatness of the Lord:
- In the 1890s, a generation of young people with a passion for missions formed the Student Volunteer Movement and adopted as their watchword “The Whole Word for Christ in this generation.”
- In the 1950s, we saw a generation of faithful young adults join flourishing suburban churches and fill the nurseries with happy little Baby Boomers.
- In the 1970s, the Jesus Movement helped a generation of young people experience spiritual renewal and encounter a fresh way to follow Jesus.
- Today, we see a generation of young adults hungering for justice and yearning to be challenged as participants in God’s mission.
Sociologists tell us that there are at least five generations coexisting in the church today. Amazing potential—five generations that have something to say, something to celebrate, something to sing, for the benefit of all!!! [SLIDE 12] This summer I am reading: A Fellowship of Differents by Scot McKnight—A diverse, unified community—A foretaste of eternity!!
There are some tensions and temptations that must be navigated, however. First, we can fall prey to the notion that our experience of these activities is somehow all-encompassing, as though we’ve figured out once-for-all how to truly speak, tell, celebrate, and sing of God’s greatness. Verse 3 of Psalm 145 says that “His greatness no one can fathom.” The same can be said of generations. His greatness so single generation can fathom.
Second, we can fail to engage in the action verbs of Psalm 145 in a way that invests in the generations that come after us. Instead, we may be content to enjoy doing these things just among ourselves. [As “the Bible says”, according to one man I knew in the American South, “Birds of a feather flock together.”] Or, we might assume that the next generation’s experience of the Lord’s greatness must be just like ours. One of my students who served a rural Methodist parish in Iowa characterized the mindset of his parishioners as being “We really want to attract young families who are twenty years younger than us, but who are just like us”!
Third, we may simply discount the testimony of the generations who have gone before us: “These folks just don’t get it like we do.”
The 20th Century philosopher Jean Paul Sartre concludes his renowned play, “No Exit”, with four infamous words: “Hell is other people.” As we try to build meaningful community across generational lines, we may be tempted to assert, half under our breath, “Hell is other generations.” In fact, in our world today, we often are prone to choose the “paradise” of groups that reflect ourselves, thereby insulating us against the “hell” of those whose differences might challenge us to change. In their book, The Shaping of Things to Come, Frost and Hirsch suggest that, when we surround ourselves with people “who are like us, who think the same thoughts, who have the same things, and who want the same things”, this “confirms us…It is a form of self-justification.” Thus, we may be tempted to exert our will in selecting those settings that reflect us without transforming us.
While we may be motivated by a desire to avoid the “hell” that sometimes arises when generations co-exist, my fear is that we actually may be missing out on what God intends for us to experience as a foretaste of heaven. Indeed, the church has been called to serve as a “colony of heaven” (Phil. 3:20). While we have all been shaped to varying degrees by the “patterns” (Romans 12:2) of our society, Christians have been called to relearn new patterns of life together in accordance with the culture of heaven. McKnight: “When they live in fellowship, the Me finds joy in the We. It’s messy, believe me, very messy, but no matter what the mess, the gospel is at work to turn messy people into holy people, even if it takes a lifetime (or more).”
Some folks may feel compelled to question whether the sort of intergenerational dynamic described in Psalm 145 is simply obsolete today—no longer realistic. In today’s generational climate, we may instead feel pressure to do something “trendy” to attract certain age groups. Perhaps we may look around and get the impression that some congregations are real winners at this game, while some of us may sense that we are losing. Maybe we’re left wondering if we can even “compete.”
What’s ironic about this is that a strong body of research is emerging today that demonstrates the value of intergenerational relationships in the church. For example, research conducted by the Fuller Youth Institute has led that team of researchers to conclude that, the more intergenerational relationships a young person can experience in the church, the better. They note that the traditional formula in youth ministry has been “one adult leader for every five youth”. They challenge us to consider what might happen if we reverse this equation: In the life of every young person, five adults who are making an investment in various ways and on various levels. What might happen if we took that challenge seriously?
One thing that this helps to achieve is that congregations that assumed they weren’t keeping up can rediscover themselves as powerful centers of impact. [Story of Dancing at the Greek Orthodox Church] To church members who have been wondering, “What gift do I have to offer,” there is perhaps no greater gift that we can offer others than the gift of ourselves. Through mentoring, storytelling, eating together, serving together, and worshiping together, we can help the next generation to discover themselves as members of a community centered in God’s greatness and faithfulness. In turn, the members of all generations can gain a sense of value and affirmation from one another.
Read Houston p. 226
I continue to be grateful for all of the “big people” who invested in me and modeled the faith to me during my early years. Psalm 145 invites us to consider that there is still rich potential in this generation-to-generation dynamic today. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of simply being sentimental about this. We need to continue to work at commending, telling, celebrating, and singing in ways that invite all generations to share in the legacy of the Lord’s greatness and invite them to experience His greatness for themselves. This will surely be uncomfortable at times, but it is tremendously worth it!
[SLIDE 13]“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”