at Batesville Presbyterian Church
on March 11, 2007
The next time you buy a computer chances are it will come with an operating system called Windows Vista. This is the new computer operating system from Microsoft that looks better and is more secure than its predecessor. Each of us human beings also run an operating system. From birth, we are trained to use a dualistic operating system. Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault noticed this even in her 4 year old grandchild who learns to sing this song watching Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other, not like the other, not like the other." We are taught from early childhood to make distinctions and to notice differences. We define ourselves by the color of our skin, what model of vehicle we drive, the size, location and style of our house, and so on and on it goes.
We constantly upgrade our things because that is what we are taught to do running the binary operating system that we use. If we buy a brand new high definition television this week we know as we carry it out of the store there will be one twice as good as this one for the same price or less twelve months from now. We buy it and before we get it installed it already dated. Having satisfied our desire for a new television, we move on to some other item of interest, perhaps a new cell phone. You get the picture. One day we wake up and we find our identity crowded out by all the stuff in our house, in our life, in our head.
Into the den of our despair, into the wasteland of our devices, we hear an otherworldly voice:
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
(Isa. 55:1-5, MSG)
Scientists tell us that our taste buds change every seven years. Of course, they are changing each moment, as some cells die and others take their place. But this system of constant turnover runs its course in such a way that every seven years we find our mouths populated with a brand new set of taste buds. This is why turnip greens that tasted horrible when we were 5 years old may taste great when we are 55 years old. Our taste buds change and so can our operating system. The Apostle Paul challenged the church in Corinth, saying:
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ.
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. (1 Cor. 3:1-2)
This biblical concept of maturing in the faith by graduating from drinking milk to eating solid food, is fleshed out by Dr. James W. Fowler III in his delineation of the stages of faith consciousness. Fowler's stages follow along the lines of the stage-theorists Jean Piaget , Erik Erickson & Lawrence Kohlberg. Based on his interviews with over 5000 people, Fowler has described seven distinct stages of faith development from the primal faith development of an infant to the universalizing faith reached by some adults. Fowler's stages of faith development help us understand that growth in our Christian faith is a process that is never complete. Today I am using the metaphor of upgrading our operating system as a metaphor for how it is possible to grow in Christian faith. We can upgrade the operating system of our computers and we can upgrade our spiritual operating system. God says clearly in our text from Isaiah:
"I don't think the way you think.
The way you work isn't the way I work."
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts..
(Isa 55:8-11, MSG)
Let me describe how the world may look if we upgrade our spiritual operating system to God's Windows Vista. Look around you and you will see many different people in the pew in front of you and in the choir loft. Notice the difference hair colors and styles and even the fact that one person is a female and another one is a male. Now, imagine you are sitting on an airplane several thousand feet directly above the place where we are now. You look out the window of the airplane and look down, way down, at this sanctuary which is below you. You see from the airplane this sanctuary is but a speck in size. You can see no individual people inside the sanctuary but you can see for miles around the sanctuary in every direction. Your vision is exceedingly broadened as you look down at this sanctuary from several thousand feet up in the air. If your airplane were a space shuttle and carried you a thousand miles above this planet and you looked down you would not be able to distinguish this sanctuary and the people in it. All you would see if a round, blue orb called earth. This is how God sees us using God's non-dualistic operating system. God does not focus on the differences between us. We are but part of the whole. When we upgrade our spiritual operating system we notice new patterns that show us God's imprint in all aspects of creation. We notice a growth in the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience and kindness. These are the fruits of upgrading our spiritual operating system.
One of the best ways I've found to upgrade my operating system is through the spiritual practice of centering prayer. This ancient form of Christian prayer predates any schism or heresy and it works. I have found centering prayer to be the most effective way of upgrading my operating system from my own version of Windows, let's call it "Jon's Windows XP" to God's version of Windows Vista. I encourage you all to take advantage of the introduction to centering prayer workshop that will be held in the Recreation Room of our church on the Saturday after Easter. Come experience centering prayer and see how you can upgrade your life's operating system to God's Windows Vista. So mark your calendar for the Introduction to Centering Prayer Workshop. Come learn the secret that Isaiah was referring to when he described God's Windows Vista using God's own voice: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
God's Windows Vista is a profound operating system. Like a person looking out the window of airplane in flight, God's Windows Vista gives us a broader view of the world . God's Windows Vista does not destroy our current operating system. We can upgrade our operating system to God's Windows Vista. Centering prayer helps us do that. We can upgrade our home computers to Windows Vista and we can upgrade our mental, emotional and spiritual operating systems to God's Windows Vista. Isaiah challenges us to upgrade our operating system to God's Windows Vista. Centering prayer is an installation program that helps us upgrade our mental, emotional and spiritual operating system. Think about upgrading your operating system. This is not for everyone. It will require some time and some effort. It takes some time to learn how to run a new operating system but the result is worth the effort.
