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The World Is Flat

Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt — October 5, 2008
 

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Leveling in Our Times
In 2005, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas Friedman published a bestseller entitled The World Is Flat. It describes the monumental changes going on in our own lifetimes, especially in the past decade, in nearly every country around the world, affecting people of every race and every gender and every generation. Truly these are times of massive and unsettling and electrifying change.

When Friedman describes the world as “flat,” he is not talking about some pre-Columbus myth that the actual geography of the earth was a flat plane. Even in Columbus’ time most people didn’t believe that—in fact, going all the way back to the ancient Greek astronomers it was evident to human beings that we lived on a sphere, as any observation of a lunar eclipse would reveal. What this modern journalist is referring to is the “leveling” or equalizing of opportunity that modern technology affords. The economic and political landscape is flattening.

Many of us were born into a world of dramatic “Haves” and “Have-Nots”: the Western or “First” World of Europe and North America, the Communist or “Second” World, and then the vast billions locked into poverty and hopelessness in the Developing or “Third” World. But today things are changing. Americans get technical support for their computers from an engineer in Bangalore, India. We are treated by a medical doctor who was born in Lebanon or the Philippines; our major Wall Street banks and brokerages are bailed out of their self-imposed crises by billionaires in Singapore and Dubai; and most of our stuff is now manufactured in China. What a different world! The technologies of computers and transportation and communication have given equal opportunity to millions who would never have had it a half-century ago.

Whether or not we read books like Friedman’s and learn the new technologies, we can sense that change is in the air. It is certainly the theme of our national political campaign; in three months’ time we will have either our first-ever African-American President or our first-ever female Vice-President. Change is a constant reality for nearly every business and profession, as well.

If human society is, in fact, becoming more level in opportunity and equality, it certainly goes counter to all the trends of our human nature. Since history has been recorded, there has always been a tendency to stack and rank and compare—that is, to organize human beings vertically. There are the people at the top of the heap and those at the bottom. There are the Haves and the Have-Nots, the Rich and the Poor, the Civilized and the Barbarian (or Uncultured or Redneck), the white collar and the blue collar, the educated and the uneducated, the upper and middle and lower classes, the powerful and the powerless, “our” kind of people and “their” kind of people. It is human nature to divide in these ways. Even the utopian dream of Karl Marx—complete equality under Communism—proved to be a total failure, as the all-powerful Party became the elite while everyone else suffered.

The Greatest Leveler
Only time will reveal if the changes we’re experiencing—the leveling and flattening of human society—will be long-lasting or will result in just a new group climbing to the top of the heap and lording it over the rest. But, for now, let’s think about the greatest leveling power the world has ever seen: the Christian Gospel. The message found in the Bible is the opposite of human nature. It brings about a profound change of inner heart and mind. And though some have claimed to be Christian yet resisted the implications of Christ’s message, whenever this Gospel has been truly understood and applied it has had a radical and transforming effect. To put it simply, Jesus Christ has leveled the human race in two profound ways.

“There is no difference”
The first way in which we are leveled, and all our ranking and judging of one another is proven pointless, is identified in Romans chapter 3:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:21-24)

How does Jesus level the human race? By holding up a mirror to our true inner selves and showing us that none of us is without sin, that we all fail completely to live up to the standards of our own conscience and the requirements of a Holy God.

We humans like to compare ourselves favorably to others who don’t appear to be as good as we think we are: Well, I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not as bad as that person. The Bible tells us that’s a delusion. The differences between us are insignificant. We all fail utterly. We have all sinned and fallen short.

Think of it this way: Let’s imagine that the entire population of the State of Florida were to line up on our Gulf Coast beaches for a swimming race across the Gulf to Galveston, Texas (some 800 miles away). When the gun goes off, everyone heads into the water. Some people, the old and the frail, barely make it to the water’s edge before collapsing. Others are able to swim for a quarter-mile, or a half-mile, or even a mile before they collapse from exhaustion and drown. And then there are the few, the elite athletes, who make it for 15 or 20 or even 25 miles. But eventually even they reach their limit and quietly slip beneath the waves. An observer standing on the shore of Florida might see what seems like a big difference among those swimmers. But from the shore of Texas there’s almost no difference: even the best fall so far short of the destination. This is what Romans 3 means when it says, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Because it is impossible for us to ever make it on our own spiritually, Jesus came to provide the alternative: we can be forgiven and made right with God by faith in Him, rather than by trying—and, inevitably, failing—to be good enough in our own efforts. That is the great leveler. Kings and peasants, CEOs and blue collar laborers, Wall Street tycoons and Chinese rice farmers, pastors and people who have never entered a church can all be saved and made right with God and granted the privilege of eternal life only through faith in Christ. That is why we are all on the same level. None of us has any room to brag or be proud, if all of us are simply recipients of God’s grace and kindness.

“All one in Christ”
The second way in which Jesus Christ is the great leveler of human life is in the way He has commanded His church—the people redeemed by His grace—to treat one another. He has called us to be One Body, and to place our true and eternal unity above the worldly things that might separate us. Listen to these words from the book of Galatians in the New Testament:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

That is an incredible leveling. Every Christian is equal to every other Christian in the eyes of God. None of us are better than anyone else. And this is the reason why we, and a billion of our brothers and sisters around the globe, celebrate this day we call “Worldwide Communion Sunday.”

An Important Reminder
Worldwide Communion is a reminder to us of our essential, spiritual and eternal unity. As the earth has revolved today, Christians in the crowded cities of Asia, the sun-baked plains of East Africa, the immense cathedrals of Europe and the poor barrios of Brazil have already partaken together of this Bread and this Cup. And we do so, as well. In Jesus Christ the world of human beings is, and always will be, flat. We are all equally sinners in need of His mercy. And once we have received that mercy, we are all equally children of God in His family—none more loved or precious than the others.

If you have not yet acknowledged to God the truth of your own condition—that you stand in need of His grace—then I encourage you to do so now. There is no better time for you to receive the Lord’s forgiveness of your sins, and allow Him to come into your life as your Savior and Lord.