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Time and the J-Curve
Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt — January 27, 2008
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
2Take words with you and return to the LORD;
say to Him, “Take away all guilt;
accept that which is good,
and we will offer the fruit of our lips.
3Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses;
we will say no more, ‘Our God’ to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.”
4I will heal their disloyalty;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them.
5I will be like the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom like the lily,
he shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon. …
9Those who are wise understand these things;
those who are discerning know them.
For the ways of the LORD are right,
and the upright walk in them,
but transgressors stumble in them.
Hosea 14:1-5, 9, NRSV
The Benefits of Studying History
I assume you’ve all heard the saying: “We either learn from the past, or we will repeat the mistakes of the past.” It’s been proven again and again through the centuries of human experience: though technologies and societies and languages and customs change, human life follows the same patterns and experiences, the same basic trials and temptations.
I think this is why I’ve developed such an interest in history. Though it was not my major in college, it’s been an avocation and part-time endeavor ever since. In graduate school I devoted myself to learning and understanding the history of the nation of Israel, our spiritual homeland, and the subsequent history of 2000 years of the Christian Church. Since then I’ve tried to master the history of America—my homeland, the land of my birth and citizenship, the nation I love and to which I pledge my allegiance. And, most recently, I’ve devoted time to learning the history of Scotland—my ancestral home and the “fatherland” for me not only by my bloodlines but also by my faith as a Presbyterian—tracing the roots of the church which ordained me as a minister of the Gospel directly back to the Scottish Reformation and its transplanting to American soil. There are regularly-repeating patterns in each of these histories that reflect our human nature. Every nation, every human organization, and even every personal relationship is likely to follow the cycles of prosperity and growth, stagnation and decline, crisis and renewal. My purpose this morning is to help you see history’s patterns—and see them through the eyes of faith and scripture.
The Bell Curve
It may be helpful to fix in our minds a simple geometric image. A “Bell Curve” can accurately represent the life cycle of a great many human enterprises and endeavors—from the history of empires and nations, to corporations and businesses, to nonprofit associations and churches, to marriages and close relationships, and even to the condition of our own bodies and our lifespan.
Moving from left to right, we can picture a moment of beginning, followed by a period of growth and expansion and vision and momentum as the curve moves upward. At the top of the curve we come to a period of maturity—and possible stability or even stagnation; the growth momentum slows, and the pace of change slows as well. Then comes the beginning of decline—often imperceptible at first, but then picking up speed and becoming more obvious. At the bottom of the right side of the curve is the death spiral, the final ending.
The J-Curve
But lest we become depressed and conclude that all is hopeless, let me add one significant twist to the Bell Curve. It is called the “J-Curve.” At any point along the bell it is possible to start a new upward curve, a new beginning, a renewal, a new chapter in the life cycle. This looks like a “J,” and it can be the start of a whole new cycle. At any time a relationship or an organization or a country can undertake a new commitment and new direction. It is, in fact, our greatest human hope: that out of death can come new life, out of failure can come success, and out of despair can come hope.
The ideal time to start a new J-Curve is when we’re still going upwards. But that’s hard to do because we can easily be lulled by our success or growth into assuming that the upward movement will be a straight line forever, stretching unbroken into infinity. But it never is. The more common time for a new J-Curve to begin is when we are on the downward slide of the bell. Human nature seems to be most open to new things when we realize that the old ways aren’t working as well anymore. The motto of the upward side of the bell may be, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”; but on the downward side we start to realize “it’s broken.” Some human endeavors never begin a new J-Curve, and they die. Others have been able to sustain repeated new starts and refreshing upward directions—and those can last a long time.
Decline and Renewal in Biblical and Church History
God’s Word confirms this pattern of human experience. Our scripture text for today is from the writings of the great Old Testament prophet Hosea. This man appealed over and over to his nation of Israel to, in the words of verse 1, “Return to the LORD your God.”
All through Scripture you see this pattern repeating; we can call it the “Decline and Renewal Cycle.” Beginning with Moses, author of the first five books, we find that our sinful human nature keeps causing us to drift away from the Lord, to stumble into sin or stubbornness, disobedience or unbelief. It’s the declining side of the bell curve. Over and over the Prophets had to call people back to God, to remind them of His commandments, and to show them how they should be living. Finally, some of the chosen people were wiped out by their stubborn disobedience—and the bell curve ended in the death cycle. Others went into exile for awhile in Babylon and then returned, a great spiritual renewal, and started the J-Curve. The “Decline and Renewal Cycle” reflects the history of Israel.
Today we are remembering and celebrating our heritage as Reformed and Presbyterian Christians. Whatever your ethnic and genealogical background might be, you can trace some of your spiritual roots to the great period of Reformation in the 16th century and beyond.
At that time the Church of Christ in Europe had declined very far. It had become mired in biblical ignorance, moral decay, and bureaucratic sclerosis. The Church was at the bottom right of the bell curve. And then God changed the minds and hearts of courageous men like Luther, Calvin and Knox. And through their calls for Reformation, a new “J Curve” started—and it changed not only those who left or were thrown out of the Catholic Church, but it even changed the Mother Church in positive ways—a spiritual renewal in Rome began, bringing it back much more to its proper place and starting another J-Curve.
The motto of the Reformation is “Reformed and ever Reforming, According to the Word of God.” This slogan simply expresses the concept of the J-Curve. Presbyterianism—and also the heritage of our brothers and sisters in the Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal and other traditions—was born in a great burst of spiritual renewal and revival. But our forefathers recognized that such a wave of the Spirit cannot last. It has to be renewed or “reformed” regularly, in every new generation. Because of the gravity-pull of the bell curve, we have to keep going back to our roots—in the words of our text from Hosea, “Return to the LORD your God.”
Our grandparents and parents may have been strong believers and faithful followers of Christ, but that’s not enough. We have to make their faith our own, have to experience a personal dedication and commitment. And throughout our Christian lives we need to keep going back to the Lord to renew and reform us and start the next upward curve.
Decline and Renewal in Relationships
Let me show you how the cycle of the Bell Curve and J-Curve are repeated across all of human life. It happens in marriages. A couple stands at the altar and pledge their never-ending devotion and fidelity. Then they get busy with the demands and details of life—and life can be messy. Some couples begin to move away from one another, to become distracted by all sorts of other things. And the relationship starts down the far side of the Bell Curve. At any time it is possible to renew that intimacy and love and closeness. The longer we wait, the harder it becomes—as gravity and inertia take over. But it’s never too late—to go out on a date again, to open up your heart, to apologize for things said or done. Daily renewals of love and commitment are the best—little J-Curve upward turns. But if those have been neglected for a time, you can still start over.
Decline and Renewal in Corporations
I’ve watched the Bell Curve and the J-Curve in operation in human organizations. Corporations follow the cycle. Sometimes they are unable to reverse the decline. Look at the technology industry. When I first began to use computers, one of the dominant companies was Wang, based in Boston. Wang lost its technological edge, and the death spiral went quickly.
Meanwhile I purchased my first personal computer, an Apple Macintosh. In the late ‘80’s and ‘90’s, it looked as if the monopoly of Microsoft and Intel would send Apple into the same death cycle as Wang, until Steve Jobs and his geniuses invented the I-Mac, and then the I-Pod, and most recently the I-Phone: each an amazing J-Curve that renewed the company.
Decline and Renewal in Congregations and Denominations
I’ve seen individual churches and even denominations go through the cycle. In 1990 I was called to be pastor of a church in suburban Pittsburgh that had lost more than 500 members (from its peak membership of 1500 to less than 1000), had said goodbye to all of its pastoral staff over a period of two years, and was floundering. But God brought us a new vision, new leadership and a new focus outward to reach our community (rather than bickering internally over minor issues). In a little more than a decade we had grown to 2000 members and had planted a new daughter church. What looked like a congregation in an advanced Bell Curve became an example of the J-Curve.
The Presbyterian Church in Scotland went through the same cycle. It was birthed by John Knox and his passionate colleagues in a great wave of spiritual renewal in the 1600s. By the early-1800’s the church was a bureaucratic shell, supported and controlled by the government through taxation, with tremendous pressure on pastors and elders to water down the faith. Then a man named Thomas Chalmers—a latter-day Luther or Knox—decided that the status quo of the downward cycle was not acceptable to the Lord or to him. He led a great renewal—which actually resulted in the spiritually-alive people departing the official Kirk of Scotland and forming the Free Presbyterian Church. This J-Curve restored a passion for the Lord and His work across the land, while many of those unbelieving churches closed their doors.
This same pattern is, I believe, happening in the Presbyterian Church in our own country. In the second half of the 20th century the bureaucracy lost its way, unbelieving ministers filtered into the pulpits, and churches by the thousands went into the death spiral. The same thing has happened in all the so-called “Mainline Denominations.”
But congregations like this one and many others have taken a J-Curve upward by following Hosea’s call to “return to the LORD” and by obeying our Reformed calling to be “Reformed according to the Word of God.” Something new, a new upward spiritual movement, is happening in various churches across America. It’s too early to see clearly where it will go, but we in this church are a part of it. And it will be exciting to watch how the future unfolds.
Decline and Renewal in Our Nation
Though I’m certainly not a politician, and though I will never publicly endorse any candidates or parties, I can’t help but conclude as a citizen of the USA that our nation seems to be following the Bell Curve right now. Whatever may happen in our economy and our foreign policy, it seems undeniable that our country is in some decline. We are badly divided politically, with the parties showing little willingness to work together for the common good. We have a sprawling government bureaucracy that’s wasteful, inefficient and unmanageable. We are seeing a dramatic decline in our moral values and the quality of our popular culture. And we are facing a fanatic enemy that hates us, without the apparent unity or resolve to defeat militant Islam.
When a country starts down the cycle of decline, people cry out for “change.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Everyone wants change, but the kind of change we choose will either send us onto a new positive upward J-Curve, or hasten our descent down the Bell Curve. These are critical times—and I know we are all praying that God in His mercy will lead America to a renewal that will send us upward again.
The Paradox of the J-Curve
Let me close with a word about what happens when we start on the road to renewal, the beginning of the J-Curve. This is a Paradox, a seeming contradiction that really isn’t. The beginning of a cycle of renewal must be both rooted in the past and yet liberated from the past. Here’s what I mean. The way to start a time of renewal requires that we rediscover or return to the core values that made our relationship or organization or nation successful in the past. That’s why Hosea cried out to “return to the LORD.” We have to anchor ourselves again on a solid foundation. The Reformers reminded us to keep going back to the Word of God and let it continually mold us, rebuke us, correct us and fashion us.
But just as we have to return to past values and truths and principles, we have to recognize and accept that time relentlessly moves in one direction only. And when we start a new J-Curve, when we renew ourselves, the future will not look exactly like the past. It will be different. We cannot, and we shouldn’t want to, return to the 16th century Reformation for our spiritual vitality, or to the 1950’s when the Presbyterian and other Mainline Churches looked healthy. Nor, politically, should we try to turn back the clock to some perceived “golden era”—either the presidency of Ronald Reagan for Republicans in the ‘80’s or the presidency of Bill Clinton for the Democrats in the ‘90’s. Frankly, the “golden eras,” whenever they were, were probably not as golden as we think they were. And the way forward is not to just turn back the clock. True renewal, an authentic J-Curve of upward momentum, always brings new dimensions even as it restores the old values and principles.
Every aspect of our lives is somewhere on the curve. We’re either growing or declining, either straying away from God and His will or moving back to Him. It’s my prayer that each of us will have clear eyes of faith to see where we are right now, and pure hearts of faith to seek continual renewal and refreshment.
