What Changes and What Stays the Same

“To do is to be” (Aristotle). “To be is to do” (Jean-Paul Sartre). “Do be do be do” (Frank Sinatra). A few months ago, I was looking through old issues of The Bryn Athyn Post and found that joke typed on the header of an issue from 1984. It got me thinking about how much the content of the Post has changed over the decades.

Not least among the many reasons why the Post has changed over the years is that we now have many more ways to share our milestones, memories, and memes. Maybe you are reading this in a printed version of the Post, but I would guess that the majority will be reading it in a post on social media or in a PDF attached to an email. (By the way, sign up to receive the Post via email at brynathynchurch.org/subscribe😊.)

There are plenty of people who wish that we could go back to the way the Post used to be and I relate to that, but the Post of the 1980s was a product of that time and I don’t think we can recreate the Post from that era without the society of that era. It is also intriguing to look forward. As social media companies change their content moderation policies and new companies and products come onto the market, I find it interesting to think about what the best methods and platforms are for a church community to use for its communication. It is also intriguing to speculate about what we will still be using for our communication in 20, 50, or 100 years. Let me know if this is a topic you’d like to discuss; I’d love to grab a coffee with you and get into it.

In the midst of all this change, I find it comforting and useful to reflect on what does not change. In the old hymn “Abide with Me,” we sing “Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.” It was powerful for me, last Sunday, to participate in the ancient sacrament of taking the Lord’s Holy Supper as a community. Derek’s talk about the priest and king Melchizedek offering wine and bread to Abram and his servants (Genesis 14) reminded me that people have been participating in communal religious meals as a way of connecting with each other and their God for way longer than just the last 2,000 years. And I’m pretty sure that, 100 years from now, people who are part of Bryn Athyn Church (if it still exists with that name) will still be having Holy Supper together. 

 As the world swirls and changes around us, I am grateful that our church gives us the chance to reflect on and participate in activities that connect us back to that which (and He who) does not change:

“All flesh is grass, And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. …. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:6, 8)