The Unfinished Animal: A Theology of Culture
Sermon Series:
Finding God in the Everyday
Sunday, January 25, 2009 ©
Dr. Victor D. Pentz
Senior Pastor
Scripture Lesson: Revelation 21:23-26
In that drawing what do you see? What
is above that woman’s head? And in what setting are they meeting? People from East Africa
invariably see that lady with a box balanced
on her head, and see the people meeting outdoors under a large tree. I don’t know about
you, but that’s not what I see. What I see above
that woman’s head is a window and the people
are meeting indoors in a building, as does almost everyone in our Western culture. How
fitting that this study of the influence of culture
on visual perception was begun by a Scottish
missionary to Malawi, Robert Laws, in the late
1800s.
When I say, culture what comes to your
mind? Opera? Picasso? The High Museum,
which is filled with all that high-falutin’ culture? Or maybe you think of pop culture – Elvis, Brittany, Paris, OJ, People magazine. This
morning I’d like us to think about another kind
of culture – that set of common experiences,
unspoken assumptions, and underlying beliefs
that unite a community of people, like, say,
Scottish culture. People from different cultures
often look at the same things and see them very
differently. For an example, I want to ask you
to look at the illustration in your bulletin.
Our cultural differences run deep and
make us different from one another.
This is true even in the greatest multicultural community in the world, the church of
Jesus Christ. I’m sure many of you learned to
sing as a child a song that goes “Jesus loves the
little children, all the children of the world –
red, brown, yellow, black and white, all are
1
precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Other religions can be assigned a specific geographical location on the
globe. On a map you can say you find most
Hindus concentrated in these countries; Buddhists you’ll find in this part of the
world; Muslims and their culture span this region. Don’t try that with the church of Jesus.
Bowing before Jesus around the planet this
morning is John’s vision in Revelation 5:
“those from every tribe and tongue and people
and nation.” Red, brown, yellow black and
white, all cultures are precious in his sight.
In the 1990s a couple of psychologists
up at the University of Michigan conducted
an experiment where they brought in young
men and insulted them. These researchers sat
down and thought what names and words you
could call an 18-20-year-old male that would
really rile them up. (Obviously I can’t say
those words in church.) They’d call in an unsuspecting young man and have him walk
down a hallway partially blocked by a huge
football player rummaging through an open
file cabinet. Right when the unsuspecting
young man was walking by, this big football
player would fall into him and say
“You...bleep.” Only the word wasn’t “bleep.”
Then when the man got to the study room the
researchers would measure his physiological
and psychological aggression levels. What
they found was there was no difference between jocks and intellectuals or between big
guys and smaller guys. The one difference
came in where the young man grew
up. Southerners were off-the-charts furious.
Gladwell says: “Most of the young men from
the northern part of the United
States...laughed it off. Their levels of cortisol
actually went down, as if they were unconsciously trying to defuse their own anger....
But the southerners? Oh, my. They were
ticked off. ”
We see this in our scripture this morning. It’s a remarkable passage, Revelation
21:23-26, and you’ll find it on page 1938 of
your pew Bible. On this morning when we
celebrate our Scottish culture, we see that one
day God will not only save our souls, he will
redeem our culture. We see here the grand parade of nations each bringing its splendor and
glory into the Kingdom of God.
Here is John’s vision of the New Jerusalem:
23
The city does not need the sun or the moon to
shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light,
and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations
(literally the “ethnos”—the ethnic groups) will
walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will
bring their splendor into it. 25On no day will its
gates ever be shut, for there will be no night
there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will
be brought into it.
In another of these satanic experiments
they asked young men to draw pictures from
their childhood, then right in front of them,
the interviewer would wad it up and say,
“Well, Slick, that won’t do,” and throw it
away. Northerners would get upset and then
level off. Southerners would laugh at first,
then go into a slow burn, and then explode.
(Outliers, 175)
The Power of Culture
This morning I’m going to skate way
out on thin ice, and with the help of Malcolm
Gladwell in his book Outliers, ask: “Where did
we get our Southern culture?” We’re different
down here. Members of our armed services
come disproportionally from the South. Here
we have an ethic of courage and bravery and
loyalty and family and blood ties.
Where does this come from? Gladwell
says it happens because the Southern United
States was settled largely by Scottish immi-
2
A Gift and A Challenge
Our cultural legacies are both a gift and
a challenge. The gift of our Scottish heritage is
obvious—courage, bravery, honor, loyalty,
family, great football teams. But there’s a challenge in that legacy for those who want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Isn’t there
something somewhere about “turn the other
cheek” and “do good to those who intend you
harm?” Like the sin in our lives, there are
pieces of our cultural legacies that we must
overcome by placing them at the foot of the
cross of Christ.
grants. You folks with the tartans brought to
our shores a culture of honor. For centuries
those early settlers and their ancestors had been
herdsmen in the lawless borderlands of Scotland. The kilts they wore gave men free range
of motion as they traversed the rugged terrain
of the Scottish Highlands. Unlike a farmer who
grew crops and could sleep easy at night—no
thief would come and harvest their crops while
they slept – that herdsman could lose everything he had—his flocks and his herds—
overnight. His security lay in having the reputation of being a threat, of being known as one
who would fight for what was his. The worst
thing was for him to be known as someone
who was weak. That Mel Gibson Braveheart
paint-your-face-blue spirit got transplanted into
the DNA of the South.
The problem is we Westerners are so
often blind to our own culture, especially when
we have brought Christ to other cultures. James
Michener in his novel Hawaii is unfair and exaggerates wildly as he savages the missionaries, but he touches on the problem of how
sometimes we think we’re bringing Christ
when we’re really bringing massive doses of
our own culture. So how do we give the gift of
Christ without bringing the shortcomings of
our culture? How do we challenge those of
other cultures to live faithfully the gospel?
Now here’s the punch line: in the study
it didn’t matter if your ancestors were Scottish
or not. All that mattered is if you grew up in
the South. You could be Italian or African
American, but if you grew up in the South you
had a piece of this fiery spirit for protecting
your herds in the Scottish Highlands. Such is
the power of culture.
If you think that’s easy let me give you
a problem and when you solve it please get
back to me because the church around the
world is waiting for the solution. Take the issue
of polygamy in Africa. The Apostle Paul is
crystal clear – a man is to be the husband of
one wife, period. So suppose, as is happening
today, an African man with four wives suddenly comes to faith in Jesus Christ and joins
the church. Our Western response is, “Well,
pick one of those wives. Doesn’t matter if
you’ve had children with all of them; pick one
and separate from the others.” And this fits
well with our Western culture of freedom, independence, and choice.
Now I’m a southerner wannabe. I tell
people I wasn’t born here but I got here as fast
as I could. I love my adopted home here in the
South. There’s another side of Southern culture
that goes way the other direction, and that is
the ease with which southerners express affection to one another—the hugs and the caring
words. In the California culture in which I
grew up, never ever would a man ever say to
one his buddies, “I love you.” You might say
that to your father – who might freak out. But
here there’s this amazing ease with expressing
affection and hugging so that the strongest,
most competitive, most southern man is likely
to say to a close buddy, “Hey, you know I love
you.” It’s a beautiful thing.
On the other hand, the new converts
who have been polygamists often say the keep3
ing of commitments and preservation of relationships demands that they keep their wives
even after becoming Christians. After all, didn’t Paul also say you are not to divorce your
spouse even if he or she is an unbeliever? In
the New Testament the breaking of commitments, the destroying of relationships, and the
keeping of multiple wives are all contrary to
the gospel. So what do you do? Whatever you
end up doing, you cannot escape the influence
of your culture.
no runway in sight? A few seconds later the
copilot said, “Let’s make a missed approach,”
meaning, “Let’s pull up and make a large circle
and try the landing again.” One second later,
the flight engineer said, “Not in sight.” The copilot added, “Not in sight. Missed approach.”
Four seconds later finally the pilot spoke and
said, “Go around,” but he was slow to pull the
plane out of its descent. Three seconds later the
plane hit Nimitz Hill three miles southwest of
the airport at 100 miles an hour, skidded 2000
feet into a ravine and burst into flames, killing
228 of the 254 people on board the plane.
As followers of Jesus you and I are
members of two cultures—earthly culture and
kingdom culture. As for which is more important, Paul says you and I are citizens of heaven.
And yet I have to confess that I find myself so
often going through life mindlessly and uncritically reflecting our fallen culture of consumerism, materialism, and narcissism that can be
found nowhere in the kingdom culture that
calls for laying up treasure in heaven, loving
my neighbor as I love myself, and laying down
my life for my friends.
That 1997 crash was just the last in a
string of Korean Air crashes during the eighties
and nineties, when it was the most dangerous
airline in the world. As investigators studied
these crashes, they began to isolate what they
called “human factors.” By analyzing cockpit
conversations prior to crashes they began to
note that Korea was a highly deferential culture, where you defer to the one in charge. Copilots were very reluctant to push their perceptions and opinions on the pilot. Even when they
saw danger, they would only hint and suggest.
The Korean language has eight levels of deferential language you use for people you see
your superiors, making it very difficult for
someone down here to question the judgments
of someone up here.
Learning from Other Cultures
There is no doubt that clinging to the
fatal flaws in a culture can bring you down, in
one case, at least, literally. Again from Malcolm Gladwell:
On the morning of August 5, 1997, the captain
of Korean Air flight 801 woke up at 6 a.m. He
was 42 years old, in perfect health. He had
8900 hours of flight time, and had recently received a safety award. Later that night he and
his copilot were flying a classic Boeing 747
into the Guam airport. It was raining but the
weather was not terrible. They were on a visual
approach, the pilot and copilot sitting side by
side. They lowered the landing gear, and, on
the cockpit recorder the copilot was heard to
say, “Not in sight.” One second later the
Ground Proximity Warning System called out
500 feet, which meant they were 500 feet off
the ground. But how could that be if there was
Now I want you to relax. Today Korean
Air is one of the safest airlines in the world,
because Korean Air was able to learn from
other cultures – English speaking cultures.
Think about it: English as a language has no
deference; it is egalitarian. Beginning in 2001,
Korean Air pilots were allowed to speak only
English in the cockpit. If you don’t speak English you can’t be a Korean Air pilot. In the
cockpit Korean Air pilots must also speak to
each other by their first names. Our language
and culture is great for flying airplanes.
4
But we also have so much to learn
from other cultures. I remember taking a
group to the Holy Land, and one of our pilgrims was a lawyer who was a triathlete. No
matter where he was, he had to get his run in.
So in Jerusalem he got up one morning to run,
but there was no room on the sidewalks.
There were too many people. He was
bummed out. He said, “I’ll fix that tomorrow.
I’ll get up at 5:00 a.m.” So he did. Later I saw
him, all dejected. It was even more crowded
at 5 a.m. The Muslims were on their way to
their mosque to pray; the Jews were on their
way to synagogue to pray; and Christians
were all on their way to church to pray. I
thought, “We get up early to run. They get up
early to pray.” We do not have a prayer culture. One reason we so often crash and burn
spiritually and emotionally is we’ve not yet
learned from the prayer culture of the Holy
Land.
Presbyterian carefully reached into the soup,
picked up the little fly by its wings, held it up
and said, “Spit that out! I paid for it.”
We live in a no-frills world these days.
Peachtree is no exception. We may be looking at 10% less giving in 2009 than in 2008.
That may not sound like much but in $12 million budget that’s $1.2 million. That’s making
us get really Scotch really quick here at
Peachtree, squeezing every penny till it
screams. We’re turning off lights; our printers
are now programmed to print on both sides of
the piece of paper. And we’re asking you to
search your soul to see if there is more you
can give to serve the work of God through
this congregation. We need you to be Scottish
and frugal so you can give more to God’s
work. Maybe in the past you’ve thought nothing of blowing $50 here, $100 there, maybe
even $500 for a big night. Today we need to
weigh the impact of every economic decision
we make, and we need to channel these scarce
resources into the work of God.
And this morning, do we ever have an
important lesson to learn from our Scottish
heritage. Like never before, today in these
lean financial times we need that good old
Scottish thriftiness. In our families, our work,
and our church we need to be a wee bit o’
Scotland – which reminds me of the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman Presbyterian who went out to lunch together. They
decided on an outdoor café. They sat down,
and they ordered soup. Three flies came
cruising overhead. They looked down and
saw these delicious bowls of soup. They all
dive-bombed down, and one fly landed in
each one of these guys’ bowls of soup. The
very proper Englishman took his silver spoon
and carefully dipped the fly out of the soup,
set it on the linen napkin, folded it over and
discretely set it aside. The Irishman grabbed
the whole bowl of soup and went “whoof”
and blew the fly and the soup all over the table, but he solved the problem. The Scots
Would you join me in being a wee bit
o Scotland in your financial life as you go forward in 2009 so we can bring our pennies together and see God’s work go forward?
Our Cultural Mindset
And then this morning as we go out
into the world let’s take a missionary mindset
into our culture. Ours may be a feisty, combative culture, but missionary Don Richardson was sent to a sneaky and treacherous culture, that of the Sawi people of Papua, New
Guinea. The Richardsons were the first Westerners ever to live among the Sawi tribe, who
still practiced cannibalism. The Sawi celebrated treachery. They loved when a member
of their tribe successfully befriended a person
of another tribe in order ultimately to betray
and kill that person. To be a hero was to
5
“fatten him with friendship for an unsuspecting
slaughter,” just as you fatten a pig for a feast.
Don Richardson knew he was in trouble when
he told them the story of the gospel and they all
thought Judas was the hero. A true pig fattener—that Judas! Don Richardson got dejected, thinking this culture had no entry points
for bringing in the gospel of Jesus. But he
prayed and waited and watched.
derway, and a festive spirit was taking hold –
when it happened.
A long dugout canoe from the Kaganga
tribe came around the bend and pulled in with a
patient near death from pneumonia. Don
Richardson went out to tend to the man and as
he bent over him, suddenly behind him he
heard a voice hiss with bitterness, "Tuan (the
word for missionary), Tuan, you will not give
medicine to that man." It was Amio, a Sawi
warrior. He said, "But Amio, do you want Hurrip to die?" “Yes,” Amio said, and choking
with rage he went on to say, "Remember I told
you my father once gave a peace child to the
Kaganga tribe only to hear they'd killed and
eaten that baby? The missionary nodded.
"Well, the man in that canoe is the man to
whom my father gave the child. This man
killed my little brother. Tuan, for years I've
waited for this chance."
One morning he and his wife awoke to
find preparation going on for something they’d
never seen before: the rare exchange of a
“peace child.” If one tribe wanted to make
peace with another tribe, they would choose a
healthy baby boy to be brought up by the other
tribe. As long as the boys lived those two tribes
were at peace. In a place with high infant mortality, this was a challenge. Everybody saw it
their sacred duty to keep the peace child alive.
Bingo! That was the opening for Don
Richardson to tell of the God who gave his Son
to the warring tribes of this world – a Son who
died and rose again and lives forever and
promises peace to all who accept him. A baby
had been born whose very name was Prince of
Peace. Well, suddenly the lights came on and
the Sawi people became Christians.
All around men were edging toward
their spears. Then on impulse Richardson
reached out and grabbed Amio by both earlobes and, looking in his face, cried, "I plead
the peace child." "But the peace child is dead.
Hurrip killed him," Amio shouted. "But the
peace child God gave still lives and because He
lives you may not take vengeance against Hurrip. Forgive, Amio! For Jesus sake, you must
forgive." Richardson kept on squeezing those
earlobes. He writes the battle within Amio
reached such ferocity his whole body began to
shake. Finally Amio relaxed and looked down
with gentleness on his dying enemy. He said,
"Tuan, let me carry Hurrip to the medical
house."
Then one sweltering Christmas morning, the Sawi who had become Christians celebrated their new life in Christ by inviting all
their old enemies to a great Christmas feast. As
the guests arrived by canoe they were greeted
by the irresistible aroma of that Sawi delicacy,
roasted beetle grubs. But Don Richardson says
early on he began to sense the tension in the
air. Being around their old enemies had the
Sawi warriors on edge. In fact, it felt like a
ticking time bomb and Don Richardson had
second thoughts and wondered, “Oh no,
maybe I have overestimated the power of
Christ in the lives of these people." He was
sitting on a powder keg. But the feast got un-
After that all the tribes gathered in a
grass chapel and they listened as a Sawi
preacher delivered his Christmas day sermon,
"For unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is
given...."
6
This morning will you give your culture
to Jesus? Will you lay your family tartan at the
foot of the cross? Will you humbly let him
teach you from other cultures? God wants to
redeem your culture. He says, “I’ll take your
southern-ness, your Scottish-ness, your Asianness, maybe even your California-ness ( dear
Lord, is that possible?) your Sawi-ness into my
kingdom.” Can’t you just see that grand parade
of the nations into the kingdom of God? As
John says, they will carry in the splendor and
glory and honor of the nations. You’ll see Oriental carpets, Swiss watches, Italian art, French
wine, Swedish pastries, German sausage. It
will be heaven, and no doubt you will hear the
sound of bagpipers as the glories of the nations
are carried in the parade of the saints into the
City of God.
Prayer:
Lord, how we thank you for the vast
multi-cultural family which is the church of
Jesus Christ. We lay our cultural backgrounds
before you this morning, praying that you will
give them back redeemed and useful in glorifying you, so that we honor you in our diversity
as well as in our unity. We thank you that what
we learned as children is no less true to day:
red, brown, yellow, black, and white, all are
precious in your sight. And we pray that those
of us who know and love you from different
colors and cultures around the globe would
humbly learn the lessons you would teach us
from one another. Through Jesus we pray.
Amen.
7
P EACHTREE P RESBYTERIAN C HURCH
3434 R OSWELL R OAD , NW · A TLANTA , G EORGIA 30305
www.peachtreepres.org · 404-842-5800
8