One of my favorite stories is, I think, a parable of our times: A pilot comes on the intercom of a jet aircraft: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I am afraid that I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that we have just been struck by lightning, and all our navigational instruments and communication systems were shorted out. We have no radio, no compass and no GPS. We have no idea where we are or where we are going. We are lost. The good news, however, is that we do know our air speed, and we are making very good time."

Our world is changing very, very fast. It is being transformed by the impact of technological change, globalization, modern communications, climate change, and many other factors. No generation has ever experienced change as rapid or as dramatic as we are now living through. And we "ain't seen nothing yet." Everything suggests that future changes will be even more dramatic and profound than the ones we have experienced so far. We are going somewhere, very, very fast.

But do we know where we are going? Where are those changes taking us? What kind of society will we be in another generation? What kind of world will our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren inherit? Will it be a better world or a worse one, and will they be able to tell the difference? Will they adapt and adapt and adapt like the proverbial frog adapting to warming water until it boils to death?

Change is not necessarily a bad thing. It isn't necessarily a good thing either. Change can be terrifying and threatening, as this poster suggests. ("It's a short trip from riding the wave of change to being torn apart by the jaws of defeat!") As a result, there are lots of messages which advise us to accept change as a natural and good part of life, that to resist change is to resist progress, to resist growth. "Change is like a bus that runs on schedule," according to one blogger; "you are either aboard or left behind." And it is certainly true that the old has no monopoly on what is good. But it is also true that what is new isn't always better than what has been tried and tested.

There is a wonderful little episode in the British TV show, The Vicar of Dibley, that explores this theme. The background for this is that the small parish church of Dibley has just received its first female vicar, and some are not at all happy about it. Some argue it can't be right because if Jesus wanted women to spread the gospel, he would`ve appointed Sharon, Tracey, Tara and Debbie rather than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John! Others say that things have to change: "Imagine the congestion if traffic lights didn't change." "What about gravity?" responds one of the traditionalists. "It gravity changed, we'd all float off into space!" So there's good change and bad change. The changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace is wonderful. Prawn flavoured potato chips are disastrous!

You can watch the clip on YouTube:

I think many of the changes that are happening are good and I welcome them. But I also believe that some changes are deeply troubling - most notably the destruction of our environment in the name of economic "development." But what is most disturbing is that we as a culture seem to be without a moral compass, without the ability to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, what human life is for, and what is a corruption of the life for which we were made. We are going very fast, somewhere, but without a moral compass, how will we know whether we want to go where we are headed?

That is why I think the church is vitally important. The church nurtures and sustains the moral and spiritual traditions which can help to guide our individual and communal lives. A strong tradition provides the deep roots which we need to grow healthy. The prophet Jeremiah once compared those who placed their trust in themselves and the fads of their age to a tumbleweed in the desert, (slide four) rootless and aimless, easily uprooted and blown away by even the slightest wind. Such people, such communities, will struggle in life, because they are not adequately nourished. (Slide five) But those who trust in God, who seek to ground and root themselves in a rich and vital spiritual tradition will be like a tree growing by a rich stream. (slide six) "It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in drought it is not threatened, and continues to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8) The question of where we look for nourishment is a crucial one. Will we put our roots deep into the life-giving nutrients of a vital spiritual tradition, or will we be content with shallow roots, subject to the passing fads of a rapidly changing world?

Now when I speak of the value of a tradition, some people may understand me. We live in a society which is rightly suspicious of traditionalism. Traditionalism is simply believing what past generations believed, and repeating what they did. But a prominent historian said it best when he said, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." [Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition] Traditionalism means we are restricted and confined by our allegiance to the past. A respect for tradition, however, is a source of freedom, as we learn from both the mistakes and successes of the past and gain additional resources to face the future. "Those who do not know their history," another wise person said, "are condemned to repeat it."

The apostle Paul prays that the Ephesians may experience Christ dwelling in their hearts through faith. Some people understand faith in a narrow way. They think that to have Christ dwelling in our hearts is to limit ourselves to a narrow faith, a fundamentalist approach to life which rejects all change, all new ideas. But that would be to misunderstand Paul. In this letter to the Ephesians, Paul is arguing for an expansive view of Christ's work. He is arguing that in Christ, God is reaching out beyond the Jewish people to invite everyone, Jew and Gentile, of every race and nationality and culture to know the love of God. God's love, revealed through Christ is broader and deeper and longer and higher than we can possibly imagine. This is the very opposite of a narrow faith.

The great scholar of religion Huston Smith, who spent his lifetime studying the great religious traditions of the world, believed that all religions seek to connect with a great underground river of God's spirit. All of us, Christian, Jew and Muslim, Hindu and Jain, Taoist and Buddhist, Aboriginal shaman or Tibetan monk, are trying to connect with that deep source of spirit. (slide seven) But just as you are more likely to reach a deep river with one deep well than with several shallow wells, we are more likely to connect with the deep spirit by going deeply into one tradition than by gaining a superficial knowledge of several.

To put our roots deep into the Christian tradition is the most freeing thing imaginable, because this tradition does not encourage us to worship the past, but roots us in the God's decisive self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and then requires us to seek out the action of God in our own day and age. To put our roots deep into Christ does not mean that we believe that every modern problem will be solved by repeating the words or beliefs of a former time. But it does mean that those who have deep roots in a faith tradition are those who are uniquely well equipped to face the changes and challenges of our age without being captive to the fads and fashions of a society without a moral compass.

If we want to grow and thrive and prosper, we need deep roots. But it is equally true that if we want to have deep roots, we need to embrace change. Our tradition itself teaches us to confess our inadequacies, to be dissatisfied with the way we are and to look for the new thing which God is doing, to be attentive to the kingdom of God which is emerging in our midst. It is not enough to rest on the laurels of the past, to simply repeat what our ancestors in faith did. I will put it very bluntly: They would be profoundly disappointed if we simply preserved their accomplishments. They risked and sacrificed and stretched and grew and changed, and not to do the same would be to betray them and their heritage.

And so, as we celebrate our grads and dads today, as we consider what our fathers would want from us and what we want to pass on to our children, it would be hard to improve on the prayer of the apostle Paul that we and they may be strengthened in our inner being, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, that we may be rooted and grounded in love, that we may experience the breadth and length and height and depth of God's love, a love that surpasses knowledge, and rooted and grounded in love, we may experience guidance and direction for all the changes of life. Amen.