Making All Things New (Including Ourselves)
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021
by GUY NAVE, Professor of Religion
A
t the beginning of the fall semester, I received an email reminder that I was scheduled to give today’s chapel talk. The email stated that our fall theme to begin the 202122 academic year is: “A New Creation.” The email, read, “This theme, grounded in Isaiah 65: 17-18, invites us to reflect on God’s work in continually making all things new. It reminds us that we are beloved creations of God and emphasizes our response to this new creation through gladness and rejoicing.” I have to be honest with you, as the current chair of the Curriculum Committee, a committee tasked with helping the faculty develop a new general education curriculum, I’d welcome a little more of this idea of us responding to newness with “gladness and rejoicing.” I’d also welcome a little more “gladness and rejoicing” related to our work as a college community developing a DEI statement. My experience after 21 years of teaching at Luther College is that “gladness and rejoicing” are not always the FIRST or dominant reactions exhibited in response to change. Regarding faculty reception toward change, I’m actually a little more reminded of a New Testament passage from the Gospel of Luke. In Luke 4:1429 we find the following words: Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the 34
Agora/Fall 2021
Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then Jesus began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Jesus said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove Jesus out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. According to the text, when Jesus began speaking everyone in the synagogue “spoke well of him and were amazed at [his] gracious words.” By the time he finished speaking, however, they were all ready to throw him over the edge of a
Guy Nave
cliff (Talk about an address going terribly wrong!). Over the course of the past 12 years or so, I’ve been doing quite a bit a research on “change.” As a result of my research, I’ve noticed that much of the literature and conversation about change seem to frequently bring me back to a common point: It seems that most of the time when people are talking about change, what they are really talking about is convincing other people to see things the way they see them. While in some way I guess this makes sense, the problem I have with this way of thinking about change is that change is ALWAYS one directional— it is always “the other” who needs to change. This understanding of change rarely involves the ones demanding change needing to change as well. As I struggled (and continue to struggle) with this, I found myself asking, “What would happen, if change were multidirectional rather than one directional? What would happen if those of us clamoring for change were also required to change?” I find it somewhat ironic that it is
