Nothing’s shocking anymore.  There aren’t any surprises left out there.  We’ve seen it, heard it, been there, done that.  Nothing’s shocking.

There’s a ride at Epcot Center in Disney World that captures that kind of stoic numbness.  I’ve been to Disney World three times in my life, and every time I’ve gone I make it a point to ride the Carousel of Progress.  I don’t know if you can even call it a ride.  It’s literally a carousel where you face inward, like sitting on the track of a wheel and facing the hub.  But I digress: There’s never a line for the Carousel of Progress.  You just walk right in, enjoy the air-conditioned room and sit in the folding chairs that, as of 2005, hadn’t been updated since the Reagan administration.  In fact, I think one of the only attractive things about the Carousel of Progress is the AC.  You spend a day in the heat, running from ride to ride, standing in line and sweating through your clothes, so it’s nice to take a break at the Carousel of Progress.

That’s only a taste of the ride’s predictability, though.  The Carousel of Progress is a show that goes through the 20^th century presenting the industrial and technological progress that humankind made in those decades.  You sit in the squeaky old chairs and look at this mustard yellow curtain, and then all of a sudden the curtain opens and you see a mechanical dummy sitting in a rocking chair on a stage that looks like something out of the 1920’s.  And this guy in the rocking chair says something like, “Oh, hello.  I didn’t see you there,” and he starts talking to you about what’s going on at that time, like: electricity, the invention of cars, Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic, women winning the right to vote, and in the background he’s listening to his radio and hearing Babe Ruth knock another one out of the park.  It’s nice to reminisce, but there’s no surprise in this presentation.

And when the 1920’s part is over, the carousel moves counterclockwise, progressing you to the next stage that features more milestones in 20^th century American history.  What’s funny is that the capper to the Carousel of Progress is a set right out of the 80’s.  And it’s not an 80’s set that features 80’s stuff.  It’s got that 80’s feel where the concept of the future and how we’ll live in the future comes out of the 80’s mentality, not the present day.  So, you’ve got the mechanical family of dummies enjoying their computers, TVs and microwave ovens, but you’ve also got a robot doing the housework.  And the robot looks like Twiggy from Buck Rogers.  See what I mean?

There’s nothing shocking about the Carousel of Progress, but I still love taking a break on that predicable old ride because of the song.  There’s a song that the dummies sing at the closing of each set’s presentation; so while you’re moving counterclockwise to the next stage, you hear: “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day.”

It’s too bad we don’t have a good theme song like that to get us through the mundane changes in life that don’t surprise us anymore.  Summer’s over.  The students are back.  School has begun…again.  Some of us have changed jobs in the last year, but our new jobs aren’t that much of a surprise to us if at all.  Elections are coming up in November.  The folks running aren’t really sharing fresh ideas or some bold new platform.  It’s football season, but ratings are down, so in an attempt to regain your interest, Monday football’s moved to ESPN and Sunday night football’s on NBC.  And in these September days, we acknowledge that September 11^th hit our country five years ago, and we remember that it’s at this time last year that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

And you remember that much like the effects of the war in Iraq, the effects of Hurricane Katrina eventually got to all of us, either directly or indirectly.  And I’m not just talking about gas prices going up, I’m talking about how Katrina came to our doorstep.  We had visitors in our worship services in September, October and even November last year who’d temporarily relocated here to our community because they had nowhere to go.  Katrina robbed them of their homes and their church homes.  That was only a year ago.  Seen it, heard it, been there, done that.

That’s the kind of stoic numbness that seems to have gripped our nation a year later.  You flipped on most news channels this week and you saw footage of the days right after Katrina last year.  You might see footage that shows New Orleans now and how devastated the landscape still is a year later.  And Spike Lee has a very telling documentary that’s been running every day on HBO this week called, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Parts.  It’s a candid portrayal of not only the community that was hit by Katrina, but how our nation responded to that tragic event.

Well, hold on a second.  What does all this have to do with us today?  We’re here to worship God and to hear a word about how Christ might be speaking to us today.  And Jesus says, “It’s not what goes into your body that can harm you.  It’s only what comes out of you that’s harmful.  Only what comes out of a human being can defile, and it not only defiles you, but it defiles your sister, your brother, your neighbor.”

Katrina was awful.  And we can look at it and think that all the post-Katrina destruction is an evil defecation on humankind.  But it’s not what we see and absorb that defiles.  It’s what comes out of our interpretation that’s harmful.

You remember how our nation responded to Katrina?  And I’m not talking about arguments for or against FEMA or the state of Louisiana or the federal government.  I’m talking about how the nation saw what was going on over there and we all felt helpless.  But somewhere in our witness of the catastrophe, that stoic numbness crept in; and instead of waiting for a remedy, the nation waited for an excuse to make it all go away.

That’s when Jesus was ignored.  Rumors started circulating in the media about how there was mass anarchy.  Reports flew around TV that told of children being held hostage and women being raped and people killing each other all over the place and looters running rampant and lawlessness taking over.  Most of those reports were later recanted or admitted to have been blatant exaggerations.  But it was too late.

The nation started saying, “Well, it figures.  I knew it all along.  Serves ‘em right.”  I even heard someone say something that was just shy of quoting the line from the Godfather where all the crime bosses are gathered around a table talking about pumping drugs into poor neighborhoods to sell, and one of the bosses stands up and says, “They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.”  Now, on an ethical level, that’s blatant racism, hatred, indifference and flat-out fear.  But on a spiritual level, if you talk to Jesus, if you go sit with Jesus for a moment and ask what happened a year ago post-Katrina, he might say, “Everyone took the tragedy in, and what came out of them was a defecation on their sisters, their brothers, their neighbors.  What came out defiled and it still defiles a year later.”

I want to see my Jesus out there in New Orleans.  I want to see my Jesus comforting those who mourn.  I want to see my Jesus preaching from a mount of unused trailers saying, “Knock and these doors shall be opened unto you.”  But I can’t see that unless what comes out of my heart is a blessing, and not something that defiles.  It’s nice to admire Jesus, but to follow Jesus means I don’t ignore him ever.  And if I take in something like Katrina from my TV screen and then go sit with Jesus for a while, I can learn to open the eyes of my heart and let only a progressive blessing come out of my very life.  See, at the heart of what we hear from God’s Word today is a call to empathy.

Jesus Christ took on the sins of the world.  He absorbed everything that defiled humankind: hatred, indifference, fear.  He took all that tragic stuff in, but what came out of him on that third day wasn’t a judgment.  What flew out of that empty tomb on Easter morning wasn’t a dismissal of humankind.  What came out of Jesus was grace and peace and resurrection and new life.  Jesus took a huge gulp of the world’s sour milk and spit out a cup of new wine.  I don’t think we’re supposed to just admire that.  We’re supposed to follow it.

I’ve heard it asked many times before, “Do you admire Jesus or do you follow him?”  Well, I admire a lot of people.  On a personal level, I admire Stacy, I admire my parents, and I even admire my son when he does something as simple as smile at a stranger.  I admire people like my friend Tufan over at the Institute of Interfaith Dialog and my buddy Kyle serving the students of United Campus Ministry.  And I admire so many friends I’ve come to know here in the past year at Friends.  And on a less personal level, I admire MLK, JFK, LBJ, Stan Lee, Barak Obama, Johnny Cash, Molly Marshall, Barbara Brown Taylor, Rumi, Henri Nouwen, the makers of Sesame Street, KISS and the Virgin Mary.  I admire a lot of people dead and alive.  But I follow Christ.  I stumble and fail in my discipleship as we all do from time to time, but I follow Christ.

And that’s shocking.  Here’s what I think the difference is between admiration of and discipleship to Christ.  If you’re buying what Jesus is selling, then you admire him, and Jesus is selling salvation.  That product sells.  We sell it to each other all the time because it’s a hard product to say ‘no’ to.  You either accept Jesus’ salvation or you don’t.  But if you say ‘yes’ to Jesus, and not just what he’s selling, then you’re taking a step toward discipleship.  And as we’ve heard before, Jesus didn’t’ say, “Do you accept me as your personal Savior?  Good.”  He just said, “Follow me.”  To follow Christ is salvation.  Following Christ isn’t just about our human ‘yes,’ it’s about God’s Divine ‘yes, and amen.’

The word ‘amen’ translated from the Greek New Testament literally means ‘verily,’ ‘truly,’ ‘may it be so.’  See, God already said, ‘yes’ in the offering of Christ, and when we get up and follow Christ every day, then God says, ‘amen.’  God’s “amen” in our lives is what opens the eyes of our hearts to God’s world; rather than keeping them sealed to the skeptical darkness of our own.

God’s “amen” is what reshapes our hearts to love our neighbor as ourselves.  It’s that Divine “amen” that teaches us to empathize with and love the person who’s on the other side of the political aisle from us; the Muslim woman crying over her child that dies from a car bomb explosion in Baghdad; the homeless man with leather skin holding up a cardboard sign that says ‘we all have bad days’; the Christian who reads the Bible differently than you do; and the family of five living in a FEMA trailer in New Orleans still waiting to hear the hammer-and-nails sound of salvation rebuilding their lives and their hopes a year after Katrina.  To admire Christ is a societal norm.  But to follow Christ is shocking.  And in a world where nothing’s shocking anymore, we need to share God’s surprises.

What’s it going to take to shock the world in the 21^st century?  The levees break in New Orleans, and the world goes numb.  Daily news of war and a rising number of dead human beings keeps us scared, but it also keeps us indifferent.  Documentaries are made that expose corporate evils, political scandals, and all kinds of human immorality, and they have shock value, but they don’t shock the human heart.

Here’s the state of things: Hurricane Ernesto can do his worst.  Terrorists can scheme another plot.  Another politician can break the law.  And Spike Lee can make another bold documentary.  But none of those will shock us anymore.  The only thing that can shock the world in the 21^st century is a human being who wakes up and cares.  And it starts with you and me.

That song from the Carousel of Progress might actually be speaking to us this morning: “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day.”  For someone who admires Christ, that great big beautiful tomorrow might mean eternal life, and that’s a good goal and a real hope.  But for those who follow Christ, the great big beautiful tomorrow is every day.  To follow Christ we’ve got to believe this kingdom of God stuff, my friends.  Our great big beautiful tomorrow is a world without war, a world without displacement, a world without hunger, a world without indifference and a world without stoic numbness.  When God opens the eyes of our hearts, that world is shining at the end of every day.

Nothing’s shocking anymore, but everyone can be.  Amen.