Liturgies

Creating Our Amazing Future.

DEVELOPING YOUR RESILIENCE

Can I please ask: Who in this room has ever had a problem??! Strangely enough, there is some merit in having problems. They help you to define your character. They challenge you to demonstrate your resilience.

Today’s gospel focuses on the importance of that resilience when you have problems. When the Caneenite woman shouted ‘Lord, son Of David, take pity on me’, he initially turned to his disciples and said ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.’

On first impressions, this would appear to be a callous and dismissive comment. But Jesus was testing her. And as she persevered with her query (and that’s the key point here. She persevered), he was eventually impressed by her commitment, and he said: ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your desire be granted.’

Jesus was testing her resolve; her determination; her belief in what was important to her.  And when she demonstrated that faith and that resilience, he acknowledged this, and granted her request.

So, how persistent are you when you need to resolve problems? When is the last time you were really tested? And did you have the strength to persevere, and to be creative in the face of that adversity?

DEVELOPING THE PLANET’S RESILIENCE

Lets’ go further here. What about the whole planet? How resilient is the entire world’s population? Because, for us to create an amazing world up ahead, we all need to believe that we can make it happen. My humble intention here today is to encourage you to stay resilient, and to believe in the exciting potential of the world up ahead so that we CAN make it happen.

One important point right away: The world is a beautiful mess. It always has been; and it always will be. It is an ongoing duality of yin and yang, of life and death, of the dark and the light.  Of course the world’s not perfect. It’s a complex place, and it sometimes appears to have intractable issues. But will those issues hold us back from what we could achieve up ahead? I don’t think so. We’ve already proved that we can solve nearly anything in spite of ongoing problems.

Here are some examples of what we have accomplished in recent times. In 1900, global life expectancy was 32. That is, the average age of death was 32. Now, it is just over 70. In just 114 years, it has gone from 32 to 70! The infant mortality rate (as measured by the number of babies who died before the age of 1) was approximately 25% in 1900. Now, it is 3.69%. The literacy rate was 42% in 1900. It is now 84%.

Most crime rates have dropped in the past 20 years (and given that, can I let you know that you’re a 60 times less chance of being murdered today than in the Middle Ages); we have a 30% improvement in cancer survival rates in just the past 20 years in Australia.

Statistics such as these will continue to surge ahead, and especially because the world is about to unleash the ingenuity of billions more people in 2^nd and 3^rd world countries who previously did not have many opportunities to improve themselves. This may very well become the greatest social justice advancement in human history.

My plea to you is this: Don’t base your beliefs about the world today on outdated information from the last century. It’s an amazing planet out there right now, and that data I just mentioned to you is very likely to continue on an upward trajectory.

THE PROGRESS PARADOX

Yet here’s the paradox to all of our advances. The better that things get, the worse we think they are. It’s actually called the Progress Paradox. The standards of living in most parts (but not all) of the world are the highest they have ever been.

And this progress paradox exists, partly because the media sensationalise any negative issue on the planet. Fifty years ago, it sometimes took several days to find out about many major events. Now, we hear about them immediately, and they are often even broadcast on someone’s mobile phone at the scene of the incident. It’s called crowd-sourced journalism.

As a result, many people view everyday life through a negative lens, and assume the worst about the planet in general. This perspective is fuelled by the daily radio shock jocks, who delight in talking the world down through their own bitter insecurities. The ratio of good to bad issues in everyday life for 7.2 billion people is probably 1000:1. Yet on the mass media, it seems as if there are 5 bad events to every good event. It’s just not the reality.

Now don’t get me wrong. Some events are catastrophic. The recent

Malaysian Airlines disaster was horrendous; and there will be other difficult times in the future. And the world is hardly perfect in everyday life even now. There are still many wrongs to be righted.

But just keep in mind: On the same day that MH17 was blown up, there were two million volunteer hours provided around Australia. On that same day, billions of parents around the world loved their kids, and did their best for them. On that same day, St Mary’s Community and MICAH continued to provide their wonderful services around Brisbane.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE

And the big question that nearly everyone wants to ask: What’s coming up ahead?! Well, there are lots of ways to answer that. One is that we just don’t know with some things. Especially the unexpected events like earthquakes; tsunamis; sudden major terrorist events; and perhaps even solar storms that could compromise global telecommunication systems.

Another way of looking at the future is that we are going to see the most rapid changes in human history. The exponentialities are mind-boggling. We have created more new knowledge in the past 3 years than existed in all of previous human history; and the rush of new discoveries is mind-boggling.

As a result, we will have to embrace what we call Uncertainty. Uncertainty is the New Normal. We will need to adjust rapidly to even more dramatic changes; and to see those changes as an opportunity rather than a threat. People who love learning will revel in this type of future.

What else is up ahead? A recent very well-researched book called Abundance maintains that the world will be abundant up ahead. According to the 2 scientists who wrote it, we could have clean drinking water for every child on this planet by 2020. We could provide a primary school education for every girl on this planet by 2022…. which, I assure you, would be one of the most significant means of creating a better world.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

Here’s another option for helping us to predict the future: We can apply the science of Predictive Analytics, which is sometimes referred to as Big Data. Basically, with this approach, everything is a Numbers Game, and we come up with percentage chances on whether various things will occur.

Here are some examples.  Life insurance companies have already sized you up. By the time we find out what you eat, drink and smoke, how you exercise, and about any ailments suffered by your parents and siblings, we can usually work out when you’re going to die to within a few years. Throw in a DNA test and we can narrow it down even further.

We can even predict with a 70% certainty what you will be doing on this day in exactly 2 years from now, mainly because we’re creatures of habit. We can predict with an 80% certainty whether you will contract the flu, 8 days before you actually get it. In predictive policing, we can determine the likelihood of some pending crimes with a 90% certainty. Even weather forecasters have an 80% success rate.

WHAT YOU DO TODAY

And, here’s the most powerful way of all to predict the future. You create it with what you do today. It’s your actions now that lead to whatever tomorrow will bring. The quick conversations with work colleagues; the short and inspiring message that you write on facebook; the charity that you start up in a few days time. Even the thinking you do today can partly determine your mood tomorrow.

I have little time any more for those who claim that our future is pre-determined, and that we have no influence over it. My response is: If we say that, then we lose our ability to shape it. We have a huge influence over it, because we’re creating it now. Right here, today.

RATING THE WORLD’S FUTURE

If I asked you to rate the world’s future possibilities from 1 to 10 (with 1 being awful, and 10 being astonishing), what would you say?  Here’s the reality. If 7.2 billion people average a 2 out of 10, then we’re in big trouble. It’s called the Self-fulfilling Prophecy. We’ll be convinced that everything is horrendous, and our actions will unfortunately contribute to that.

Conversely, if we all average a 9.5, then the world is pretty well guaranteed to do amazing things. You see, when we’re confident of what will occur, we can make anything happen. And I mean anything. So what honestly is your rating? Because unless you believe that our future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it happen.

Be aware: This is more than just the Positive Thinking movement. It’s all very well to think optimistically. What is also required is to take consistent focused action that makes the so-called difference every day.

And you know why it’s important to believe all of this?? Because it gives hope to all of the kids in our lives. When they see grown-ups creating a worthwhile future, then it develops their faith in the world being OK up ahead.

So. What’s your score out of 10? What’s your degree of faith and belief in the world’s future? And how resilient are you in facing up to what needs to be done every day?

Can I please ask you one final question: When you get near to the end of your amazing life, will Jesus be able to say to you, as he did in the gospel today: ‘Woman (or Man), you had great faith. Let your desire be granted.’