The worst thing you can do to your children is to “be cool” as a teen.

You say, what?

“Being cool” means you will be immortalized in pictures sporting the “coolest” fashions of your teenager years. And one day your children and grandchildren will groan in embarrassment at how “cool” you look in those pictures which, of course, will be the opposite of “cool” by the time they look at them.

[Here is where you throw up on the screen pictures of members of your congregation looking ridiculous in what were the “fashions” of their teen-age years. Or just show pictures of people in these fashions. . . Or if you don’t use screens, paint verbal word pictures that demonstrate how the fashions and fads of one generation become the embarrassments of the next . . .Or you could even do a fashion parade of some of these once-cool-now-uncool outfits.]

Here is . . . . . sporting a beehive hair-do.
Here is . . . . in an Afro.
Here is . . . . in huge bell-bottoms.
Here is . . . in a poodle skirt.

Anyone for grunge? Tie-dye? Shoulder pads? Converse? Platforms? Earth shoes?

I remember from my high-school basketball days being really proud of my maroon and white varsity jumpsuit and jacket. I can also remember looking at the big baggy shorts Michael Jackson wore in his college days and thinking how ridiculous he looked. Far superior were my tight-fitting basketball shorts. Now I don’t want anyone to see shots of me playing basketball in those shorts that suddenly look now more like boxer underwear than basketball shorts.

The only guarantee if you are fashionably “in the moment” is that a few years later you will be laughed at by your kids until their sides hurt. Our only satisfaction is in knowing that a similar fate awaits the next “cool generation,” and the next, and the next.

Yet some styles never go out of style. Some fads never fade.

-Cowboys are always cool.
-Jeans—whatever their width—can’t be canned.
-A great fitting T-shirt never looks bad, whether it was 1950 or 2005.

But most of what is called “fashion” is flash in the pan. It is designed with the intention of becoming obsolete next season, so that you will need to buy a new outfit in order to “stay cool.” Fashion is the very definition of “planned obsolescence.”

Fashion trends change fast, but not as fast electronic trends. Everyone knows that when the economy crashes hemlines drop. But who could have foreseen that when the bottom dropped out of Wall Street, the avenue know as “Tweet Street” would have opened up for rush hour traffic. Smaller, more personal, less organized, individualized—tweating took off even as the stock market tanked.

The world has its own measurements of “success,” of “cool,” of “power.” But those measures are not gospel gauges, but culture yardsticks. And they last just about as long as it takes the media to glom on to something else, some newer “latest trend” and “new and improved” update.

So here is the question of the morning: how are we who are committed to an old, 2000 year old truth to be forever “new” while never becoming “old-fogeys?”

The answer is found in today’s gospel reading. It is important to remember that this Jesus prayer, part of which we read this morning, was uttered in front of his disciples. Jesus prayed aloud to the “Father” while his disciples were listening and in so doing formed an identity for his disciples. Part of the identity of what it meant to be a Jesus follower was to be found in prayer.

I shall never forget the first time I heard the theme song for CSI: Las Vegas. Just the music trailer hooked me on the show. [You might want to play the theme song here which you can get on YouTube– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WseRJMQf1U]. I suspect the power of that “Who Are You?” theme song by the Who (“I really want to know!”) helped to establish an identity for this show that made it such a huge success and the font of an entire CSI franchise. In the same way, the power of Jesus’ prayer to the “Holy Father” spoken in front of the disciples gave them an identity that would serve them well in the future.

But part of the identity of what it meant to be a Jesus follower was to be found in this triangulation formula that Jesus introduced in his public prayer to the “Father:” Jesus’ followers have an identity that is to be “in” the world, not “of” the world, but not “out of it” either. In terms of our relationship to culture, Christians are to be totally IN the midst of all that happens in the world while totally OUTSIDE the insidious power and pull of the world’s enticements. But while it may be quaint to be “out of it” -and one thinks here of the Christian Amish, the Jewish Lubavitchers, the Muslim Shiite/Taliban sects -any faith that chooses to ignore the last several centuries sacrifices irrelevance for charm, and opts for a museum identity more than a missional identity.

The Jesus Prayer established an identity for Jesus’ followers based not on the question of “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) but, in the reformulation of Eugene Peterson, “How Would Jesus Do It?” (HWJDI).

Jesus already answered the “WWJD” question in his prayer that the disciples be “IN” the world. Would Jesus be on facebook? Of course. Would Jesus be on twitter? Of course. Jesus himself mastered the cutting edge technology of the first century, which was moving from an oral to a written culture.

In a population where at most 5% could read, could Jesus read? Yes. How do you know? He read in the temple.

In a population where less that 3% could write, could Jesus write? Yes. How do you know? He wrote in the sand. We don’t know what he wrote, but we know he could write. And you always wondered why that was there.

We don’t need to ask the question: Would Jesus want us to work to ease the burdens for the poor? Or, would Jesus want us to make new disciples and evangelize? Or, would Jesus want us to plant new communities of faith? Of course. We don’t even need to ask those questions. Jesus wants us to be “in” the world.

But Jesus doesn’t want us to be “of” of the world. That’s why the question we should be asking isn’t the “what” question but the “how” question. How would Jesus do those things in 2009?

So if you’re on twitter, are you tweating according to the world’s question of “What are You Doing?” or to another question, like “What are you Paying Attention to?” or “For Whom are You Praying?” or “What new insights are you learning that you can share with others?”

Jesus did not seek to ISOLATE us from the world but INSULATE us in the world. Following Christ does not mean we have to become disassociated from the world. It does mean we are no longer absorbed by the world. In his book Reinventing Evangelism (1989), Donald Posterski says this:

“The tragedy of the modern church is that Jesus’ strategy for penetrating the culture with the good news of the gospel has been reversed. Instead of being in the world but not of the world, too many of God’s committed people are of the world but not in the world. They have been both captured and intimidated by the culture. They have been seduced by the world and have adopted the world’s ways as their own—they are ‘of’ the world. They have succumbed to social segregation—-they are not ‘in’ the world.” (28).

This is the problem of too many of our churches. “Modern Christianity” is more “modern” than it is “Christian”—and by “modern” I mean sold out to a Gutenberg culture when we’re living in a Google world. Most of the worship wars going on in the church today are not battles to preserve authentic Christianity, but battles to preserve a Gutenberg culture that is waning and fear of a Google culture that is waking.

I want to end the sermon this morning with a test. It’s a test of whether or not the desires of your heart are in harmony with God’s desires, or not. It’s a test of whether or not you are ready to be “in” the world but not “of” the world. It’s a test to see whether you are “isolated” or “insulated.”

When I ask you these questions, don’t answer them according to whether you are actually doing them but only think about the innermost desires of your heart. In other words, I don’t want the “WWJD” answer; I want the “how” not the “what” answer. I’m less concerned about your performance than about your desires. Are your desires to be “in” not “of” but not “out of it?”

Are you ready? Close your eyes and answer these in your soul as honestly as you can. (These questions are adopted and adapted from Gerard W. Hughes, God in All Things [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003], 86-87.)

“*Would you like to be remembered as a generous person who was open and friendly to any human being whom you encountered, regardless of race, religious belief, political leanings or social class?

*Would you like to be remembered as a compassionate and caring person?

*Would you like to be remembered as a person of transparent integrity and whose words and actions were always in harmony?

*Would you like to be remembered as someone who always gave encouragement, hope and life, wherever you happened to be?

*Would you like to be remembered as a person who never bore grudges and was always ready to forgive, someone who was entirely free from any hint of self-importance or arrogance?

*Would you like to be remembered as a person who always delighted in sharing whatever you had and was never condescending?

*Would you like to be remembered as someone who knew what it was to hunger and thirst after righteousness, a person who worked on behalf of the oppressed and the marginalized?

*Would you like it to be said of you that ‘love possessed, inspired, and permeated every thought and every action?’”

If your answer is ‘yes’ to all of these questions or even to most of them then your inner desires are in harmony with the will of God, and the Jesus Prayer of 2000 years ago is being answered in your life this morning.

If your answer is “yes” to these questions, you are ready to “GO”—to Go Forth to be “in” the world not “of” the world but not “out of it” either.

Two-thirds of the word “GOD” is “GO” . . . so . . .

GO!