Old Maps and New Paths
Children’s Sabbath, October 15, 2006
By Pastor Marcia Sietstra
Crestwood UCC
One of my favorite speakers is Sister Joan Chittister, a brilliant essayist and Catholic leader. Recently she told this story…1
In the mid-17th century, Spanish seafarers sailed up the west coast of the Americas to what is now known as the Baha peninsula of Mexico—that’s the long tiny peninsula that connects to southern California and runs parallel to Mexico, but is separated from Mexico by a narrow body of water called the strait of California. The cartographers of the time, that is, the map makers, drew a straight line up from that water which separates the tiny peninsula from Mexico, thinking that tiny strip of water ran north all the way up the coastline to what is now Washington state. They drew a straight line all the way up to the water that divides Washington state from Vancouver Island.
Consequently, all the maps that were published in 1635 show very clearly that California is an island. Now that might be a quaint story were it not for the fact that the Spanish missionaries of the time were using that map to travel inland. Given the information on the map, they planned ahead to cross the water between California and the mainland. They developed the first great pre-fab boat construction project in history. They cut their flatboats in Spain, shipped them over in pieces and then, on the shores of Monterey, California, put them all back together again. They loaded the flatboats on the backs of mules to carry to the other side of California, and then they carried those boats 12,000 feet up the Sierra Nevada Mountains for passage across the great strait of water which the map showed ran all the way from the Mexican Baja Peninsula to the Puget Sound.
But lo and behold, when they got to the other side of those mountains there was no seashore at all. It was what is now the state of Nevada and the beginning of the great American desert. California was part of the mainland!
This would be just a funny story except for one thing: when the missionaries wrote back to tell the map makers and the Spanish crown that California was not an island, no one—no one—believed them. In fact, they insisted that the map was certainly correct: it was the missionaries who were in the wrong place!
What’s more, in 1701, almost 70 years later, the Spanish crown reissued an updated version of the very same map. For 50 years, the years of the most crucial explorations of the California coastline, those maps went unchanged because someone continued to work with partial information, they assumed that data from the past had the inerrancy of tradition, and they used authority to prove it. They worked with partial information, they assumed it to be inerrant, and they used authority to prove it. Sounds a lot like the church throughout the centuries, doesn’t it!
Well, finally, after years and years of new reports saying California is not cut off from the mainland by water, a few daring map makers—the heretics, the radicals and the rebels—began to issue a new version. Finally, almost a hundred years after that first erroneous map was published, in 1721 the last mapmaker holdout finally attached California to the mainland. A hundred years to close the gap between experience and the authority of tradition, despite the fact that the people who were there on the ground, knew differently from the very first day.
The point is this: When we teach people that past knowledge must be true, even though our experience of the present contradicts it, then we keep people from finding the best path into the future.
We can’t afford to do this; the world is changing too fast, and the world is at risk. It is not only religious fundamentalists or the institutional church that has assumed past knowledge to be complete and without error. Many of us think this way, without noticing it, in our daily lives. Let me give you an example of how we let old assumptions guide our thinking, even though the present reality should challenge it.
Most of us grew up believing the maxim that hard work is the path to success. We were taught that full-time work will provide for basic needs. But today, the truth is that all over this country, there are parents who work full time, some work 2 and 3 jobs at minimum wage, and still cannot afford even basic healthcare for their children. Today is Children’s Sabbath, the day when churches all over the country look at how well we are caring for children. This year, the churches have committed to raising awareness of new realities concerning healthcare: nine million children in the US have no health insurance. Nearly nine out of ten of those uninsured children live in families where at least one parent works. In many cases, their employers are small businesses that can no longer afford the rising premiums for their employees, leaving more children uninsured.
Every day in the richest country on earth, children go to school sick because their parents can’t afford to take them to the doctor, and if they could afford a doctor visit, they can’t afford medicine. So those parents wait and pray that the child will get well. Sometimes they do; other times they get sicker, until the child is so ill it means a trip to the emergency room.
Imagine sending your child to school with asthma, and no inhaler— I’ve seen what a kid who is short on oxygen is like, and let me tell you, I wouldn’t want to try to teach one—when my kids are short of oxygen, they can’t think rationally, and oh my, do they get irritable! Imagine sending your child to school with a terrible earache, or imagine if your child couldn’t hear the teacher because so many earaches had been left untreated that now the child has a hearing loss.
Like the missionaries who crossed the California mountains and reported back that the old maps were wrong, we need to assess reality and say that the old maps of our assumptions are no longer valid. Working hard doesn’t insure that you’ll be able to take care of your kids. If we are the kind of servant leaders Jesus challenged us to be, then we need to be asking questions and creating new visions, instead of throwing up our hands and declaring “The poor will always be with us!” or “I’ll pray for the children, and trust God to care for them.” It’s not that I don’t believe in prayer. But it seems to me that one of the reasons God gave us the instinct to pray, is to get us thinking about doing what we, in prayer, are trying to get God to do! We can fix this…the richest nation on earth can easily give every child basic healthcare if we first let go of the assumption that any parent who works full-time will be able to provide it, then ask the hard questions, create a vision and find a new path into the future.
I met a dentist recently at a party, and we got to talking about children’s health needs. This dentist has a new vision for dental and orthodontic care for every kid in Sioux Falls. He recognized that there’s a huge group of kids who need braces on their teeth, but whose parents can’t afford it. So he contacted all the orthodontists in the area, and got them to agree to reduce their usual charges for braces by 1/3 for these kids. Then he started a foundation named after his mother who, following the example of Jesus, was always taking in people who needed help. And this foundation named for his mother pays for 1/3 of these kids’ orthodontist bills. So the family ends up only paying the last 1/3 of the normal cost of braces. He wrote a new map for helping kids. But he first let go of the assumption that a parent who works hard can take care of their own kids’ health needs.
We need the courage to challenge old assumptions and develop new visions. It’s what Jesus taught us to do—to assess reality and be courageous enough to question it. He challenged the traditional religious “rules” of his day, and invited people to look deeper into themselves and how they were treating their neighbors. He challenged everyone’s ideas of greatness, saying it is the servant among you who shall be greatest. The last shall be first. Lose your life and find it. Jesus was a visionary, who would not let traditional thinking get in the way of his passionate message: that God loves us and expects us to love each other in ways that make a difference in life!
On a personal level, are you still using old maps that may be outdated? What old assumptions or teachings have you discovered to be wrong or no longer workable? Experience is a great teacher, it is the way the Holy Spirit works in the world. Is the Holy Spirit giving you new truth? And is it time for you to let go of old assumptions?
Today is Children’s Sabbath. So let me conclude by getting back to the children…the map we give our children to use to explore their world will be the path by which the next generation walks, so let’s think carefully about what that map says. I propose that we hand them the most accurate map of life that we can, but then we add these directions: This map may need revising in the future! So examine your reality…ask questions…see yourself as agents of change, so you can let go of the past when necessary, and chart new roads into the future for the good of all God’s children. Amen.