It is a challenge to us. What needs to be broken? What needs to be changed? What needs to have a new perspective? Break it! It is a different message.

I suppose as we look at our society there's a lot which has become, well, we might say "traditional": ways of thinking, ways of behaving. We're going to become accustomed to certain patterns of life and thinking: prejudice, parochialism, selfishness, materialism. These ways of life have almost become second thought, we do it so naturally.

I recently saw - it's actually a children's movie - a movie entitled Babe. Babe is a pig, a little pig who breaks down all of the stereotypes, all of the attitudes, the ways of thinking common to the animal world. Sheep are supposed to be dumb, like pigs, I suppose. And this little pig, Babe, goes through her life challenging the social roles of her day. Intriguing story, but it is about breaking down.

In Noah in Green Pastures, the character Noah says this statement: "Everything that ain't nailed down is coming loose." Perhaps that needs to happen in our society. Those ways of thinking, those patterns of behavior need not to be repaired, not to be mended, but to actually be broken.

May I ask you, what in your life might need to be broken? Is there some attitude, some behavior, some mode of thinking, some pattern of being that needs to be broken or changed? Surely in our society, there are some things that have become just ways of doing things that need to be changed. We've become a far "meaner" society. It was once said that we are a kinder, gentler society but that is not true. Indeed, it seems that the thing to do is to be mean, to let it all hang out, to say it like it is, to be unkind, and it seems the louder you shout and the crueler you are, the more popular you become. And so we become - and are becoming - accustomed to this kind of harshness, this pattern of behavior that seems to tear down individuals.

In politics and out, that seems to be the trend of our day. I would suggest, as Jesus suggested that when we come to those places on our society where it appears that the ways of doing things have become so accustomed to our day, perhaps it is at the time we need to break it down. We need to break down this harshness which has become too much a part of our society.

We look for that thing that is most ill-willed about a person. We look for that thing which is most negative, and it seems that the more negative we can be, the more popular. We need to break it down. Indeed, we do need to become a kinder, gentler society. Turn upside-down that to which we have become accustomed.

It seems now that prejudice - racial, ethnic, religious, political - is on the rise and is becoming so commonplace that no one even attempts to hide or camouflage such attitudes. Raw, naked prejudice. It spews out in the most surprising places, so much so that even the young, whom we had depended upon to bring us a new future, express the kind of prejudice and racism that was so commonplace in another era, and it seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Challenge it, break it, turn it around.

Selfishness. Oh, how tragic it is that we who are a society of immigrants, all having come here from a different shore now seem to want to keep out those who want to come to this place. Prejudice because of a person's color, accent, ethnic identity, lifestyle is commonplace. We need to change it, turn it upside-down, become a new society, a new people, reaching out to the down trodden, the ostracized, the forgotten. Break it! Break these cycles of agony and pain. Break the cycle of hatred and animosity. Break the cycle of prejudice and selfishness. Break the cycle of greed and materialism. Let's break those cycles!

But it is not just society that needs to be broken of its atrocities. There are perhaps those unconverted places in our own lives, our own hearts that attitude, that mind-set, that behavior which has so molded and guided you and guided me. We just become accustomed to it.

Perhaps it is even a sense of cynicism. "The world is not a good place, so I need not be good." Or worse, it may be that one is so oppressed, so dehumanized that one feels that that is where one ought to be. There is an old blues song with an intriguing line: "Been down so long, down don't bother me."

It may well be that there are those who have known the underside of life so long that it doesn't bother them. Break out! Turn it around! Change it! We must rise above it. That was the challenge of Jesus. This one who was known to be a peacemaker suddenly says, "I've come to break and challenge the status quo. I've come to bring new life and new ways of doing and thinking."

Break it down in the quiet of your heart, in the quiet of your soul. I dare you to reexamine that life and determine what it is that needs to be broken. There is always in every life, I suppose, that secret place, that one corner that you keep hidden from others. You know what it is: some animosity, some sense of hatred, some sense of envy or ill will. Perhaps you have set your sights too low, and all of this has shaped your life. You've just become accustomed to being and thinking in that way. You know what it is, I don't. The challenge, however, is can you break the cycle? Can you turn that life around? Can you be that new man, that new woman? Can you be that new person?

In the book If It Ain't Broke, Break It, the authors make an interesting point. One is quite a surfer, and he has a set of rules that he calls rules for surfers. One of the rules that he shares is this one: "Surfers never surf alone." How appropriate. No one, however strong or smart, wise or rich, can live alone. No one does it by himself or herself. In the context of life and its wholeness, we say, "You don't have to do it alone; God has promised to be with you, to strengthen you, to forgive you, and to give you a sense of courage and hope."

Break it! But you don't have to break it alone, for there is one who will stand with you, to bring you a sense of hope for the future.

Break it! It can be done. Place your hand in God's and trust that he will be with you. Amen.

Floyd Brown: Bishop, we certainly enjoyed the sermon here today, and that is kind of an unusual title, too. Normally we hear, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But it seems like it's broke out there a little bit now, and that we should break it. Let's start with the church, if we may, and think about some of the things that perhaps exist that we ought to break in the church.

Woodie White: Interestingly enough, the word of Jesus was to the church. He was speaking to the religious leaders of his day, and it seems that what had happened in the church is that the church had become so utterly religious that it had forgotten to reach out to those who were not a part of the church. And the challenge for the church, I think, is to move out of its building, out of its parochialism, to reach those who most need the church's message and ministry.

Brown: It seems that that was a major thrust a while back. The church was involved in so many of the social issues of the day. Sure, it is today, but not as prevalent as it has been in the past. Is there a resurgence? Is someone saying we ought to be doing something? What is happening in the church?

White: I don't think there's a resurgence. I think the issues have become so complex that the church is actually turning inward. We are discovering that more churches want to have prayer meetings and meetings on spirituality. All of those things turn people inward. They're appropriate, but the purpose of those meetings is to strengthen you so that you can move outward. It's the outward part of the faith that we seem to be lacking today.

Brown: You know a lot of thoughts run through my mind when you say something like that. I want to challenge the church and wonder if they're not giving the proper teachings at these meetings, but for many of us we need a spiritual renewal. We want to feed on it. That is why we go to church. We want to study the Word and to be better as a result of it. But your indication is that maybe we're not getting quite as much of it as we need to.

White:  Actually what I think is happening is that we are gorging ourselves on it. In the Gospel there is another story in that same section that talks about bringing others to the feast, joining others, and asking others to come to the banquet. That's the place that we're lacking. We're not asking others to come to the table. We're enjoying ourselves at the table, but we're not calling others to the table.

Brown: There's a lot of discussion these days about role models in the world. You and I both know a great deal about that. Athletes have said, "I'm no role model. Don't depend on me to be one." Are we getting enough role models out of the church? Are we symbols?

White: Not at all. I think in the community we're not getting role models. I do think that persons who hold positions of prominence are role models, whether they like it or not. People watch them and do try to emulate them: athletes, ministers, television personalities, we're all role models. So we can't say that we don't influence the lives of others, we do indeed. We're not taking that as seriously as we once did.

There was a certain period, for instance, I remember when certain role models would not even be seen smoking or drinking in public. It wasn't that they didn't do it, they just didn't feel that was appropriate because they understood that people were watching them and wanted to emulate them. Somehow we've lost that sense of consciousness that we have a responsibility to the greater society.

There's a French saying, noblesse oblige, which freely translated means, "the more you have, the more you owe to others." Those of us who have been blessed and enriched by so many advantages have a responsibility now to those who have not - to reach out to those who have not.

Brown: If someone was to say to you, "How do I become a role model?", what would you say to them?

White: Well, I like to think in this way: What would you like your child to be? What kind of child would you like to have? And what is it you'd want your child to emulate in you? When you think about that, then you become a role model.

Brown: That's a really worthwhile message. It's the kind of guidance I think we need and getting it from a bishop is worthwhile, too. Thank you so much for being with us again, Bishop White. You're a marvelous speaker and your message is good: "Break it."

White: Break it!

Brown: Let's break it and get on with it. Come back again, will you?