SEPTEMBER 2, 2007
Jeremiah 2: 4-13; Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16
We are coming up on a 50th anniversary, in just two days, of one of the most spectacular events in American cultural history. It was on September 4, 1957, after months and months of media hype that the Ford Motor Company introduced, drum roll, the Edsel. The million dollar advertising campaign (and that’s in 1957 dollars) proclaimed it E-Day.
Every generation of America’s pop culture is littered with the ruins of products that failed to live up to their hype. How about the New Coke of 1988, when sales tanked two months later Classic Coke came back on the market? How about Betamax videotapes that provided clean images and an hour of recording time? Then along came VHS and out went Betamax. But the Edsel remains the mother of all product failures; it is a product name that evokes failure to this day.
The Edsel was a car developed by the Ford Motor Company as the automaker’s entry into the competitive market for upscale but not luxury cars. It was a challenge to GM’s Oldsmobile line.
From the outset the car had its problems. It was named after Edsel Ford, son of company founder Henry Ford. The utopian turtletop was the other rival name under consideration. The ads implied that the Edsel would be new, innovative and exciting, something the American public had never seen before. People knew about the Edsel but didn’t buy any. It looked the same as other Fords, but the real problem was the car had a teletouch automatic transmission located in the center of the steering wheel, right where the horn usually was (and still is on most cars). Drivers would instinctively honk the horn and slam the car into reverse.
And finally 1957 ushered in the first American recession since before World War 2. The Edsel was pricey and required premium gas. The Edsel lasted for two years.
Here is the hinge statement for today. Bad timing and failure to know the market aren’t just problems for business; human history is full of other kinds of Edsels. Times when people didn’t see that their hopes, ambitions and actions were completely misplaced and times when human hype outstripped the reality of the circumstances.
Biblically speaking, Israel’s chasing after other Gods in the time before the exile is a classic example of an Edsel-ized view of the world. Wanting something new, exciting and different, the people and their leaders get giddy at the prospects of competing with their pagan neighbors in the religious and political marketplace and so invest their lives and worship accordingly.
Prophets like Jeremiah, however, would warn the people to proceed with caution. Newer is not necessarily better, beware of fads, especially religious fads.
Jeremiah was a prophet of Judah, but his warning of impending disaster was aimed at all of Israel, both the northern and southern kingdoms.
Jeremiah’s constant theme throughout his ministry was a focus on idolatry or anything that distracts people from faithfulness to God. Jeremiah’s preaching remains valid today. What are our idols that distract us from faithfulness to God? What do we worship that prevents us from worshipping God?
For Israel the Covenant and the Law were essentially God’s business plan that had laid out the road to spiritual success for Israel and the road to the Promised Land. God had been sort of like the CEO for Israel as the nation came out of Egypt into the wilderness and finally to the Promised Land, a plentiful land full of good things, they were now a nation.
But despite God’s skillful leadership and protection Israel still wanted to come with its own design for a nation that would rival those of their neighbors. It was a design that included new Gods like Baal. The priests and rulers of Israel were working for something new and so they devised the equivalent of an ecclesiastical Edsel.
Ford’s debacle would have a temporary effect on the company’s bottom line, but Israel’s failure to listen to the prophets and pay attention to their religious and spiritual history would have a devastating effect on generations to come in the form of the Babylonian exile, Israel’s very own E-Day.
And to add insult to incompetence, God even pointed to the competition as an example of how to stay true to brand. “Check out places like Cyprus to the west and Kedar in the desert to the east” says God, “and you’ll see that none of the pagan nations have switched gods like you have and their gods are no gods at all”.
Israel already had the one and only true God on the market, a proven, reliable, quality brand, yet they were willing to trade in their relationship to God for something that does not profit. There may have been a shaking of heads when Ford failed to check the market and come up with the Edsel, but that’s nothing compared to the appalled and shocked reaction at Israel’s behavior. The Edsel was about loss of money; Israel’s rejection of God was about the loss of a connection to the divine.
Jeremiah uses metaphors, God’s covenant is represented by a fountain or spring of living water that continually refreshes and sustains. That covenant was broken, Jeremiah says that the leaders and people of Israel had dug cisterns for themselves, which symbolized a desire to be independent of God’s rule and love.
We still dig our own holes today. It is very easy to stray from our covenant with God. There is so much around that takes precedent over what God expects of us! Sometimes it is just difficult to fit God into our lives. We don’t want God to be burdensome or inconvenient. We want to approach God on our own terms. We want God to adjust to us.
It is so east to just wander away from God. Whether we run a company or are just trying to run our lives, we get into a lot of trouble when we forget what we are about and to whom we belong.
The fiftieth anniversary of E-Day is a great time to consider the consequences of human failure at the same time it’s also a day to celebrate hope. While the Edsel certainly did not enhance Ford’s reputation or market share at the time, it did bring an unexpected benefit. Ford designers and marketers learned some valuable lessons from the debacle along with the rest of the auto industry, particularly about quality control and the economy.
When General Motors launched its Saturn division in the 1990’s the CEO at GM made a book called “The Edsel Affair” required reading for his executives. Each executive had to underline everything that Ford did wrong. Saturn was a success.
Staying true to God, not manufacturing our own self serving spiritual lives, not chasing after the next and newest religious fads, nurturing the living water in our relationship with God through prayer and worship. All of these are ways to avoid an Edsel like disaster.
It’s up to us as leaders in the church to follow God’s plan for God’s people and it’s up to all of us to hold ourselves accountable to watching the spiritual bottom line. Faithfulness to God is always substance over style
Amen.
Let us pray.