cairns

For me the story has little to do with fear at all.  Concern for fellow man and the world God left us to care for, yes.  Fear no.  Its about seeking the living experienced presence of the One Who is Holy.

I have reached a point in my life where I say along with Paul that “to die is gain.” and with Job, “Though He slay me, I will trust Him.”  It really isn’t about fear for me at all.  Whether the boat floats or sinks, I just want to be with Jesus.  I guess maybe the test would be whether we are just as likely to say, “Hey Jesus! Look at that scene of beauty, act of mercy, or moment of joy!” That doesn’t mean I didn’t scream like a baby and nearly jerk both my wife and my own arms out of socket when she held onto my hand (when I am startled, I swing!) and woke me from deep sleep to announce the water was back on! LOL Only that once out of the realm of dreams, my life is not dominated by fear.

So much of our western theology has become about what we get from God, including both prosperity and personal health and safety.  It isn’t strongly Biblical.  The true desire of the heart is for God.  We are distracted by our humanness to focus on the needs and requests of our heart which we rightly bring to place at the throne.  But, the bottom line is not whether we get any of the other things we want.  It is whether we are with God. The disciples were not there yet that day on the boat, or on crucifixion Friday.  But, they got there through resurrection and Pentecost. In the end, death had no hold on them by boat and storm, or cross, or fire.  They only held to Him.  Then, yes “true love (for Him as a gift to us given by Him) drives out all fear.”

“I’d rather have Jesus than anything…this old world affords today.”

That’s at least where I am headed.  I believe that is where this trail leads, to a total desire for communion with the Savior who is also Creator and Sustainer.  Then He will guide us in the works He has prepared for us since the beginning of time in proper reverence for both Creator and Creation.

peace

1 Comment »

TNIV  Matthew 25:19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’   21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. … 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ 26 “His master replied, …    28 ” ‘Take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags... 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

I have recently been thinking about this parable of Jesus while reading the essays in  Holy Ground.

It gives me pause because of certain Evangelicals who have dared to say that man can hasten the return of the Master by trashing His planet.  This is, of course, only the most recent twist on the old modernist version that God gave us “dominion” so all of nature is ours to use any way that seems profitable or enjoyable to us in the moment.  Jesus’ own words in this parable make me think we may not find Him pleased with what we have done.  The Genesis account, whether you read it as fact or myth, clearly indicates God putting man in relationship with the rest of creation and charging humankind to care for all.

Instead we have wasted, ignored, and blatantly abused our world.  We have not only caused damage just by living, or when we saw no alternative, but also for our direct pleasure in seeing things destroyed.  What a contrast to the servant in the parable whose crime is to merely hide what he has been given and return it in its original condition.  I do not know of a single scientist or theologian who would claim we have any chance of presenting the Earth back to God in the condition He gave it to us, even in the “post-fall” condition at the end of the creation account.

If Jesus declares that the servant who fails to deal properly with the property entrusted to him is worthy of being cast into darkness, what is the obvious implication for our destruction of our physical world? When Jesus goes on to declare that whatever we have done or failed to do for “the least of these,” we have done to the Him, do we really believe that the entirety of scripture allows us to read it only in terms of people?  Most of us fall short if we apply it only to people whose cases we know (if you look at how much real lasting support we give.)  Most of us definitely fall short if we apply the phrase to those humans who are “other” than us, whose skin is different, who live on other parts of the planet.  The number of deaths to humans alone due to our overuse and abuse of nature should bring us up short.

Looking into the abyss of what we have done to others, to animal life with species disappearing at catastrophic rates, to plant life as we have deforested and laid waste massive land masses — (Anyone who doubts that God cares about the soil itself, should revisit the Old Testament requirements to provide rest, Sabbath, and Jubilee to land and animals as well as humans.) — should leave us either quivering at the foot of the cross or knee deep in the closest nature restoration project.

Maybe 2009 is the year we find our limits.  Maybe 2009 is the year we find our investments are not enough to save us, the next oil field is not enough to keep us driving and flying, and neither our politics or selective ignorance are big enough to hide us from the destruction our species is causing to all others.  Maybe in 2009 we will find it time to beg forgiveness, repent, and see if by grace we can find new ways to live.  Maybe…

peace

2 Comments »

Just found this in Elizabeth Johnson’s Quest for the Living God,

Grounding this praxis is a stunning principle first articulated by Pope John Paul II in 1990: ‘respect for life and the dignity of the human person extends also to the rest of creation.’  Pragmatically, humans shall survive together with the other creatures on this planet or not at all.  The issue is more than practical, however, for respect for life cannot be divided.  Not only human life but the whole living Earth is God’s beloved creation, deserving of care…

‘Who is my neighbor?’ asks Brian Patrick, ‘the Samaritan?  The outcast? The enemy?  Yes, yes of course.  But it is also the whale, the dolphin, and the rain forest.  Our neighbor is the entire community of life, the entire universe.  We must love it all as our very self.’

S, if you still read here, doesn’t that sound like what our native cousins tried to teach us when we got off the boats?

peace

3 Comments »

They are rioting, around the world, in multiple countries, the poor and hungry are rioting.  Food has gone beyond the price of those who used to be able to afford a little, not enough, but a little.  Now they are starving and rioting.  The dictatorial governments they also live under will restore order.  The more they kill in the process, the further the food goes, but still not affordable.  It is partially because of oil, oil that will eventually run out but that right now is through the roof because the wealthy are using it as a futures commodity for speculative trading and insane profits.  So they are starving and they are rioting.

And the ‘caring’ will send relief, bags of rice to last them a bit longer.  We will have our children play computer games that send rice 20 grains an answer and we will sleep thinking we helped.  But we will not re-examine the system.  We do not see any way that we have any power to change the system.  Just like the teachers who could not find a way to help “he” on the micro, we will not find any true answers for “they” in the macro.  So we will accept media spin, truisms, and band-aids to feel better.  We will send some money and some rice, and go to bed.

But they are not OK.  We are not OK.  The cards are quivering.

peace

Comments Off

One of my daughter’s friends responded to my participation in Earth Hour by saying, “whatever makes him comfortable driving  his gas guzzling car!”  Then I saw this AP image on AOL.  Maybe next year we could try shutting off the engines for an hour?

peace

Comments Off

What if the proper interpretation is that we, not God, cursed the earth?

What if all God’s statements here are just the proclamation of the natural and supernatural consequences of our acts, which He warned us about beforehand in the words “you must not touch it, or you will die?”
What if God from the very first moment of creation has been trying to rescue us from the fate He knew we were going to choose, and continue to choose, for ourselves and the planet?

Can we bear the burden of knowing that global warming is only the latest manifestation of the curse that is us?

Can we turn loose of our image of a god who curses all life for the weakness of a human moment?

Can we fathom the heart of a God who loves us after our cursing of His total creation?

peace

Comments Off