A Dumpster Fire
There is war in Ukraine generating death, destruction, and millions of displaced persons. In New York State we await refugees fleeing persecution in Afghanistan. The junta in Burma continues to terrorize, dislocate, and kill ethnic minorities. Last week we remembered the 28th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In our own country we seem to makes meager progress in healing the animosities among us. We continue to struggle with the ongoing effects of slavery and discrimination. I could go on, but I need not do so. We know the world sometimes looks like a dumpster fire.
Sometimes it gets to be almost too much; it really does. We have so vandalized God’s creation and so mistreated our fellow human beings, it is easy to lose sight of God what intended it all to be, originally.
Faith in the Midst of a Dumpster Fire
How does one have a vigorous faith in the midst of all these human tragedies? Part of faith is imagination.
Victor Frankl in his memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, writes about his time in a Nazi
concentration camp during World War II. He
recounts one day when he and his fellow prisoners were resting on the dirt
floor of their hut, holding bowls of cold thin soup in their hands after a hard
day of labor. One of their fellow
captives rushes in and says, “You must come outside and see this sunset!”
The prisoners get up and go out into the muddy prison yard,
surrounded by their bleak shacks. The
sky is afire with ever-changing shapes and colors, from blood red to steel
blue. They stand there in stunned silence,
their desolate surroundings in starkest contrast to the breathtaking horizon.
Finally, one of them utters into the silence: “Think how beautiful
the world could be.”
To imagine how things could be is an act of faith. To envision what God wants for us and our world fuels our convictions about the God’s goodness and original loving intent toward us.
It also brings near the grief of God
as God mourns what we have done to one another.
Jeremiah & the Tears of God
The prophet Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. Although he announces uncompromising judgment, his writings are riddled with pathos and pain over what is happening. With great clarity and brutal candor, Jeremiah surveys the mess around him, and then he grieves it. It is not just Jeremiah’s pain that is given voice in his writings. The prophet’s grief becomes comingled with the grief of God until the two become inseparable (Abraham Heschel, The Prophets).
Jesus, in the tradition of Jeremiah, laments over the
city of his impending rejection:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets
and stones the ones having been sent to you! How often have I desired to gather
your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were
not willing! (Matt. 23:37)
As he [Jesus] came near and saw the city, he wept over it,
saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make
for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed,
the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you
and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They
will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will
not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the
time of your visitation from God.” (Luke 19:41-45)
These are “contrary to fact
wishes.” Jesus wishes it were not so,
but it is so.
We might wish things were not as they
are; but they are. So, do we just give
up, give in, or give it all over to futility and go watch the Disney Channel?
No.
An Aspirational
Vision
In the book of
Revelation there is a stunning scene of a healed human family.
You
are worthy to take the scroll
and to open
its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for
God
saints from
every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our
God,
and they
will reign on earth. (5:9-10)
This aspirational unified vision of the human family sees that family as being constituted from all tribes and languages and peoples and nations. Our diversity is not erased; it is still there in identifiable ways. This diversity is simply no longer a problem for us.
Our diversity remains; our divisions are healed
This is what God wants for us, all of us. Have no doubt about that. And someday God’s desire will no longer be a
“contrary to fact wish.” As is often
said “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.”
No dumpster fire of war and refugees and loss and injustice can finally
hold back God’s original and enduring intent.
For Now
We, for now, live in the meantime, in what is called “Holy Saturday,” that day between the death of Good Friday and the resurrection of Easter. What do we do for now?
First, we live as if the hymn of Revelation 5 were already true for us. A vision of how beautiful the world could be shapes our daily living now. This vision determines how we
treat others and what we consider important in this present day.
Second, we remember that when we grieve our world we share
in the grief of the Maker of Heaven and Earth.
In that moment the longings of God’s heart become the longings of our
hearts. This is a good moment.
Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of
New York State
No comments:
Post a Comment