Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13) (first published 8 February 2004)
In 1916, Alfonso Ovando, a Guatemalan peasant, was exploring the jungle
in the Yucatan Peninsula, collecting sap from which chewing gum is made,
when he came across the ruins of an ancient city. Six years later he
encountered an archaeologist, Sylvanus Morley of the Carnegie Institution,
and told him about the lost city. Morley began an investigation of the
site, which he named Naachtun; he was the first of many archaeologists to
visit the site over the next several years. Naachtun was an ancient Mayan
city that flourished for several hundred years during the Classical Period
(about 250-900 C.E.), before it was abandoned, seemingly at the height of
its political power. The prophet Isaiah was given a message to deliver to
a people whom God said would not listen. They would ignore the prophet's
message, and ignore the rising tide of devastation around them, until it
was too late. Then all that would remain would be cities lying waste
without inhabitants, houses without people, and an utterly desolate land.
Those of us who live in the industrialized world are in danger of just
such a fate. We use petroleum products at a rate that suggests that we
think the world's oil supplies are infinite, though we know they aren't.
We enact policies in the Middle East, where most of the oil is, that are
designed to maintain our control over the oil supply but are doomed to
fail, because we alienate the people who live there. Our machines emit
greenhouse gases that are melting the polar ice caps and raising average
worldwide temperatures. We are destroying the rainforests, and we're
driving species of plants and animals to extinction at a clip that far
exceeds the normal "background rate." In short, we are living in a
dangerous world, made more dangerous by our greed and shortsightedness.
Do we hear the voice of today's Isaiahs, calling us to repent and turn
back to God? Will we heed the words of people like President Hugo Chavez
of Venezuela and President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who call
for the creation of an "Axis of Good" to fight poverty? Will we listen to
the pleas of Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai
Lama, Queen Noor, Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, and many others to
work toward complete nuclear disarmament? Or will we continue on our
merry way, polluting the environment, wreaking havoc in economically
depressed countries, and ignoring the future implications of today's
actions? Unless we want New York, Los Angeles, and London to become
tomorrow's Naachtun, we must listen to today's prophets--or become
prophets ourselves.
Psalm 138 (first published 8 February
2004)
When children are in elementary school, their teachers fairly quickly determine those that seem to have high academic potential. They are put in higher reading groups or given extra "enrichment" courses, and their future teachers are almost always aware of their potential on the first day of class, because they have read the annotations of the gifted children's previous teachers. Those children who are slower than average, on the other hand, have a difficult time in the classroom. Teachers are usually kind to them, but they don't have the time to spend with each one individually to explain the subjects in which they are behind. They have difficulty passing the standardized tests, so their chances of advancement are minimal. What will become of them? I recently watched the movie Forrest Gump again, and Forrest was an individual who lived up to his full potential, and then some. Although he was clearly below average intelligence, he managed to make the most of every situation he encountered. By the end of the movie, when Forrest had reached middle age, he had made a fortune, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, achieved fame in various arenas, and most importantly, made a positive difference in the lives of innumerable people. As the psalmist thanks God for God's steadfast love and faithfulness, he says the following: "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me." Everybody's life has purpose, from the most gifted to the least. Children have dreams and ambitions. Sometimes they fulfill them, and sometimes they don't. As adults, we have dreams, too. However, as we pursue our dreams, we need to ask ourselves, "What is God's purpose for my life?" Sometimes we fulfill God's purpose in our lives by achieving our dreams, but other times we fulfill God's purpose despite our dreams. Goals are good, but they must be adjusted as we move through our lives and we understand more about God's will for our lives. Fulfilling personal ambitions while failing to do the things that God has in mind for us would be to fall short of our potential. Like Forrest Gump, we sometimes just stumble into situations that can be a tremendous blessing to us, or in which we can be a blessing to others. If we pay attention and are sensitive to God's direction, we can claim along with the psalmist the promise that God will fulfill his purpose for our lives.
During the first three centuries after the time of Jesus, people
practiced a variety of forms of Christianity. Some believed that Jesus
was simply a prophet calling people to become more faithful Jews. Others
believed that Jesus was not human at all, but a divine avatar who
descended to earth to impart saving knowledge to those who would listen.
Some believed that Jesus revealed a new God who was completely unrelated
to the God of the Old Testament. Others believed that Jesus was a sinless
man who was "adopted" by the Spirit of God at his baptism. In the midst
of this cacophony of voices about Jesus, another group said that Jesus was
the fulfillment of Hebrew Bible prophecies who died for the sins of the
human race and was raised from the dead by God. Many people claimed to
have seen him after his death, including his closest followers and at
least one of his brothers. The group of people that held to this
tradition was the majority in some locations, but it represented a
minority position in others. Over time, however, it drove the other
contenders from the field, in large measure because of its effective
appeal to tradition. If Jesus' disciples believed that Jesus was the
fulfillment of scripture, how could the God of the New Testament be
different from the God of the Old Testament? If Jesus' own brother, who
was apparently not one of his followers during his lifetime, claimed to
have seen the risen Lord, who could argue? The stories we tell each other
as people of faith are important. They shape our lives as individuals,
and they bind us together as a community. After the establishment of a
Christian orthodoxy and the legalization of Christianity in the early
fourth century, the church quickly split into various factions, as debates
over doctrinal and practical matters grew into fights. One group
excommunicated the other and sometimes even persecuted the other. A
major, permanent split occurred in 1054, and another one happened in 1517.
Other, smaller splits have characterized much of Christian history. For
the past hundred years or so, however, a movement toward
reconciliation--the ecumenical movement--has grown from a relatively small
stream within Christianity into a major river. Protestant denominations
in the U.S. that had split over slavery and other issues have reunited,
and relatively small denominations that realized they shared much in
common with other denominations have combined. Catholics are talking to
the Orthodox, Lutherans and Catholics have issued a "Joint Declaration on
the Doctrine of Justification" (one of the primary battlegrounds of the
Protestant Reformation, and Christians from diverse backgrounds--Catholic,
Orthodox, mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and churches that
have strong racial or ethnic identities--are all talking to one another.
What these Christians have realized, and what some have still not
recognized, is that we all share a common tradition that has the power to
bind us together. We don't all agree on matters of doctrine,
organization, or practice, and we never will. What we can all agree on is
that we have core beliefs that can be traced back to the earliest period
of Christian history. Tradition is sometimes used as an excuse to divide,
but it is at its best when it is used to unite. May God open the eyes of
those who still refuse to acknowledge their brothers and sisters in Christ
as those who share a common faith.
Luke 5:1-11 (first published 8
February 2004)
A man wanted to start a new company, so he began poring over resume after resume. He selected ten people with great qualifications, hired them, and put them to work. He could tell pretty quickly, however, that his company wasn't going to succeed. Two of the people he hired were always arguing about the right way to market their product. Three others spent all their time devising strategies but had no idea how to implement their plans. The others bickered with one another over product placement, accounting techniques, and goals and objectives. The man fired all of his employees and decided to start over. This time he looked for qualified people who could work together as a team. This time his business prospered. When Jesus began recruiting disciples, he looked in rather unlikely places. Instead of in the synagogues, he looked in boats along the seashore. Instead of in the inner court of the temple, he recruited from the tax collector's booth in the outer courtyard. Instead of in the cultural center of Judaism, the city of Jerusalem, he looked in the backwoods province of Galilee, derided as "Galilee of the Gentiles" by many of his contemporaries. The ragtag group of fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots, and others became a team of committed followers. Sure, they were skeptical at first. No one leaves a reliable job to pursue the poorly defined scheme of a wild-eyed madman. But they soon learned that Jesus was more than he seemed at the outset. He spoke about forgiveness and acceptance to tax collectors, he answered the questions of skeptics, and he directed fisherman so that they could make a great catch of fish. Having won them over, he promised them greater accomplishments. When we encounter Jesus in our own lives, maybe we sometimes wonder why we were chosen. Surely there are others who could do the job better than I can. Certainly there are more persuasive speakers or better athletes or smarter people! But Jesus didn't look for followers among the socially elite, because his ministry was primarily among the common people. Jesus' success as a recruiter is exemplified by the fact that today, two thousand years later, the spiritual descendants of those twelve have grown into a huge multitude, two billion strong by some counts.