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December 2008 - change and hope
I love
barbeque ribs, corn on the cob (with butter), pie (with ice-cream), peanut
butter, fried eggs with hash brown potatoes, fried chicken, milkshakes, and
quite a few other things that are not especially healthy foods.
When I was young, nobody really knew these foods were unhealthy, so we ate
and enjoyed them without guilt or remorse.
I like cars that go fast around corners and down the highway, too.
They should look sporty and have dual exhaust that shouts horsepower
to everyone close by. But the
price of gas and the reality of pollution and global warming have made those
“ego trips” impractical and immoral.
It seems that about the time I find an activity or life-style that is
fun or enjoyable, it is no longer acceptable.
Lost innocence and moral responsibility have changed my life so that
I could never go back to those nostalgic past memories.
The church seems similar in many ways.
Church was fun and the priest could answer any questions you might
have about religion, faith, or God.
Churches were stable and growing.
The only controversial issues that may have arisen were quickly
settled by a bishop or someone who had real authority to decide what was
right or wrong. The church was
stable, the government was stable, the communities were stable, and change
seemed controlled and predictable.
I don’t know if it was WWII, rock and roll, civil rights, communism,
or something else that seemed to pull the rug out from under our religious,
political and cultural institutions in the last half of the 20th century.
Integration, the Prayer Book, women clergy, biblical scholarship,
homosexuality, and
ecclesiastical authority have been some of the issues which seem to have
contributed to the brokenness of today’s church.
I
am not really writing about food or cars or even the church, but about the
reality of change and how that affects all of us.
Both candidates in the recent presidential election campaign talked
about the need to change. The
paradox seems to be that we need to change faster and in more areas, yet it
is the change itself that seems to bewilder and divide us in our consensus
to be a community, a church, a nation or even a world.
The fact of change and the rate of change are, I believe,
unavoidable. Technology and
human ambition have unleashed a movement that will continue until we destroy
ourselves or learn to live in harmony with ourselves and the creation.
This is not likely to happen if it depends on us humans.
The hope is not that we will miraculously mutate into kind, caring people,
but that God, the creator, will continue to care for us and guide us, in
spite of ourselves. Faith is the
greatest asset we possess as individuals and a world community of human
beings. It is not that the “God
of the Gaps” will swoop down and rescue us like a “superhero,” but that the
creation itself will continue to shower the blessings of grace and
forgiveness upon us. It is the
sincere belief that in spite of all the fear, anger and divisive activity
that continues inside the church and in the larger world community, there
will be a way that we will agree to rearrange our lives and values to
reflect the goodness and harmony God represents to us.
That is real faith. That
is what the next generation of our race will achieve.
Not because we deserve it, but because we are within the domain of a
loving, forgiving creator. We
anticipate and long for this reality to come among us (Advent).
We will celebrate and worship when we experience that truth in all
its wonder and glory (Christmas - Incarnation).
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