on judgement day, gods and the april fools come late

and so, my students said, saturday will be the judgement day. and then i asked – do you have the grammar exam so early? no, they said, it’s more like the end of the world come this saturday. so i went to the google, and dug round a bit.

it turned out to be much more than a grammar exam. it turned out to be one more of those ‘judgement days’ that various sort-of-christian sects are so fond of proclaiming since C1 AD. the usual schedule. the usual scheme. today, may 21, 2011, will be the day when the true believers will be taken up in rapture to heaven. one thing i really found fascinating on the website (http://judgementday2011.com/) was a t-shirt saying “rapture ready”.

and then i thought two things:

first, the sheer arrogance of those calculi (calculating the exact date of the judgement day, based on imagined numbers, they say they found in the bible). the sheer stupidity and literal-mindedness that will bring many people to ruin. the lack of imagination, to think that |harold camping|+|bible-reading|=god.

god is the tool-kit to repair a broken world

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. (Isa 58:9b-12)

this is a time of infinite possibilities, and infinite collapses of all that our culture has known. as never before, this time of mass media and social media and any other media makes all things global and connected, and infinitely increases the loneliness and the pain of the individual.

so, why talk of rebuilding wreckages and restoring habitats, and mending the ruins that other generations have left before us?

the simple answer is – because we live in a broken world.

the hard answer is – because we are called to mend this broken world.

the impossible answer is – because christ died for us, for each single one, so that this hurting, broken and broke world be repaired. he died, repairing it.

first: how, by what means, is the world broken.

again, there are quite a few answers, which can be summed up in this: the world is torn apart by (and with) sin.

(and those who think they have nothing to do with this formidable notion, think again:

when tempting god could have been the right thing to do

Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz: “Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want—as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead.”

But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I will not test the Lord like that.”

Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted.

(Isaiah 7:10-16, NLT)

how many of us have often wanted a sign, any sign, form god, whether it be a proof of his existence, or a confirmation of what we think is the right – or the wrong- choice? and how often have we been granted this mysterious and so rewarding sign?

now, the prophet tells king to ask for a sign. any sign, whatever sign. the question that can be asked here is – why? to what end? what will this sign confirm (and thus deny)?

in the previous verse, the prophet warns the king: ‘If your faith is not strong, you will not have strength enough to last [in the upcoming war].’ to confirm and strengthen this faith – faith in the presence of god in his land, and thus, of victory – does god offer a sign. the contrast between high heaven and the deep of the land of the dead only increases the representation of the overwhelming power of god.

so…here is a sign, for once, in difference from everyone else, yours for the taking – and why the refusal, why that kind answer to the prophet and god?

in god’s potter shed

thinking of the sunday’s sermon i came up with this outline:

in jer. 18:1-11, jeremiah is referred to potter for an object lesson.

potter’s shed

clay mixture (god’s folk)
- has to be worked and prepared before making pots
- needs clay (faith)
- needs water (prayer)
- needs sand (hope)
- needs crumbs of old baked clay (exp of the good and the bad)

no water – not pliable
no sand – cracks
no crumbs – no endurance

because clay is there as the material that holds things together. clay cannot hold together its own self.

harvesters

(Luke 10 1-10)

jesus sends his followers out on a harvest mission.

there are a number of things to observe here.

first, the sender. it is the lord, the owner of the harvest. god sees the souls ready to join his kingdom, and he sees the people who can bring them there. so he adds the latter to the former, and his harvest is ready to come in.

second, the sending. a) jesus sends his chosen; b) he sends them in pairs; c) he sends them among potential enemies; d) he empowers them for this mission, provides them with tools.

third, the mission. it is based on trusting that jesus can choose right. it is based on prayer. it is twofold: a hope and a warning.

jesus warns his chosen not to burden themselves with too many things. he warns them about the difficulty of the task: the lamb and wolves story does imply some difficulty. the harvest image implies urgency – and that the time is ripe and must not be lost, or else.

jesus equips his followers with his peace, and allows them to bestow it upon those that are worthy, and take it away from those that refuse to accept it.

when you complain, are you sure you are completely right?

in the martha, mary and jesus story (lk. 10:38-41), we see three main sides and quite a few side-sides.

first: martha.

she is so busy with how to make things proper. so upset about not meeting the high standards she has set for herself and her environment. so concentrated on what has to be done next.

second: mary.

she is busy with jesus. keeping company with him. listening to him. being with him. notwithstanding who else is there.

third: jesus.

he is the guest of that house. he is busy

post-easter hangover

for whatever reason, started reading george macdonald (1824-1905) in ccel.org. maybe lewis is to blame, been listening to his books lately. among other things, that is. a lot of things. this talk about the consuming fire struck me as very.. well.. logical in a totally crazy way (lol). this (see below) is how it feels – when one realises that god is madly in love with his creation. and yes, it burns like a fire – with all the light and hurt of it. and yet – i personally would neither refuse the future experience of it, nor want to change any of my past exp; if anything, i do long for more of those undivided, undiluted, simple moments of communication by presence of this (for the want of a better word) fire of total love.

the quote:

For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected—not in itself, but in the object. As it was love that first created humanity, so even human love, in proportion to its divinity, will go on creating the beautiful for its own outpouring.

There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved, and love is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be the universe, imperishable, divine.

Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed.

And our God is a consuming fire.

to enter a relationship with god, is to be consumed and consume – totally differently from the way the consumer society consumes itself.