June 30 2013.
Our World today
My daily routine
Every week day I write a mini sermon -400 words- on a text of the lectionary and an equivalent of half a sermon – 800 words- on Sundays. Last week I took a closer look at Luke 9:62: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God,” an exercise that, I am afraid, has resulted in becoming a full-fledged sermon, starting with the question: “What in the world did Jesus have in mind when he said that?” As an aside: I think all sermons should appear in print prior to the service, with a question period as part of the presentation. After all we all see through a glass darkly, so communal discussion might give more light.
Just before Jesus made this mysterious statement he advised a potential adherent against joining his traveling school by warning that being a Jesus’ follower is an uncertain business because you’ll never know where you’ll have your next meal or find a bed. (Foxes have holes, but not He.) Jesus then summoned somebody else to join the Jesus’ college but this man wanted to wait till his father is dead, to which Jesus answered: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another man wanted to first inform his family before attaching himself to the Jesus camp. Jesus disapproves of that as well.
What do I make of all that? My first reaction is that going with Jesus is an all- or- nothing affair, a commitment where only the kingdom counts and where concern for family or friends or food is a secondary matter.
Jesus was a country boy and familiar with farming practices. Looking back while plowing especially when animals are pulling the plow, throws you off course. It takes a steady hand to keep a plow strait. It is like steering a canoe: only when you keep your eyes peeled to a certain landmark ahead can you keep a steady course. To work for the kingdom too requires a definite objective that needs all our concentration. Even daily worries about what to eat and drink, how to placate parents and siblings are nothing compared to the goal of being fit for the kingdom. The kingdom is the overarching preoccupation of the Jesus follower.
That Kingdom concept again
In these end-times we have a new assignment. Not an easy one. The Bible tells us that the Kingdom is the New Creation to come. Many millennia ago we sold God’s perfect creation to the Great Enemy whose only goal has always been to destroy it, something all too plain today. It is the task of a Jesus’ follower to take a different route, a very difficult path. In all our actions, 24/7, we must try to do the impossible: live as if we already are in the New Creation. I see the new task of the church to guide us in that difficult assignment. There’s much talk in the church offices about the failing church. No surprise, given the current immense confusion of its task. When I was chair of the national board of trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Canada a decade ago, an ongoing topic was what to do with surplus sanctuaries. It is no secret that going to church is no longer important, because religion by and large has made itself irrelevant. A century ago, when the world had less than 2 billion people the churches were full. Now with 7 billion of us churches are out of fashion: our religious disinterest is just another facet of the immense crisis humanity faces for which the only solution is the Coming of the Kingdom.
Of course the church – the communion of saints- will always be there, dwindling as the numbers are. In the year 325 A.D., in a time when the quickest way on land was by horse, some 300 clergy from all over the then known world met in Nicaea – present day Turkey- where, after much deliberation they adopted the final canon of the Bible as well as the Nicene Creed, both still in use in that format. Then a great deal of unity made such a meeting possible. It helped that Constantine, the Roman Emperor of that day, put his weight behind it. Today, in this late stage of history, what is left of the church has never been more divided. There simply is no consensus on anything. I am afraid that I only add to the confusion.
June was the month when Synods and General Assemblies met. With many ties to the Christian Reformed Church I looked at the proceedings there last month – I received daily updates – and was saddened. I know the Spirit is still active there, but it all seemed that these reverend people are fighting a losing battle. Jesus, in his remarks as recorded in Luke 9:62, where he urges us to fix our eye on the future, implies that whatever happened in the past is no longer of any importance: don’t look back because it throws you off course. In these new times history cannot guide us. I don’t mean that history is bunk. No, but it seems to me that the church’s historic documents, such as the Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession, have little or no relevance today, because newness is on the way.
I am a runner. When I race – at my age of close to 85 it’s more like a jog (10 km in 1 hour 5 minutes) – I push my old bones to the limit, concentrate on the goal and don’t look back. My mantra when running is m.a.r.a.n.a.t.h.a.l.o.r.d.c.o.m.e.q.u.i.c.k.l.y. Every week I run a couple of times 8 km, every day some sort of exercise. That and my daily meditations have caused my thinking to take a new direction. My conversion has come about gradually, resembling the changing course of a super tanker, a very slow process, a life-long struggle that, once it started had a momentum of its own. When I look around I see that most people do not experience this and are stuck in the same old pattern, just like the Church institutions. In my 80 years of church attendance the music has undergone some changes- not always for the better – but the format has remained the same, except that sermons are much shorter.
The ancient Greeks used to say: panta rhei, oude menei which means that everything has a momentum of its own, nothing remains the same. When we try to hold on to what we call true and proven, it turns out that it is no longer true.
Change and decay
We are caught up in a whirlwind of change amid universal fraud. Not only the weather, but everything is clamoring for something different, even though nobody knows how or what. We see this all around us. The complete planet is in a panic mode, from roaring rivers everywhere to the youthful uproars in the Middle East where modernity is tackling tradition. The status quo is no longer wanted. We are speeding to the end, something the New Testament focuses upon all the time. That’s why Jesus said that “let the dead bury the dead.” There really is no time to waste in unnecessary work. The dead don’t notice who puts them away: let those who have never lived do the burying. Jesus appeals to those who have lived, who have not gone along with the idols of the day. Blessed are they who have lived before they died.
The closer we are to the end, the more vulnerable everything becomes. It’s like an elastic band that has been stretched too far; it’s like a balloon with too much air in it; it’s is like a nuclear reactor that has lost its safety valves. One moment all looks well: the next instant total chaos.
Debt – forgive us our debts – is the great villain. We have lived beyond our means, both money wise and environmentally. Now slow or no growth means that governments become increasingly stressed trying to provide for the many unemployed, or welfare for the many that have dropped out, both causing tax revenue to lag. Slower economic growth has made the debt system increasingly fragile. The economy has been gradually transformed from one which provided perpetual growth, to one where citizens are becoming poorer and poorer. This has pushed the economy in the direction of collapse. Trying to solve a debt problem with more debt only creates bigger bubbles. In the end, there’s one rule that always applies: credit bubbles lead to debt collapse and the bigger the bubble, the bigger the collapse. It’s inevitable and very painful. “The wages of sin-debt- is death.”
Big Brother is watching you and me
No wonder Big Brother is watching us. We have created a super-vulnerable system, totally dependent on the most fragile of tools: the computer phenomenon, both a blessing and a curse. Thanks to the computer and its by-products my message can circulate world-wide. But also the computer has led to the universal surveying of all electronic movement. We are being told that it targets only the potential enemies of the state. That presupposes perfect humans without any prejudice and latent grudges. Fact is that nobody’s remarks are secure anymore once they appear anywhere on the web. Knowing how religion brings out both the best and the worst in a person, it is quite well possible that in super religious America some fanatic, opposed to my New Earth-Kingdom vision will target me as an enemy of the church. Jesus was targeted that way and killed. No, I don’t suffer from a persecution complex. I am not paranoid. I do have an idea how ‘religion’ works at times, and it can be cruel. Perhaps my admiration for Edward Snowden, the 30-year-old who has risked his entire future to uncover the activities of these intelligence agencies will make me too an enemy of the state.
A possible scenario
Inside Fort Meade, Maryland, there is a top-secret city. There tens of thousands of people inhabit non-stop more than 50 buildings with its own post office, fire department and police force. This town site sits among a forest of trees, surrounded by electrified fences and heavily armed guards. It is protected by anti-tank barriers, and the entire area is closely monitored by sensitive motion detectors and constantly watched by rotating cameras. To block any telltale electromagnetic signals from escaping, the inner walls of the buildings are wrapped in protective copper shielding and the one-way windows are embedded with a fine copper mesh. Knowing and typing this is a guarantee that this column once sent away will become a target of interest. This also applies to you reading it. Be careful: you are being watched because I am sure that the NSA – National Security Agency – targets anybody who mentions the Edward Snowden name in an e-mail to you. Perhaps you should ask me to remove your name. I am sure that somebody in that ultra-secret compound will read this to discover why I mention his name. Billions of dollars – depriving the poor and the infrastructure of much more needed funds- are being allocated to spy on you and me.
Aimed at the young
I also believe that much of the system has been put in place to protect the privileged class from the hundreds of thousands of young people who have a useless BA, a useless M.Ed. and a useless law degree, while carrying tens of thousands in debt and never a decent enough job to repay the loan. This surveying system is there also to prevent the educated young with no future from effectively organizing mass demonstrations. That’s perhaps the main reason why this system has been put into place.
Of course the Lord will protect us. What these deranged minds are concocting reminds me of Psalm 2.
“He who sits in the heavens laughs;
The Lord is laughing them to scorn.
Take warning, rulers of the earth;
Serve the Lord with awe
Lest he be angry and you perish
For suddenly his anger will blaze.
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Next week “Why church reform is necessary”.