Back in July, I went to a family wedding in Pennsylvania. I drove,
and my cousin Sally rode with me. We were fairly close in earlier years, but I
hadn't had much recent contact with Sally, so it felt good to warm up that
friendship again.
A while after we passed through the Delaware Water Gap, I began thinking
about a T.V. program I had seen the night before. It had shown vivid pictures
of people in some Middle Eastern country struggling to survive for another day.
I had been deeply touched, and I told Sally what I had seen. "Children were
starving, with empty bellies," I said. "They had nothing to eat, and were able
to retain only the clothes on their backs. All around them they heard the
sounds of gunfire and bombs going off. And it made me realize that we are so
lucky. We are so lucky to be living here and not there." I had tears in
my eyes when I said that. I was sort of overwhelmed with gratitude.
Sally listened quietly, and then said, "You have so much gratitude,
but then what?"
"We're just so lucky that we live here instead of there," I said.
"Really? That's it?" Sally went on to say that I sounded like a person
who fills up on the deep-fried appetizers and doesn't order anything else from
the menu. Perhaps I did not feel hungry for dinner now, but that snack, she
said, would not sustain me for anything like real exertion. "It tastes good,"
she acknowledged, "but it's just not enough."
Then Sally really challenged me. She continued, "I am guessing that you
give to charity and have a good supply of PBS tote bags. But when you witness
pain and declare yourself 'lucky,' you have fallen way short of what Jesus would
do."
I turned her words over and over in my mind. She seemed to be telling me
that when I witnessed suffering and then declared myself to have achieved
salvation in the "religion of gratitude," that I have fallen way short of what
God would have me do, no matter what religion I was called to.
Sally resumed: "And by the way, while I think God does want us to feel
gratitude, I do not think God particularly wants us to feel 'lucky.' I think
God wants us to witness pain and suffering and, rather than feeling 'lucky,' God
wants us to get angry and want to do something about it."
Sally said that 'feeling 'lucky,' is like saying that the gods pick one
person to live in the suburbs of the richest nation on earth, and another person
to starve. In a worldview of 'luck,' righteousness is really not at home. It
suggests that we are powerless and unable to change anyone else's "bad
luck."
"Furthermore, at some point the worldview of luck just doesn't pan out. At
some point one realizes that this religion of luck isn't enough, and we long for
something as outrageous as a new heaven and a new earth."
"What is missing from the"religion of luck" worldview is the perspective
that we might get in a Christian community, that would take us from thinking
ourselves merely 'lucky,' to actually doing something about the hardships of
other peoples' lives."
"At some point, if one thinks about it at all, the person with the
self-made religion of luck, will use his God-given brain and the wisdom of hard
experience, and start to ask angry and provocative questions, and see holes in
this spirituality of status quo."
Sally paused to catch her breath. "The civil rights movement didn't happen
because people felt lucky. The hungry don't get fed, the homeless don't get
sheltered, and the world doesn't change because people who are doing okay feel
lucky. We need more."
"No," said Sally, "as Christians we expect more, way more, like a new
heaven and a new earth, and because we follow Jesus, we had better expect to be
involved in making it happen, alongside other people."
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development
Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal growth this Fall at
CPC.
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