So What If I'm Not

Looking for a jump-started feeling of inspiration, I (being a woman of this 21st century), of course, go to Google and type in inspiration for today and find, of course, a series of images that promise to do just that.

Above is my pick from among the over 500 million choices I might have made: The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty.

It’s a catchy little thing, isn’t it?  And don’t you love the visual of the dirty hands?  I do.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t pick this one because it inspired me.  Quite the opposite, in fact: I picked it because it doesn’t inspire me.

What it does is make me stop and wonder why I would believe even for an instant that I am “one of the few” and why that would matter either way.

When it comes to this notion of changing our future, I fear I am not one of the few.

I’m not even sure there are a few.

There might be many or there might be none at all.

Either way, I doubt I’m among them.

So what?

So what if I am or if I am not?

Really – so what?

And does not the present require more of me than the future?

Can I really be in a position, dwelling as I do in the present, to dictate anything, including change, to the future?  And even if I can, should I?

Could things be better?

(of course)

Should they be better?

(probably)

Will they be better?

(I am not in a position to know)

The present tense is all I can inhabit.  It is where I dwell.  To ponder the future as if I were in a position to shape it . . . well, even to think on that makes me tremble.

The present tense is my domain.

I am struggling every second of every minute of it to inhabit it well.

From that struggle, perhaps the future will be better.

I know not.

So, seriously, I doubt I am or ever will be one of the few.

My own non-resolving New Year’s resolution: to inhabit my own peculiar lack of specialness with the comfort of old shoes and holey blue jeans and call that good and good enough . . . that’s me for today . . . tomorrow?  Who knows.

Sermon Cliff Note: Every Choice Has a Future

Luke 12.29-34 [where your treasure is . . . ] and Isaiah 1.16-20 [9 imperatives lead the way to God’s vision of a changed society]

Every Choice Has a Future*

Most of us will not be remembered in the history books.  But history’s record is not merely that written down by human hand.  What the earth is today is the result of all it has been up to now.  And what the earth will be is being written by us, all of us, each alone and all together, in the now.

The Luke text rests on one single notion: stop worrying about getting so that we can focus on giving – our giving as a response to God’s giving.  

Jesus could not be more clear when he observes that where our treasure is – that is, where our focus, our energies, our attention, lies, there is to be found what we value.  We choose what we value, whether we realize it or not.  God would have us choose that which matters most.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God delivers 9 imperatives in 2 verses: look at Isaiah 1.16-17: wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. 

In other words, clean up your act . . . vow to do better and do it . . . get rid of the bad stuff in you, in your life – God doesn’t want to see it anymore . . . say no to wrong . . . spend time – this valuable gift God has given you – learning, actually learning, how to do good . . . look for justice – search it out, work to make it happen . . . rescue those in need of rescue . . . stand up for the children who have little in the way of love . . . shout for the elderly who have no one to stand up for them . . .

Choose.

Choose who you will be and how you will be.

Every single choice you make has a future, says God.

Science speaks of two concepts that have application: the butterfly effect and the law of unintended consequences.  The butterfly effect, at its simplest, holds that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Brazil may be a cause of a later hurricane or tornado.  How it works is complex, but the idea is fairly simple: small, barely noticeable acts, can and do have far-reaching consequences.

The law of unintended consequences addresses outcomes or consequences that were not intended by a purposeful action.  In other words, what happens is not always what I meant to happen.  Sometimes the opposite of what I hoped happens.  Sometimes what I wanted to happen actually does happen, but so do other things that I didn’t plan on – good and bad.

Every choice has a future – and we cannot always know what the outcome of our choices will be.  The point of this, however, is not to freeze us into indecision, for as we are reminded in Isaiah, the path before us is fairly clear.  To step off that path and walk in our own ways rather than God’s is to invite the unintended consequences of our choosing to take hold.

Every choice we make has a future.  And our choosing, just like the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Brazil reaches far beyond ourselves and travels we know not where, for the future is a far and distant country to us.

In that country live children we will never meet.  Whether they will know lives of peace or war . . . lives of plenty or want . . . breathable air or dark days that more resemble the nighttime . . . whether they will be seen as treasures or disposable garbage . . . we are choosing that future now.

Friends, every choice has a future and we are making ours and theirs right now.  Please God that we choose wisely and well.  Amen.

_____________
*Shout out to Walter Bruggemann in his commentary on Isaiah for the title.

Hope for the Future

It's easy to be optimistic about the future when sitting poolside on a summer's day in a land of peace and plenty.  It is easy then, or at least easier.  But maybe, just maybe, easy isn't always wrong.  Or Pollyanna.  Or simplistic.  Or naive. 

So I offer the wisdom and hope gathered pool side on a summer's day. . .

The changes wrought by technology (and they are many) combined with a new generation bring about the possibility of the elimination of the nation state as we know it and the birth of something entirely new, not before possible -- not globalization -- at least as we now use the term -- but something I don't even know how to name -- a sort of shifting tribalism.

I observe that folks my children's age move easily (at least more easily than I have and do) from group to group -- they're still tribal, these children of mine, but their tribes are not fixed constants -- rather, their tribes are fluid things that they leave and come back to and their contemporaries with them -- so that each time of return realizes a different tribe -- and that works for them.

Things are held more loosely.

Ideas are exchanged more freely.

Possibilities are envisioned differently.

Time is not wasted on what never was nor cannot be.

Authorities are shared based on competencies and vision.

Nothing is taken for granted.

If the world is to be changed, they believe that it is up to them to do it -- and they do it -- one person, one group, one tribe, at a time.

Children matter -- other people's children, as well as their own.

Families are made as well as born.

Needs are met simply because there are needs to be met.

Life continues.

I am hopeful for the future when I behold these people. 

I hope I live long enough to see them come into the fulness of their marvelous potential, for every generation has its place, its time and this, in all its nascent wonder, is theirs.