Thursday, May 10, 2018
Extreme weather
Luke 6:48
He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.
Extreme weather events are becoming more and more commonplace these days. Scientists, politicians, religious thinkers, and a host of others are still locked in a debate about issues like the causes of global warming or its less controversial name, climate change. While they argue, most times about the related politics and funding, we the rank and file know what we are experiencing.
Never in the history of the human engagement with atmosphere, weather and climate have we had such a ringside seat to the cataclysmic events that surround us each day. Daredevil pilots, enterprising journalists, everyday citizens and suicidal people are all flying planes and drones, or taking vans and other vehicles into the eyes of hurricanes, and to the edges of tornadoes and other phenomena to bring back critical data and breath-taking views of what’s happening in the world.
Science and engineering have for a long time been changing the way we construct our buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. Now, with climate change, that engineering is being pushed to new limits. Infrastructure must now be capable of withstanding the pressures of extreme weather events and other natural phenomena like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
On the other hand, it seems not to matter to some people how extreme the weather gets. Those persons continue to live in the same places, in the same ways, and refuse every effort or opportunity to evacuate, relocate, or at least reconstruct more resilient structures.
Jesus, in Luke 6:47-49, recounted as well in Matthew 7:24-27, describes two men who made contrasting building decisions and, as a consequence, fared differently in the face of an extreme weather event. This brief illustration by Jesus has been the theme of Sunday School songs of the old days with accompanying actions and all.
From what we read in the biblical text, and even what we sang, we know that Jesus was not focused on extreme weather events. Extreme weather events didn’t bother Him. He was sleeping through a rather violent one when everyone else thought that they were going to die. They woke Him up and “He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” Matthew 8:26
We know that He was not focused on engineering and construction either. He described the necessity for the construction team to dig deep and place the foundation on the bedrock and not on the shifting sands or slippery clays, but that was just by way of illustration.
Jesus was drawing a parallel between the way we engineer our building projects for extreme weather and the way we order our lives for the extreme moral challenges of our time.
It is totally amazing how, after all this time, after all the data collected by all the researchers, we know that we are located in the eye of a moral and ethical storm and still many are not taking any steps to engineer their lives to withstand it.
Our societies are progressing foolishly along moral lines that bring destruction to lives every day. Mental illness, addiction, substance abuse and other similar disorders have increased at rates faster than that of global temperatures. Issues of family, gender, orientation, and identity intended to exploit freedom soon trap as many people as are hemmed in by receding arable land.
Incarcerations, in prisons with extreme dysfunction, are taking place at rates faster than sea levels rise. Domestic violence is now more prevalent, and more violent, and more persistent than the winds experienced during the last Atlantic hurricane season.
And all attempts at moral reconstruction seem to be failing as the other forces are causing an unprecedented rise in the global social temperature.
An example of this is sexual exploitation of children. Here is how the former USA Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. described it in 2011, “we´ve also seen a historic rise in the distribution of child pornography, in the number of images being shared online, and in the level of violence associated with child exploitation and sexual abuse crimes. Tragically, the only place we´ve seen a decrease is in the age of victims.”
Yesterday I had lunch with four brothers to discuss the plight of men, in the midst of a deteriorating social environment where men are automatically blamed for everything, and the need for intervention. Later in the evening, I met a young woman in a counselling session in which she told me about “progressive thinking women who don’t really want a man, except, in some cases, just to have a child and then they don’t need him anymore.”
Unless we can do the re-engineering to force people to dig deep, to go past the layers of post-Christian, post-modern thinking, new-age philosophies, modernity and the like and find the bedrock of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are leaving them vulnerable to destruction in this, or the next extreme social event. In the present climate, those come faster and more violent than we’ve experienced before.
The Bible must be our moral and ethical foundation, not just a book we read for inspiration, or to find the text for someone’s talk or daily devotional. If this is not our foundation we are doing foolishness in extreme weather conditions.
Think on these things:
- Do you think that the moral choices people make are their business and not yours?
- Can you think of ways in which other people’s choices have affected your life?
- Do you have any argument to bring against those who might accuse you of being backward for trusting the Bible for guidance in this day and age?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be diligent in our study of the scripture to build lives that are resilient in today’s world.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
