A Promise and a Cure
Karen Eisenhauer
May 3, 2009
Ladies and Gentlemen of Eagle Harbor Congregational Church: I have some bad news. A lot of it, actually. I’ve been taking a new required course at the high school called Global Citizenship, which is designed to give a general overview of the state of the world – and I’m not sure that I like what I’m hearing. Let me share with you a little bit of what I mean. Ready?
Half of the world – almost 3 billion people – live on less than two dollars a day.
Concerning wealth, the top 20% richest people in the U.S. enjoy 84% of the nation’s wealth, leaving 4/5 of the country to live off of the remaining 16%. 1 in every 8 people in the U.S. lives below the national poverty line.
Out of every 3 homeless men in the country, one has served in the armed forces; of that third, almost half are mentally ill. Our country continues to do nothing about this. Additionally, in the last 2 years there has been an alarming spike in hate crimes against the homeless by the youth of America, which has also gone un-met by government or police forces.
Worldwide, I know that every day, twenty-five thousand children die from preventable causes such as hunger or curable disease.
Less than one percent of what the world spends on weapons is needed to put every child on earth into school – nothing has happened.
The United States spends more on pet foods every year than it does on promoting worldwide water, sanitation, and basic education combined.
If everyone on earth had a lifestyle like that of Bainbridge Island, we would need anywhere from 3 to 11 planets to continue living.
The amount of trash that McDonalds generates every day is enough to fill the empire state building…. Every Day.
The majority of our electronics are non-recyclable, and are instead sent to developing countries who suffer a severe decline in life expectancy due toxic waste.
Global warming is reaching such heights that, if continued uninterrupted, could destroy up to 40% of wildlife on earth by 2050.
Think about those numbers for a moment. And if that isn’t enough for you, turn on your television for 30 seconds. Or listen to the radio, or read the newspaper – I guarantee that you’ll find all the bad news you’re looking for, and more. Every time we turn around there seems to be a new doom coming from a direction we never expected it. And soon, they’re piled around us, mountains of predictions and percentages, until we can’t even see over the top.
Dark, huh. The world can be a morbid place. But we should be careful with all of this pessimism. Living on a diet of bad news can be like living on a diet of, say, Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. You just can’t eat it all the time without expecting repercussions. It’s bad for our faith and our spirit. And if we let it consume us, soul-sickness inevitably occurs.
Two things can happen as bad news filters into our system. The first is simple and common: blindness. It’s a matter of system overload. There’s only so much… badness that one person can handle before they throw up their hands and say “that’s it! I’m finished here!” and shut down the part of themselves that cares. Ignorance is bliss, right? That sure can feel true, after reading the news (or sitting through a class Global Citizenship). But I believe that this particular sort of illness isn’t what plagues the congregation here at EHCC. I believe all of you are conscious of the world’s condition, and generally feel that something must be done about it. But it’s this caring about the earth that gives rise to the second and more serious problem. It’s quieter, more dangerous and much harder to shake off once it’s caught hold. And it’s probably this ailment, not blindness, that you’ve carried the burden of at some point in your lives. I know I have.
I call it “What’s-the-point” syndrome. It’s what happens when a person takes every single bit of awful information thrown at them, and has absolutely no idea what to do with it. What can they do? How can one person possibly hope to make a difference in the face the sheer largeness of the world, and more importantly of its problems? And it seems as if the statistics love to demonstrate that we’re doomed to, at best, keep the status quo – never actually make anything better. So, the question comes back: what’s the point? Why bother?
Why bother indeed. The question seems harmless, or at least logical. The numbers of it makes sense, that one person could never make that big of a difference. And history shows that even when we band together the human race only seems capable of causing great acts of evil. But all of that cruel, uncaring logic will eventually eat away at hope, courage, faith, and ultimately the drive to make anything into something better. Logic is a serious disease. So what can cure it, before we finally give up and submerge ourselves in apathy and hopelessness? Where’s the fix?
Well let me tell you.
It starts with a story about a prophet. Jeremiah was a man who lived in Judah in a time of almost constant siege. It was about 587 B.C. and the Babylonians were threatening to completely overrun Jerusalem, where Jeremiah was, by the way, in jail. Everyone in the surrounding area was running for their lives before the Babylonian army. But then God sent a message to Jeremiah. This is what he said: “Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’ Take the documents, the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last for a long time. For this is what the Lord Almighty says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land”. Oh yes. God told Jeremiah thou shalt invest in real estate.
A fitting story for the current crisis! I’m not a tax-payer by any right, but even I can understand just how ridiculous that command sounds. God isn’t offering the stereotypical vague prophecies in this story – he’s offering advice on financial investment. And second, what he’s offering is a gamble, high stakes, the odds impossibly high against. For Jeremiah to buy land that’s likely to be pillaged and plundered for all its worth in a matter of days just seems like a bad idea. It’s irrational, unprofitable, and illogical. That word “illogical” is the same “illogical” that tells us it’s pointless to fix our world that’s being run into the ground. But in the midst of all our money-counting and fact-figuring we forget something. We forget that as Christians we aren’t dealing with numbers anymore. We’re dealing with something much more powerful.
Let me reread the second half of the quote: “For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” Along with the unorthodox money advice, God has made Jeremiah a promise. I read in a commentary that this aspect of the story actually follows a trend throughout the Old Testament. God, so says the commentary, is rarely in the business of directly affecting human history. What God does do, though, is make promises. I quote: “Good Christian hope is always tied to promise, as it is in this text. Christian hope has often been against good sense, against the tides of human affairs, but it is always in relation to the promise of the one who shapes the future in specific ways.” Jeremiah, in his close relationship with God, saw that God does not tend to make promises that God can’t keep. So, in a backwards way, Jeremiah’s investment in a failing land wasn’t a gamble at all. It was faith in a God who he know would once again bring make the fields profitable. The most interesting thing to me is by investing in his money Jeremiah made his own prophecy come true, for if he hadn’t bought the land, there would be nothing to sell later. There would be nothing to grow. His investment in God’s promise is what made God worth investing in. God relies on us to fulfill his prophecies as much as we rely on Him to make them.
However insightful Jeremiah’s story might be, the promise that was made for him, that Judah would not fall to the Babylonians, just isn’t that applicable in 2009. So what promise did God give us to invest in? One can be found in John 14:12-14. “Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in Me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do even greater works than these.” That is straight from the mouth of Jesus, right in the peak of His ministry. A promise we can count on – that our works will be even greater than those of Jesus Christ.
Before I studied this text I hadn’t known that it existed. When I read it in this context I was a little taken aback. Me? Me?? I’m a Christian, sure, but greater works than Jesus? He single-handedly changed the world in three short years! And we’re supposed to do better than that? Now there’s a rickety stock investment, if you ask me. If someone offered you a bet that humanity could achieve all the works of the Son of God, and then surpass him, would you take it? Neither would I.
But here it is, in the Bible, straight from Jesus’ mouth. God is in the business of making promises and keeping promises. And if the stories of the past are true, I think that this promise will be kept as well, regardless of what the numbers might say. But remember that Jeremiah had to have a field in order for the field to grow. Likewise, if we sit and stare without investing anything, the promise that we can change the world has no meaning. God has given us Her word – a beautiful and powerful assurance of victory that we can fight for, against the statistics– and we have to show we believe in it. And here’s where it gets fun.
When God told Jeremiah that his city would once again belong to him, it came with a very specific command – buy some real estate. But for us, there is no such limitation. God has made us a splendid promise, and God has also made it clear that we are supposed to help make it a reality. But She didn’t tell us how to do it. To me, this shows a deep faith in humanity to carry out the work of Jesus in new and inventive ways. God, the ultimate creative power, made us long ago in His image. And today, we still have in us that lively imaginative spirit that we got so long ago. By not telling us how we must do our great works, God is saying: “I gave you the greatest gift of all – the gift of creativity. Use it!”
Well, ladies and gentlemen of EHCC, I have good news. A promise has been made by the Lord of the Universe, and all over the world people are rising up to meet Her challenge. The creativity of man is finally showing itself. Let me share some examples with you. Ready?
Architecture for Humanity is a network of over 40,000 professional architects that work to build sustainable, functional public buildings in developing countries around the world. It just celebrated its 10th anniversary.
Room to Read is an organization that builds libraries and schools worldwide, promoting literacy in young girls.
Local governments all over the United States are beginning to hold city-wide electronics recycling days, letting plastic get reused and the toxic waste disposed of safely.
Art in Odd places is a NY based organization of artists who explore the boundaries of human communication by creating art exhibits in unexpected city locations.
Swansea University has created an energy-generating paint, based on the principles of solar power, which in the future could be put on the public market.
Feliciano dos Santos is an African pop star who uses his music to teach the people of Mozambique about sanitation and health care.
Bainbridge Island is home to BGI, a business school dedicated to teaching its students a new economic model which takes into consideration factors like the sustainability and employee rights.
Just last week, 20 teenagers gathered at the church and raised over $2000 to help combat poverty by fasting for 30 hours.
And today, over 100 wonderful people got up early in the morning to go to church, and to give their love and support to the youth that they care about.
This is where we find the cure for all those statistics that make us want to stay in bed in the morning instead of getting up to make a difference. The cure is God’s ultimate faith in us to help keep the promise He made. It has been written: we are going to create the biggest change in the world since Jesus walked the earth. We are going to be the ones to make God’s prophecy come true at last. But how are we going to do it? Well, that’s for us to decide.