Gleanings – Abandon Ship! You Boarded the Wrong One
Advent 2, December 10, 2012
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
“And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and foreboding of what is coming in the world;”
Between the Mayan calendar, tsunamis and hurricanes, the fiscal cliff and unrest in the Mideast, we are experiencing Paul’s prophesy, not figuratively but literally. Who could have imagined 50 years ago a day in which there was fear and foreboding especially among American Christians? We were the arbiters of our fate and the captains of our destiny.
Not so much any longer. We may steer our personal ship but in the grand scheme of things, as Rodney Clapp stated so well, we are chaplains, not captains. We are not appreciated (or persecuted) as much as we are ignored. We helped create a culture that longer finds us necessary to its existence. There is fear and foreboding now because the once powerful church has been benched, relegated to the sidelines.
What to do? Concede? Fight to reestablish power (by finding a new Ralph Reed and electing a few more religious conservatives)? There is another option. We could revisit what Jesus started and actually become a people who unashamedly and unapologetically follow Jesus and that with no (public) benefit to us save responding to the one who came to us in the hour of our death.
Recovery begins with facing the facts. The horse is dead. It is time to get off. The ship is sinking. It is time to abandon ship. Don’t worry. Be happy. The life boat is quite secure.