Our message is Grace, not Judgement

With all the flooding that’s going on now, it’s inevitable that some ‘prophet’ is going to start going on about God’s judgement on a sinful people. Hopefully all political parties will learn from this terrible lesson and never attempt to take out a sitting prime minister from Queensland again. But seriously, before we are too quick to proclaim God’s judgement, let us consider three points.

Firstly, what are we to do with all the Christians in the area who were flooded out as well? Can we say with certainty that they were more sinful than all the other Christians living in Australia? Were all the properties owned by Christians miraculously preserved? Do we dare to say those unaffected by the floods are more righteous than those affected? Before we make up our minds about this, let us consider Jesus’ teaching in Luke 13:1-5. Or to take it further, shall we now say that of all the states and territories in Australia, Queensland deserves God’s judgement the most?

Secondly, while it may be a simple explanation that the dry are just more righteous than the wet, we should also keep in mind that old saying about specks of dust and optical plank removals (Matthew 7:3-5). Jesus wasn’t very nice to people who thought they were more righteous than all the others around them (Matthew 23, Mark 7:1-13, Luke 11:37-53).

Thirdly, Jesus was more interested in proclaiming grace rather than judgement (John 3:17). And when he did talk about judgement, it was more often than not directed at people who claimed they were God-followers. Those who claim to know God’s laws have less excuse than the heathen who are ignorant of God’s expectations (because God’s people aren’t very good at explaining it to them).

We are all sinful and we all deserve judgement. But Jesus came to fix that and that is what we should focus on. If we really are bursting to say something to the lost, it would be better for us to remind them of God’s compassion, goodness and grace, and invite them to partake of that.

Affluence in a time of limited resources

Guess how many people live on earth now? According to a recent article in National Geographic (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text/1), sometime late this year, there will be seven billion of us. And by 2045, there might be nine billion. Looks like we’ve all been busy since God gave Adam and Eve the command to be fruitful and increase in number (Genesis 1:28). But how many people can our planet support?

Before we all dust off our copy of Soylent Green (an interesting movie made in 1973 with Charlton Heston as the lead) and start thinking sad Malthusian thoughts, the article goes on to say that there is hope for us all. Firstly, with nine billion people living spread out all over the earth, ‘…the world population density will be a little more than half that of France today.’ Which means we won’t be all that crowded. Secondly, we are a pretty resourceful species. The green revolution and continuous advances in agricultural sciences will keep us going for a long time. There are limits however to what our planet can actually take and with the increase in the ‘global middle class’, the article points out that, ‘…it will be a hard thing for the planet if those people are eating meat and driving gasoline-powered cars at the same rate as Americans now do.’ In other words: we all need to live more simply if we’re going to make it.

For some of us, this could mean becoming a little more counter-cultural and getting less stuff. For he/she who dies with the most toys does not win. As Christians, our role model for the simple life is Jesus Christ. We know that He was an itinerant teacher who owned neither home nor property (Matthew 8:20) and as those who profess to follow in His footsteps, we should be considering what it means to live out our faith in a time of considerable affluence.  St Elizabeth Seton, the first native born citizen of the United States to be canonized is quoted as saying, “Live simply that others might simply live.” Something maybe for us to ponder for 2011 as we welcome in citizen 7,000,000,001.