(16) Are We There Yet?

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Are We There Yet?, originally shared on May 21, 2020. It was the sixteenth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   It’s challenging being a parent in normal times, it is especially challenging now, particularly if you are a mother. CT Women recently reported that, “The New York Times wrote up a poll on parenting duties during the pandemic. The headline was: “Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree.”  

   Have you ever been on a road trip with your family, whether as the parent or the child, when the child or children are so looking forward to the destination that what has become a boring journey has finally becomes intolerable?

   “Are we there yet” “No we’re not there yet. It’s going to be another two hours. Read your book. (or play I Spy, or play with your electronic device.)”

   Ten minutes later: “Are we there yet?”

   How childish. Well, aren’t we all feeling that right now?

   A doctor friend forwarded to Sally and me some things some observations people had sent to him. I read one last time. Here are a few others:

·         The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house, and their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors!

·         Day 7 (now 62) at home and the dog is looking at me like, “See? This is why I chew the furniture!”

·         Does anyone know if we can take showers yet or should we just keep washing our hands???

·         Me: Alexa what’s the weather this weekend?  Alexa: It doesn’t matter – you’re not going anywhere.

   Maybe not. All 50 states have now reduced former restrictions. Next Monday is Memorial Day. That will test how much we are able to observe the restrictions as we reopen.

   You may have seen that LA County is currently planning to open everything up by July 4^th, with social distancing, masks, and other requirements, the new normal. So, we’ll be going back to the new future.

   Are we there yet?

   Some things will be better in the fairly near future, unless this opening is too aggressive, or people ignore the safely requirements, as has happened in some countries. Then they’ll be worse.

   We haven’t been seeing a lot of masks on the people who have been walking by lately. I don’t get it. Do they feel they’re invulnerable. Do they figure they are young and have no underlying health conditions, so they’ll take their chances. Other people? Oh well!

   Do they believe it’s all a big hoax? Study after study shows the effectiveness of masks. The Mayo Clinic and the CDC recommend wearing cloth masks (leave the N95 and surgical masks for front line workers). With social distancing and frequent hand washing, masks are effective at reducing the spread of the virus, particularly for the many people who have the virus without any symptoms.

   Are we there yet?

   Of course, some things are already better. I read that, “A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found that daily emissions declined around 17% between January and early April when compared to 2019 levels. The study suggests that emissions will decline anywhere between 4.4% to 8% by the year's end. However, experts warn that this trend is unlikely to continue as restrictions around the world are lifted.” We hope we make some changes.

   Are we there yet?

   But, I guess, some things will be better. You may have read that traffic is down and in LA traffic accidents are down, but traffic fatalities in some areas have risen by 15% during the pandemic. There has also been an increase of 50% of people charged with traveling over 100 mph. I think there’s a connection. Maybe that number will go down, ironically as traffic gets more congested.

   What else will change? We long for the ways things were.

   The Kingdom of God is about getting back to the way things were. Are we there yet?

*Mark 1:14-15

   Jesus said more about the Kingdom of God than any other subject. It was the center and substance of Jesus’ teaching about his mission. He wasn’t offering a new interpretation of the Law or a replacement for it. He was proclaiming himself as the fulfillment of it.

   The world is not the way it’s supposed to be. Jesus comes to proclaim that God was now about the business of putting things right.

   Eventually, it would become clear that Jesus is God. The cross would put things right, so that all who believe, that is come to the living relationship with the living God that Jesus was embodying and enabling, would be saved.

   We long for deliverance. We long for a better world. Are we there yet? Yes and no.

   We still reject God. We still want to put ourselves in the place of God.

   We are sinners and saints in a world where we see the already but not yet Kingdom of God: already renewing the earth and the people in it, but not yet brought to its perfection in the new heaven and the new earth that are still to come.

   We don’t build the Kingdom of God, we receive it. It is not a new form of government, it is an act of God restoring all who receive it to the living relationship with God for which we were created. The Kingdom of God is where God reigns. We cannot decide to enter it, and we can’t deserve it; we can only receive it as a gift.

   Jesus’ teaching calls for repentance and faith, to opening our whole selves to receiving the living relationship with the living God for which we were created.

   When Jesus did a miracle, it was a proclamation in action of the inbreaking of the Kingdom. When people rejected him, it was a statement that some are not there yet.

   When we live in a way that does not reflect the love of God at work within us, it is evidence that we are not there yet.

   You can scale that up to families, communities, governments and the whole human race.

   How do we get there?

*Acts 16:29-31

   Outside of a central creedal core, believing is not about checking a box of beliefs. There are lots of ways to be Christian.

   But, one of those core beliefs is that the Christian faith is about a living relationship with the loving God, a relationship for which we were made and which is central to what it means to be a human being. It is about a relationship with the living God that comes from God and that only God can give.

   The Kingdom of God, that is where God reigns, is the already and not yet kingdom.

   Are we there yet? Open your heart to the living God, and let God make it so, and pray the oldest of all Christian prayers, Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus.

   We are already there, and at the same time we long for the perfection of the coming  Kingdom of God.