(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Bucket List, originally shared on July 23, 2020. It was the thirty-fourth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We’re
now in place, some call it a window, where our efforts to slow and stop new
cases of the coronavirus will improve, or we will spin off into another round
of business and school closures, stay at home lock-downs, and a level of
contagion that will be even more difficult to control.
Do you ever read the comments section of
Facebook posts. I know. You’re not supposed to for the sake of your mental and
emotional health, but I do, sometimes. I saw a post the other day that asked a
pretty innocent question about whether or not a particular business was open.
One responder answered with what is a pretty
common response these days, “Open everything up. If you’re afraid to go out,
stay home.”
It’s mind boggling to me that people still
act as if there is not a pandemic going on, as if people are not dying, and that our behavior is
not a matter of life and death, if not for ourselves, then for others. One
brave responder asked in the same string asked, “Where is your morality?”
What does the gift of life, or of the lives
of others, mean to us?
Time is growing short for action, and as in
the days of Noah, right at the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 6-9, there
are those who are acting with urgency, and a seemingly increasing amount
of who don’t care.
Jesus makes a reference to those days when
he speaks of the unpredictability of the day of Judgement at the end of time:
*Matthew
24:36-39
Did you happen see Darren Aronofsky’s movie “Noah” with Russel Crowe? It was
released in 2014. Darren Aronofsky,
who describes himself as an atheist, had a hand in writing, directing and
producing the movie and said, before it came out, that it would be the least
biblical Bible movie ever made. Sally and I saw it, and disagreed.
There was some silliness about the rock
angels, hallucinogenic tea, and so on. But the overall message, the way I
remember it, came at the end.
The movie was said to have had an environmentalist
meaning. Noah’s understanding of God’s will was never clear to him, but he
believed that human beings were corrupt, had corrupted everything, had
forgotten about God, were like a virus on the earth, and were bad for every
other part of creation.
He believed that his mission was to save the
animals from the flood that would kill all of humanity except him and his
family. Once the animals were released onto dry land again, he believed that it
was his duty to allow his family to die and for the world to return to a
paradise.
And then, on the ship, one of his daughters
announced that she was pregnant. He confided in his wife that if the baby was a
girl, it was his plan to kill the baby as soon as it was born.
When the birth took place, his wife showed
him the twin girls.
His wife asked him, “Noah, what do you feel
when you look at these babies?” Noah ignored the question, so she asked it
again. “What do you feel?”
Noah answered, “Love”.
That’s right, Noah, she said. And love is
from God. God’s will is not for you to end humanity, but to allow it to rebuild
in the presence of God’s love.”
How would Noah know what was God’s will,
God’s intention, for him? Do you every feel that you can know God’s will with
absolute certainty?
Is it like it is in the movies, a voice from
the sky, plain as day?
Paul said, at the end of the 13th
chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror,
dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will
know fully, even as I have been fully known.” v. 12
Noah wasn’t sure. He didn’t have the Bible. None
of it had been written down. He had only his sense of God’s call. But when his
wife spoke to him about the love of God, that awakened in him something about
God that he did know.
In this sense, I think Darren Aronofsky’s
movie Noah was one of the most biblical of Bible movies.
How do we know God’s will?
We consider God’s intention in Creation,
God’s sacrifice on the cross, and God’s ongoing presence and power for good in
the world in the Holy Spirit.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God, The
Trinity, as revealed in the mighty acts of God.
How do we know we are receiving God’s revelation
but through the Bible and in the community of God’s people?
Our actions have an impact on the life or
death of ourselves and others, especially in these times. Our lives are in what
the love of God calls us to do, living for others for as long as we can. Not
because we are afraid to die, but because we are called and equipped to serve.
Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, “For
to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” (*Philippians 1:21)
Do you have a bucket list? You know, a list
of things you want to do before you kick the bucket?
I don’t. When I die, I believe that I will
go to heaven. Not because of any good that I have done, but because God is
great, and loving and merciful. Salvation comes by faith, as a gift og God’s
grace to all who open their hearts to receive the gift that God desires all
people to receive, a living relationship with the living God that begins now,
and is brought to perfection in the life to come.
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, “But,
as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him-” (*1 Corinthians 2:9)
There is nothing on this earth that can
compare with what awaits us. I would rather use the time that I have here to
make this world a better place to God’s glory, a place where people can see a
bit of what awaits all who love God.
There is really no need for a bucket list,
because death is a past tense experience for us. Paul wrote to the church at Rome:
*Romans 6:3-5
God saved Noah through the waters of the
flood; God saves us through the waters of Baptism.
I read a story years ago, I think it was from King Duncan, one of my
favorite preachers, and I’ve told it often, about the first group of
missionaries from Europe to the Fiji Islands.
They had booked passage on a sailing ship
from Europe to Japan, because there were no scheduled stops in the Fiji
Islands, which was regarded as a very dangerous place, except to trade for food
and water.
When the ship arrived in the islands, the
head of the missionary group asked that they be dropped off on shore. The
captain refused.
He said, “These people are savages. They
will kill you. They will kill you and they will eat you.”
The leader of the missionary group said, “All
the same, we would like to be dropped off ashore, please.”
The captain said, “If I drop you off here,
you will all die.”
The group leader said, “We died before we
came.”
Our bucket list, to the extent that it
exists, might be as the things we believe God is calling us to do to empty our
bucket.
It is not focused on our own entertainment
or desires, but on what we can do in service toward others. It is a list of
means for ministry. It focuses on God’s justice, i.e. God’s will, speaking for
the voiceless if we have a voice, seeking the welfare of the poor, if we have
some means, and living in response to the unearned but freely given love of
God.
We live in response to what God has done for
us in Jesus Christ at the cross, and in that gift of freedom, we freely empty
our bucket in order to fill the void held by our neighbors in need.
Here are two things I would propose for a
bucket list, things to do before we die: the Great Commission and the great
commandment:
“And Jesus came
and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to
the end of the age.” Matthew 25:18-20
and
“and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question
to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the
law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and
first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these
two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40
Life isn’t lived according to a bucket but in
streams, the streams of living water that are the Holy Spirit at work within us.
We are fully engaged with the world because we have the promise of the world to
come in order to make this world more like that one.
There’s no list to check-off, only the gifts
of a loving and gracious God to receive.
No comments:
Post a Comment