(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Average Potatoes, originally shared on October 5, 2020. It was the fifty-third video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Would you change the world, if you could, to
be more like your vision of what it should be? I wouldn’t. Today we’re going to
give you some ideas for how the world is changed and how you can be a part of
it.
Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead were having dinner
with their three tater tots. Toward the end of the meal, one of the tater tots
tapped her glass with a dinner knife and said, “Excuse me. I’d like to make an
announcement. I’m getting married.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” said Mr. Potatohead.
Who’s the lucky young man?”
“Well,” she said. “He’s from Idaho!”
“Idaho?” her father said. “That’s fantastic!
Great potatoes come from Idaho. Your mother and I couldn’t be happier.”
Just then, the second tater tot taped his
glass and said, ”Well, since we’re making announcements, I too have good news
to share. I’m getting married.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, said Mrs. Potatohead.
Who’s the lucky young woman?”
“Well, the second tater tot said”, “She’s a
russet!”
“A russet!”, said his mother. “Russets are
fine potatoes, fine potatoes. Your father and I couldn’t be more pleased.”
When the hubbub had stilled, the third tater
tot tapped her glass and said, “Well, since we’re all sharing good news, I too
have an announcement to make.”
“What is it?”, Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead asked,
breathlessly.
“Well, I’m getting married,” she said.
“What? All three of our children are getting
married? What a wonderful day!”, said Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead. “Who is the
lucky young man?”
“David Muir from ABC News”, said the tater
tot.
Everyone at the table went silent. Mrs.
Potatohead bowed her head, and wept softly.
Finally, Mr. Potatohead looked up from his
plate and said, “But dear, David Muir is just a common-tater.”
Well, that’s what Sally and I do. We’re
commentators in our videos. Common-taters to reflect the word of God. Average
potatoes.
We don’t think of ourselves as preaching
sermons or leading Bible Studies. We just want to reflect and comment on the
events of this pandemic from a perspective based on the Bible and the Christian
life. We want to be witnesses to what is happening in the world and witnesses
for what we have seen and know in Jesus Christ.
*2 Corinthians
4:5-7
I don’t want to change the world to be more
like what I think the world should be. I don’t trust myself to know what is
best. I just want to point to God, who changes hearts, who makes all things
new, who makes of us a new creation, and who brings the Kingdom of God through
us, who transforms the world and everything that is in it.
I’m just an earthen jar. Useful, sometimes,
but fragile. Well aware that I could be wrong. I could be, but I don’t think
so. Otherwise I wouldn’t believe what I believe. 😊
Robert Fulghum, in his book It Was On
Fire When I Lay Down On It, told the story of a Greek philosopher, whose
lecture he had attended, who answered his question on the meaning of life with
his story about living on a Greek island during the Nazi occupation of World
War II.
One day, he came upon a wrecked German
motorcycle. He picked up the broken pieces of the rearview mirror and, unable
to put them together, kept the largest piece, which he filed down to a disc with
a stone.
He played a game with that mirror, seeing
what deep pocket of darkness he could illuminate by reflecting light into it.
He still had that mirror in his wallet, he
said. He believed that it was the key to the meaning of life: that he was not
the light or the source of the light, but that he could be a reflector of the
light, bring light into the dark places of life. He didn’t have the whole
mirror, but he had a part of it, and could do what he could with what he had.
Here’s a link to the original story:
https://www.treatment-centers.net/blog/what-is-the-meaning-of-life
We are not the light, but we can be
reflectors of the light. We don’t have all the answers, but we can be
witnesses, commentators, on what we do have.
*I Corinthians
13:2
That’s all we can do. To know that we are
not perfect, but that God is perfect. That we are not the Savior, but that we
can reflectors of the Savior.
What do you think? The world is not what
it’s supposed to be. How can it best be changed?
We are at a point in the pandemic when LA County
is seeing its lowest average number of hospitalizations for the COVID-19 virus,
at a time when more than 4 million acres of land have burned in California, when
the President of the United States is in the hospital with COVID -19, when
dozens of senior administration officials have tested positive for the virus,
and when Armenia is again being threatened and attacked.
How do we respond? By being commentators,
witnesses to the light of God, Jesus Christ.
How is the world changed? We pray, “Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Then we act in accord with God’s will, as
the Holy Spirit gives us the eyes to see what God has equipped and called us to
do in order to accomplish God’s justice, that is, God’s will.
Martin Luther, explaining the meaning of The
Lord’s Prayer, wrote regarding “thy will be done”:
“What does this mean? The good and gracious will of God is done even without our
prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.
How is God’s will
done? God’s will is
done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the
world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let
His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and
faith until we die.
This is His good and
gracious will.”
This is how the world is changed. By average
potatoes, common-taters, witnesses to the great acts of God. Be God’s people
who have been formed and nourished by streams of living water, the power and
person of the Holy Spirit, God’s ongoing presence for good in the world.
Not my will, but God’s will alone be done.
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