Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Isaiah 42:5 Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it:
Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
“The figure of Christ, as surely as it is and remains one and the same, wants to assume form in real people, and that means in quite different ways. Christ does not abolish human reality in favor of an idea that demands realization against everything that is real.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You, pg. 176)
Christians are sometimes accused of being out of touch with the ‘real’ world, of living in a sort of ‘la la land,’ totally divorced from the reality of society and technology. From the very beginning of our faith, the earliest days of our ancestors-in-the-faith, that has been the case. At first reading, the author of Hebrews doesn’t bolster our arguments against such accusations. “… assurance of things hoped for . . . conviction of things not seen”!!!
Does our faith, as Bonhoeffer insist, firmly ground us in reality? Or, does our faith condemn us to eternally being out of step with the world in which we live? And, just for fun and confusion, what is reality?
“Steven Wright is the comedian who said, ‘I came home and found everything in my house had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica. I couldn’t believe my eyes.’ This quote brilliantly captures the absurdity and irony of life.” (Bing search) The Matrix film franchise is predicated on the idea of our living in a virtual world with the real world being something vastly different from the daily life experienced by everyone. Much of the buzz around AI and virtual reality is the potential for something like The Matrix.
How does all of this relate to Christianity? As Christians, are we firmly grounded in reality and the world all around us? Christians everywhere pray the Lord’s Prayer. Is the idea of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven imaginable in the ‘real’ world? The faith written about by the author of Hebrews seems to imply some separation from the secular world of economics and the world of political power. Things hoped for and things unseen are not part of the reality of the physical world . . . or, are they?
People who accuse Christians of not living in the real world have obviously either not read Genesis 1:1 or cannot understand its implications. God created Creation. All of it. Such accusations fall flat in the reality of the Incarnation and the reason for it. John both understood that reality and neatly captured it in 3:16-17. Not only did God love Creation, God loved Creation enough to send the Christ to save a Creation that was dangerously headed down the wrong path.
Bonhoeffer was correct, “Christ does not abolish human reality in favor of an idea that demands realization against everything that is real.” Christianity demands realization in everything that is real. Jesus is explicit in the Great Commission, “Matthew 28:19 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, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." How could Christians do so without being firmly grounded in the real world all around us?
It is the lack of faith that is truly divorced from reality. God is revealed in God’s Creation. God is revealed in Jesus, the Christ. What could be more real than the love of our Creator God who loved us enough to come down here to us to show us the way back home into relationship with our Creator?
Stay safe, have faith, trust God,
Pastor Ray