Dependency

In the real world we live in a forest of differences – in just about everything.  Most of the differences don’t make any difference unless persons make them so.  It has always been so.  If the differences seem large enough to upset society and threaten peace in a community or world, it is presumed to be bad – so to be managed, perhaps eradicated (warfare) or diluted (put down) in some way.  Media in its various forms are looking for stories, for drama, for newness, for controversy and advance those stories, sometimes in extravagant language.  Preferences and prejudices emerge, illusions are created, exaggerated or underplayed offering differences.  It isn’t long before the matter at hand is so poorly treated that even the movers and analysts are using words that have become known as verbal garbage.  What was once food for thought and conduct has become spoiled, and may be garbage for disposal.  There may be a beginning again with amendment of the former, a new pattern approved, or, commonly a dragging along with some out-of-date program, a volley of negatives, and a failure of objectives or ideals with losses and distortions such as: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Or, Democracy has grown weak: politics have taken over.  A type of fatalism emerges.  In government we play games with politics, with presentations in the media, with partisanship, with blaming and shaming.  The nation, at this writing in November, 2014, has recently closed a national election that drew so small a percentage of voters to the polls that some analysts wonder if those that did go were heavily representative of fringe groups.  What is the desire of the electorate?  We don’t really know, having so little evidence of the conclusions of the pundits, many of whom tend to follow analysis based on premeditated opinions which they feel have not been addressed.

We are meant to be engaged – engaged with ourselves, our families, our communities, our countries – and the world.  The engagement is presumed to be in affirmative ways which requires something of us, and if rightly involved will make a better context being addressed, even making us better individuals in the achievement.  I am taken with the prophecies of Isaiah.  He uses his own family as analogy about how God works – even noting the prediction of the Messiah (Jesus) in the parable.  In Chapter 44 he was very specific about how God works, and that God will work for solutions.  His example is Jerusalem’s future.  Jerusalem was (and is) important to Israel.  It will come upon bad days, but God will rescue Jerusalem.  Cyrus will, under God, come forward, and Israel returned to the city for rebuilding, even of the Temple.  Long after Isaiah was deceased Israel did return.  The city and the Temple were rebuilt.  The story appears in Scripture.  The implication is that God will use Jerusalem and the Temple as signs of his care – of his power and loving kindness.  (Isaiah 44:24-28)  In that constant concern he is the ransomer, a promise of redemption to all mankind who will join him in the ministry of the Lord.  In the story of fulfillment told by Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther the true believer joins the affirmations of God as did the characters of the books related to the faithful remnant – and prays about negative enemies – like Sanballat.  (Nehemiah 4)

Christianity is observed in two large biblical contexts.  One is human (nature) in which God participates when mankind chooses the context in which he is willing and ready to participate.  It is summarized in the biblical statement that righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.  Perhaps we find it easier to grasp the idea that righteousness is right (truth and correctness).  God is the only qualified person to define all truth – values and rights.  He believes in equal rights, every person is his favorite in the order of creation.  We are called to sustain that clear objective for every person we can serve.  It is meant to be done in love, safety and peace.  It lasts as long as there are poor and children to be served, sick to be healed, handicapped to be lifted, decency to be held among the populations – so the story moves along. The second part of the story is more important than the first – that God be seen as ransomer.  (Note the New English Bible (NEB) or (NIV) for current language.)  God is interested in our mortal sojourn, but has spiritual awards to make for those who choose to submit to the requirements.  Happily for us he takes on the responsibility to make himself known to us in Jesus Christ and guides his children to life – life that can be managed in any society even with the social limitations placed on it.