in his book God Bless You, Mr Rosewater , kurt vonnegut tells the story of a millionaire philanthropist who, in his quest for the meaning of life, decides to spend his life and the family fortune on society’s throwaways at the risk of losing control of the foundation’s millions upon being proven insane for doing so. in the book, vonnegut (ever the idealist cynic) makes some wry observations about the way people deal with wealth…
Think about the silly ways money gets passed around now,
and then think up better ways. (Kurt Vonnegut Jr)
on january 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake tore through the ‘poorest country in the western hemisphere.’
I found myself journaling...
O God, what is our role in the relief of this disaster?
the answer was given in psalm 20, my devotions for the day.
this psalm is a song of blessing akin to something that might have been traditionally sung in an irish pub down the road. within the lyric are many 'fare-thee-wells', but it was the first couple lines that had a specific word for me, for us. i mean, if we are comfortable referring to the world as a global village, then we need to accept the responsibility that goes with the metaphor: we need to take care of the people in our village.
in your time of trouble, may the Lord answer
sending help from his sanctuary (psa20.1-2)
the word for 'help' is 'ezer.
it is a noun meaning succour/aid/support/relief.
relief from his sanctuary
in other words, the way God chooses to bring help and relief is to provide some within his sanctuary, his place of solace, refuge and protection, having both means and opportunity to actively and faithfully distribute his grace and mercy to those in need
and yet, in sanctuary, we are so accustomed to be blessed and protected that we can frivolously throw the blessings out into the street on folly and still sleep at night. this is the danger of being entrusted with so much, i suppose.
in Jesus' early ministry days following his baptism and temptation in the wilderness, we find the Lord celebrating at a wedding. someone has made a grave error of calculation, and the party grinds to a halt as the announcement is made that the celebration is over as they are all out of wine. Jesus' mother motivates her boy the way only a mother can, and he gets up, protesting the whole time, goes over to where the big jars for ceremonial washing are standing and promptly changes them into an award-winning chardonnay.
important to note: it isn’t that the water is multiplied- Jesus does plenty of multiplication on other occasions- it’s that it is transformed from
- something common to something miraculous
- something meaningless to something meaningful
- something of social utility to something of social gravity…
perhaps God intends to do the same with the cash that we keep making and keep throwing away on ridiculous luxury. we know, after all, that the interest against the loan we have taken out to pay for contentment so gravely outweighs the principle itself that we'll never be truly free of the debt. what if we were to take the common currency of commerce and let Jesus have a go at it?
relief is a God thing. God wants to provide it for people and he wants to use the generosity that he has placed in people to be its distribution system. God wants to use his church- his people today- to be part of this action.
*note: this post was drawn from a talk that i gave the week following the earthquake in haiti. at that time, the board of northview community church agreed to simply give that morning's entire offering to the relief effort, releasing our human grip on the cash that God has entrusted to our care in faith. the good people of our local church responded generously and, with matching from the CIDA, a goodly sum was sent to haiti. we have chosen to partner with World Relief and would invite anyone who has not yet done so to participate in the haiti earthquake relief effort by giving generously to the cause.
www.worldrelief.org
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