GRACE IN THE
WILDERNESS
Thus
says the LORD:
The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
the LORD appeared to him from far away.
Jer 31:2–3a
Our
U.S. culture, our society, can be a wilderness: the university, the government, business, malls and restaurants,
highways, sports, the media: journals and newspapers/radio/television/the
Internet ...
I feel lost in this wilderness.
The sword in the wilderness
carries more weight: I can die from greed, from anxiety, from fear, from
loneliness. Born in 1931, I continually
glance expectantly at my IRA…hoping for it to swell. Anxieties and fears
multiply and are more painful as one faces them alone.
Once, when I faced
a particularly lonely, ominous moment of fear and anxiety, and wailed at being
alone in the struggle, my dear priest, Diane, challenged me: “Perhaps you are
looking for help and companionship in the wrong places, Jane. Perhaps you must
find God.”
Grace in the
wilderness!
Walter Brueggemann
suggests that God redefined the
wilderness when manna (man hu? What’s
that?) fell daily from the sky
to feed the wandering, hungry people of Israel. Exodus 16
WB suggests that only a
magnificently generous action can redefine
our scarcity-based, consumer primed
culture.
Where is God
redefining the wilderness that is our
national culture? Watch for
it! Celebrate it! Notice the shockingly generous actions
that fly in the face of anxiety and fearful self-reliance. Like these:
I pulled my lawnmower out in
April two years ago, to mow my small patch of lawn. Three neighbours came at me
from three sides of my street: “We don’t think so!” Al, who lives across the
street from me laughed as he gently pushed my ancient lawnmower back into the
toolshed: “When I mow my lawn, I’ll come
across the street to mow yours.”
Tom and Kerry conceded that Al had won the day.
Grace in the
wilderness – redefining the place!
My friend Rita
tells the story of her ninety-year old husband Dave whom she could not find
early one morning. When he finally appeared, she asked: “Where have you
been?”
“Oh, honey,
I thought I had told you. An old man needed a ride to the station so I picked
him up at his house and drove him to the train.”
Grace in the
wilderness – redefining the place!
A Conference
of United States military medical doctors from all services: Army, Navy, Marine
Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard – all – are considering how to serve their
patients and teach their peers more efficiently. They have invited the Dean of the Medical School of the
Catholic University of Chile to offer
the keynote address to the 2014 conference because of his skill, knowledge and
experience as a medical doctor and educator using dialogue.
Grace in the wilderness – redefining the place: no north, no south…just
us on a journey to the common good.
Nelson Mandela and his team heard the barred gates of Robbins Island
slam on them as they faced a long prison term – punishment for their search for
freedom. Mandela gathered his
friends around him to offer one imperative: Our
first agenda is to learn to speak and understand Afrikaans. We must communicate
with our jailors.
Unbelievable grace in the wilderness – redefining the place – even
Robbins Island!
We are the means of this grace in the wilderness for and to one another.
The grace is from God. We are the universal UPS delivery service, built to use
our fertile imagination and courageous hearts to redefine the wilderness as neigborhood,
as did Mandela and Dave and Al and the military medical doctors. Consider recent actions you have seen where a courageous man or woman was
redefining the place; changing our wilderness culture into a warm, caring neighborhood.
