Who Will Guide Us?
In the Time of the Great Dying
We need a guide. We need someone to guide us. We need someone who has a sense of this strange time to show us the way. The Psalmist wrote, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." We are walking deeper into the valley of the shadow of death, and we are afraid. We lack the faith of the Psalmist, and so we are afraid to follow him. Yet, there is no way back.
I need not elaborate on the shadows that darken the valley we are entering. We are in the time of the Great Dying. Each day forty thousand children die, from diseases related to poverty. That is over fourteen million a year! In addition, by the end of this century another 10 million children will die from AIDS-related illnesses, and there are millions of more deaths due to warfare and oppression. An elderly woman from a small village in Uganda told one Western visitor, "From Friday to Sunday we go to funerals. We work on Monday to pay for the burial cloth, then go to another funeral on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday we work. On Friday it starts all over again." The time of the Great Dying has begun.
It is not only humans who are dying in greater numbers, but whole species. Evolution has reversed. In our time, for every species created one million species are destroyed. This is unprecedented in the geological record! Even when the dinosaurs were dying out, the ratio of extinction to creation was not what it is today. Not only are we, the human species, dying in ever greater numbers, but we are taking with us the animal and plant species.
Of
course, these facts are common knowledge and are often recited to inspire us to
work to solve these problems. However, these facts alone do not move us to
action. Perhaps we are numbed by the enormity of the suffering, or simply feel
incapable of making any difference. Perhaps we sense deep down, that the
problems of our time have no solutions. Perhaps we simply have lost our faith
and no longer trust that the Power of love will win out in the universe.
Today we are walking into the dark shadows of the valley of death. Who can we turn to for guidance? Who can help us face the Great Dying that is overwhelming us?
Job
Might Job be our guide? Job suffered terribly. His body was afflicted, his family was destroyed, and his wealth was taken from him. At first he suffered in silence, and then he cursed God. Friends urged him to retract his curse. They argued that because God is just, Job's suffering must be deserved in some sense. Job might have unintentionally committed wrongs, or perhaps he was suffering for the sins of his fathers. However, Job refused to relent, until God confronted him "out of the whirlwind" and challenged him to explain how the foundation of the earth was laid and its measurements determined, who separated it from the seas, and how life began. "Have you commanded the morning since your days began," God thunders, "and caused the dark to know its place?"
God even taunts Job with his obvious impotence: "Is the wild ox willing to serve you?" Is it "by your wisdom that the hawk soars" and "the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?" Then God says to Job: "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." When Job remains silent, God challenges him: "Will you condemn me that you may be justified?" With this, Job relents of his rebellion, despises himself, and does penance before God.
Is Job to be our guide to this time of great
dying? We identify with Job, because we feel like innocent victims of the events
that assail us. However, one might well argue that we are not as innocent as
Job was. We participate in and benefit from the culture that is primarily
responsible for the destruction of our earth and its life. The poverty, which so
oppresses most of the people of the world, is largely a result of colonization
and subsequent international economic relationships. Of course, we may not be
doing anything directly to oppress anyone, but our affluence is subsidized by
the poor of the world. We can hardly claim the innocence of Job.
Moreover, the God who confronts Job is not the kind of God we think about or want to believe in. The God of Job is angry and judgmental, not loving and forgiving. We know that we have sinned, if by sin we mean being self-centered and lacking in compassion for others whose needs are greater than our own. But we want, and expect, to be forgiven, by a God of love. We reject the notion of divine judgment.
We even resent the archaic legal phrase, "acts of God," which acknowledges that natural disasters are not the responsibility of humans. However, this language may no longer be accurate, because although humans do not control what is happening to the environment of the earth, clearly it is human activity that has caused at least some of the distress and devastation. We cannot deny human responsibility for some of the causes of the so-called "acts of God" in our time. Thus, our situation is different than Job's. The God who challenged Job was worshipped as Creator and Sustainer of the universe. However, today we act as though the earth is merely ours to use as we please.
Yet perhaps Job can guide us at least part of the way through our dark valley. When he is confronted by the power of God, Job repents of his arrogance and his self-righteousness. As we are confronted by the dying of our earth community, and by the realization that we are not in control of creation, perhaps we too will repent.
Jeremiah
Might Jeremiah be our guide? In the latter part of the seventh century B.C.E., Jeremiah received a call to be God's prophet and to tell his people that their coming defeat and death at the hands of the conquering Babylonians was the will of God. Like the other prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, Jeremiah asserts that the people have broken their covenant with God. They must therefore pay for their infidelity.
Jeremiah knows that not every individual has committed the sins that he condemns in the name of the Lord, and he laments the destruction of his people and their land. However, there is no escape, because the covenant between God and the people has been broken. Thus the people will suffer, those who are less guilty with those who bear the greatest guilt. The swords of the Babylonians will not distinguish between them.
At
first glance, the message of Jeremiah seems much more relevant than that of Job.
In the ecological collapse of our time, the suffering will not be meted out to
individuals on the basis of some system of merit. All of us will suffer,
although the poor will continue to suffer more. Furthermore, if we accept that
we are responsible to care for the earth and its life, then we have broken this
covenant in much the way that the people of ancient Israel broke their covenant
with God. We have misused the gifts of life, and now the Power of life will
exact retribution.
Again, we resist this notion of a punishing God. Moreover, if there is to be a divine judgment, we expect to be judged individually. After all, we are not to blame for the problems of our time. We are good people. We would do the right things, if we had the power. Wouldn't we?
Jeremiah has a word of hope for his people. Through his prophecies, God says that a time is coming when the law will be written on the hearts of the people, so that all will know the Lord, who will forgive them for their iniquity. Jeremiah proclaims a time of renewal and restoration, in which the guidance of God is made more personal within the hearts of those who would seek to be faithful. Perhaps then, if we heed Jeremiah, we may find our guide within ourselves, in the deep murmuring of our hearts.
Jesus
Might Jesus be our guide in the time of the Great Dying? His faith was tested on the cross, and we call that day "Good Friday" because we affirm that somehow in that bad event some good was done. The one who seemed most like God, and thus came to be known as the Son of God, suffered a shameful and unjust death. Yet remained faithful. Jesus not only showed us how to face death with courage but taught that we all need to "die" to our selfish striving in order to live. He called us to face the fear of death in our lives, so that we might live our lives to the full, without fear. In his ministry and teachings and death, he showed us that this could be done. Death was not the end of his faith, or of him, for he lives on in us, in the spirit of truth that can guide us, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.
The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy was so inspired by
the story of Jesus that he gave his wealth away and proclaimed a gospel of
nonviolence. Mahtma Gandhi was moved by Tolstoy's writings and by the teachings
of Jesus on loving our enemies, and he found the same truth expressed in the
wisdom of his own tradition. His nonviolent movement for political independence
and reconciliation in India, inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United
States, and the nonviolent movements in Eastern Europe in the have drawn
strength from Gandhi and King.
Can we then be guided by Jesus? Can we die to our narrow pursuits and embrace
the commitment to
live
without violence? Can we discover within ourselves that faith which will allow
us to love our enemies, to cherish the earth and its wondrous life, and to
resist development that degrades it? Can we find hope and joy in this moment,
can we celebrate the earth community in which we live and move and have our
being, can we trust again in God?
Job challenges God, but when he realizes his lack of power over the forces of life, he repents. Jeremiah confronts his people with God's judgment and opens their hearts. Jesus calls us to repent and fills our hearts, so that we might respond. Job, Jeremiah and Jesus can be our guides through this valley of dark shadows, if we will follow.
Hope
In the time of the Great Dying we are called, as always, to do what we can for our neighbors in need, to alleviate their suffering and, if possible, to prevent it. Moreover, we are responsible for the earth and for living ecologically in harmony with it. However, the great question of our time may not be whether we have the knowledge to solve our problems, but whether we have the spirit to survive them.
I suggest to you that we will not survive, unless
we turn to the wisdom of Job and Jeremiah and 
Jesus,
and to others who have faced death and despair and discovered faith. If we rely
only on science and technology to save us from the desolation that confronts us
at every turn, we will find our faith too weak to endure the suffering of our
time. Our faith must be rooted in the community of the faithful, the communion
of those throughout history who have walked through the valley of the shadow of
death and found they were not alone.
Out of this faith, may well come the courage to live in ways that will contribute to the solving of the problems that beset the peoples of our world. Out of this dying to our self-centered existence, may come commitments to those around us whose needs are greater than our own. Out of this repentance, may come a new joy in life and a delight in nature that will endure.
9 September 1991
