The world is going to hell in a hand-basket. I’m not really even sure what they are talking about when they say a “hand-basket.” I guess its just something you carry stuff in, but nonetheless, what kind of attitude is this to promote ill-will and harshness on a world of seeming hopeless futures. I guess Christians are guilty to. Guilty because we have obsessed ourselves with Raptures and Apocalypses and Millenniums and Anti-Christ’s. We are obsessed with End-Time Left-Behind marketing schemes to the degree that we get so lost in the ideas that have scarce witness in the text of the Christian Canon. We have it all figured out, we have our charts and interactive CD-ROMS, we have suspects and villains of hellish-birth, we have credit cards for marks that are implanted in our skin so that we become the devils if we drink in the modern economic market, but we have forgotten one thing. The kingdom of God is caring for the poor and the providing justice for the fatherless and widows. The kingdom of God is in works of righteousness and justice not in stashing emergency supplies and 5-Gallon buckets of dried meat just in case. Evacuating culture seems to be defeating the purpose for which Christ came. Does it not? Did not Christ pray that God not take us out of the world but that we would remain in the world? Why are we obsessed with our other-world eschatologies? Is not eschatology confirmation that Christ is interested in this world at this point in time? Is the promise of Christs coming something to fear and wish escape from the possible onslaught of destructive nuclear events? Christians are guilty, guilty of giving up, guilty of wishing for a seven year tribulation and a rapture prior to it, we are guilty of looking for that rather than living in light of the kingdom of Christ that was introduced during Christs early ministry. We teach our churches to prepare ourselves in case we somehow miss the mysterious rapture, except in stead we should be teaching how to love a world of slave girls who are “traded” internationally for sexual favor, instead we should be standing and exhausting all possibilities of establishing peace in North Africa, instead we should be caring for the endemic of HIV that has plagued much of Africa. What about the issues in America? Lust for Power… Materialism… Corrupt Politicians and Government leaders… unconverted Spiritual leaders who prey on the fragile minds of uniformed hearers? What is it to care for the return of Christ? To care for the return of Christ it to care for the now, not the yet to come! The world is going to hell in a hand-basket and we sit back and read Left Behind. That’s disgusting to me. How can we bring the peace of Christ to our world now? Though incomplete and never perfect, we can come to grips with the lost world, but we must not forsake our dear fellow humans whose lives are stripped of everything from their clothes to their dignity. I will be the first to admit may failure. I have longed to be taken out of this world for its filth and disappointment. I am guilty. Im so glad Christ, the perfection of all perfection, did not choose to leave when he arrived.
I was sitting in a coffee shop on Sunday, and a young lady sat next to me on the sofa. The place was packed and that was the only other seat open. She asked if she could sit and I smiled and nodded. I continued my business, trying to give the impression that it was no big deal that this cute girl just sat next to me. It wasn't a big deal, after all it happens every day. Right... Though it appeared to be the case, that was not the case. For about an hour or so I could not focus on what I was doing. I was constantly thinking about what I will say in order to strike up a conversation, find out her "status", and make a decision whether to ask her out or not. So I sat nervously thinking about what to say. It wasn't that hard, because she was feverishly grading what appeared to be homework, as if she was a teacher. So at a natural transition in my business I asked, "Are you a teacher?" That was that. She was kind and responded as if not to be bothered by my questi