The 2001 Quaker Peace Roundtable:
WORKSHOP: What
Can the Bible teach Us About Peacemaking?
Ron
Mock
5. Everything is Gods
Humans tend to think of their lives as given in a different sense. That is, they assume their lives are a fixed fact
of the universe. In fact, there are many who
act as if their own birth caused the universe. If
the central event in cosmic history is our own existence, then it might be justifiable to
assume that the universe belongs to us.
The universe is Gods, not ours. The
story of the Garden of Eden is not about how the serpent steals the universe from us. No, he is trying to steal it from God. Of course,
the story goes, the serpent succeeds in part, but only in part. The Biblical story is about how God redeems the
earth, first through a covenant, and then by coming in person and dying (and
resurrecting).
We occupy the earth for a short time. During
that time, God gives us possession of it. But
we possess it as stewards for God, not as owners. What comes into my possession is no more
mine than is the desk my university gives me to use. I can no more fuss if
my personal possessions are reallocated by God than I could if the university
asked me to swap desks. In all my actions, in the use of all my things, I am
to try to act for Gods purposes.
I mentioned earlier that I understood this better when I had studied the law. Human law recognizes five fiduciary duties when
one acts for another: diligence, accounting, information, obedience, and loyalty. The same principles apply to our stewardship for
God. We are to be diligent, to always make
our best efforts. We are to hold our wealth for God, always ready to dispose of things as
God directs. We are to make ourselves
transparent before God as if we had any choice in the matter! (I suppose in this
case, the duty of information works backwards: the more transparent we make ourselves, the
more God shows us what is out of place in our lives.)
We leave our pride and personal agendas behind, and devote ourselves to
Gods purposes.
But
I am not the only steward to whom God has entrusted the earth it is not my job to
decide all its uses. Every person is equally
commissioned to be Gods steward. God
has a relationship with every other person, too there is that of God in everyone. We each need to honor the stewardship of the
other. We need to expect God to speak to and
through anyone else we might encounter. Rather
than entrench hierarchies or even meritocracies, we need to be ready to recognize
leadership and inspiration from wherever it might come.
Emergent servant leadership is the pattern God prescribed and used in Judges
Israel and among the prophets and apostles. God used shepherds, youngest sons, carpenters,
poor widows, tax collectors. We should be ready to do the same. God used Israelites,
enemies of Israel, and people Jews considered beneath their dignity to acknowledge or care
about. God gave each of them something
important to be steward over. God expects
them to come through, and gies them room to succeed or fail, and asks us to respect them
and listen to them because they are commissioned to tell us some Truth we need to hear. So we should be ready to listen.
We cannot
indulge in political polarization or dehumanization of anyone: not our neighbor, not
another ethnicity, not a political foe; not an Arab, not a Jew, not an Afrikaaner; not
Hitler, not Stalin; not Sharon, not Arafat; not Nixon, not Reagan, not Clinton. Not Bush.
The fall doomed us to repeated failure to find the ways that exist to meet
everyones needs. Suffering will happen. It
cannot be avoided. Yet the world is precious,
far beyond what we can imagine. It is still
beautiful and good; it still bears the likeness of God. It was worth enough that God
willingly shared in our sufferings in order to heal some of them and redeem us. We may need to do the same. And we are asked to do it patiently, accepting the
inevitability of suffering in a fallen world; or even joyously, in recognition of the
opportunity for redeeming a little more of the world.
There is an even happier aspect to this Biblical theme. The goodness in the world was put there for us. My children used to get tired of me telling them
to enjoy the sunset because it was put there for your enjoyment. Dont let it
go to waste! Only recently did I
realize that one could be greedy for something as immaterial as a sunset, as I am. Greed is evil, an attempt to hoard for oneself
what was meant for others. We should avoid
greed, as good stewards; but on the other hand, we should revel in the goodness of things,
also because we are good stewards. The world
was created with so much goodness in it that, even after the Fall, there is more than we
can possibly absorb. It runs through our
lives like a vast river. We can dive in, slurp it up, have the worlds goodness
running down our chins and soaking our pants, and all we have done is sipped a few
cupfulls out of an Amazon. We can never even
glimpse it all. To snub the river of Gods goodness, for whatever motive good or
grudging, is to insult and disappoint the Giver.
I am not sure that shalomic peace as we have defined it is really the ultimate in a
peaceable vision. Does it remind us to
protect and nourish the goodness of the Earth, and to revel in it? Is there some higher
standard that includes the created order, some Edenic peace still ill-defined? The Bible hints at such a thing. Or perhaps the Bible fairly sings of it, and I
have been just too tone deaf to hear it. Annie
Dillard isnt, and I think I know a few others.
Maybe I had better listen to them some more.
V. Conclusion
To the Roundtable Schedule, with Papers and Notes