Symbolism

Okay, I'm back to blogging. I'm not quite sure how it slipped to being a week. I was going to make a nice post about recent neighborly mischief I've been up to and my thoughts on how it models the idea of the church as a body. However, I'm tired, so here's a quote I read this week.

"With hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a miniature representation of our spiritual reality. We want to see ourselves as the heroes of the hour. But spiritually, our predicament is parallel to the armed gangs roaming the streets. Whatever initial mercy we may feel for these people quickly fades as we see these hoodlums responding to loss by shooting at rescue workers, raiding supply convoys, and otherwise disrupting civil order. Spiritually, it is true that our world is a wreck around us due to other's sin. But our response to that sin - the evil and mayhem that we cause - separates us from God, making us wanted criminals.

Suppose these hoodlums become trapped on roofs as the city floods. Imagine them rescuing themselves from their predicament. It is ridiculous! Water has flooded their home. Infrastructure has been destroyed. Cars are gone; gas stations malfunctioning; electricity out. One cannot reliable feed oneself, let alone traverse the many miles to civilization on their own. We send in relief precisely because we do not expect people to be able to cope with the situation their own.

Likewise, the good news is not "Sorry about the hurricane, but if you walk to Houston you can have a new life." Nor is the message "Well, there's an evacuation point five miles south of you; if you make it we'll consider you worthy of evacuation and provide you with aid."

But the Biblical message is "If you trust the rescuer and call out to him, he will get you out." Not out from an evacuation point, but out from the roof of your flooded house. We want so badly to think that we can contribute in some way, some shape, some form to our spiritual rescue. We want to think that some gesture we make, some effort, some token on our part is a necessary part of the rescue. Yet these efforts simply distance us from God.

The wonder of the gospel is that God is at work rescuing the armed hoodlums of New Orleans who have become trapped on flooding roofs. The question is not what can we contribute to getting out, but whether we will trust that Jesus is competent to rescue us without any help from us.

I've been thinking a lot about the spiritual parallels of Katrina and Christianity. About dependence on Jesus for what I can't accomplish. About what death and destruction are and what God wants to avoid. About New Orleans destroyed and what sin destroys in my life. About how God wants to train us to be rescue workers, not hoodlums. About the wonder of his wanting to make hoodlums his children. About how I don't really get it. And that's sad.