St. Paul taught us we're a household, a Temple. Jesus described his followers as brothers and sisters. We talk a lot about the "human family." And if you look at pictures taken from the moon, our earth looks so tiny, like one spherical house.
I spent this morning at a clergy orders gathering for our conference. The focus of our time together was the HIV/AIDS crisis we are facing in the world. As the speaker talked about individuals in sub-saharan Africa who are dying or orphaned because of the disease, as he told stories of men and women from the United States to Haiti to Thailand to Zimbabwe, I began to think about the world as one big house.
Think about it. God has really given us one big house, with lots of rooms in it. In my house, three people live. We have a kitchen where the food is, a bathroom with clean water to bath in, bedrooms with clothing and beds. One of our rooms does the duty of an office, a place to think and work. There's a medicine cabinet, too, where if I'm sick I can find something to help me heal. Everything we need to survive is somewhere in the house, and we all share it. Everything in the house belongs to all of us, though we all have our own space.
It's so simple, isn't it? God has given us everything we need as a human family to survive and thrive. In one room (part of the world), the land produces crops to feed us. In other rooms, there is plenty of fresh water to quench our thirst and keep us healthy. In other areas, we find offices full of people smart enough to figure out how to enable us as a family to share what's in one room with people whose bedroom is down the hall. All over the whole house, we find things we all need to share.
Perhaps I'm thinking too simply. Perhaps the earth and its people shouldn't be thought of as a home, a family. Maybe God didn't expect us to share, but rather to hoard our belongings like selfish brooding kids who just want their world to be their own bedroom, and never mind anyone else in the house. Maybe finding out how to get things from one room to another is too complicated, too.
Maybe. But then I wonder why the Scriptures talk the way they do, if I'm wrong. What do you think?
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1 comment:
Kristen, I thought it looked like you were drifting off during the presentation. You were mentally house hunting! By the way I like your idea of sharing, and I think everyone else should do so. ( :) [A bald man smiling!]
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