I'll meet you there....

Luke 13: 1-9

⁵ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”  

There is a popular and commonly accepted erroneous belief that people bring catastrophe, addictions, poor health, premature death and economic deprivation on themselves and there is no shared interdependent responsibility or culpability within wider society. This is the individualist view of culture and socio political life. The smoker brings lung cancer on himself; the drug addict inflicts economic deprivation on themselves and so on. Those of us who have made the ‘wise choices’ are spared these catastrophes. Or are we? Life controlling issues and that includes the catastrophes that come our way do have an individual component but our lives are made up of more stuff than just ourselves and our own decisions. Where and when we are born the circumstances into which we are born, brought up, the streets and schools, the hopes and hates that surround us also have a profound impact on our life experience. The bible teaches that we are: physical, social, psychological and environmental, meaning making beings. We are more than the sum of our parts; we are human beings made in the image of God and that means we are interdependent individuals in one community. All of us experience life controlling issues. Poverty and riches, homes and homelessness each present in different ways the challenge of life controlling issues. The haves and the have-nots are not separate but intimately related through the invisible ties that bind us together. The ties are often oppressive; the part of town saved from the banking crises through having wealth spread over many different assets, physical and social but the less powerful, the vulnerable the young family that lose their only decent income now lose their home and hope through the same crises. We are doing ok, we are managing so we must therefore be different from the rest of the ‘less fortunate’ but Jesus says NO!  The system that that the bible describes as the ‘powers and principalities’ or ‘the world’ holds us all in its destructive grip. Some of us might appear to be doing ok but we will all lose in the end if we do not turn around and change the way we relate to each other and live together. We are all addicts to meeting our needs our own way. We all need to turn and hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice before it too late for all of us. We need the new community that Jesus inaugurated with all its new ways of relating together.  A bit dramatic you might say? Where is the Roman Empire? It’s history; where is the temple worship and the religious rulers of Jesus time? History!  They all perished because they all put their trust in the wrong thing; themselves. It’s time to make life’s healing choices and learn to be the people God has created us to be; time is short but we can still turn and join the community that lives to serve and nurture each other; this is the life and community transforming Kingdom of God that Jesus inaugurated. I’ll meet you there!