Whom Do You Serve?

Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." - Joshua 24:15 (NRSV) {emphases added}

Spent most of last week at the annual meeting of the United Methodists in Oregon and Idaho; around 400 of us gather to hear reports, enact positions and make recommendations about issues and concerns. This year we also where electing delegates to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church which meets every four years to establish policy and procedures for the entire denomination world-wide. Along with electing this delegates we also send items to General Conference we want them the address; social issues, issues of justice, etc. As we met one area seemed to dominate the conversation, divestment of denominational funds from certain corporations who make a profit from working with the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestinian lands. The arguments were basically two; those in favor talked about justice and the rights of the Palestinians while those opposed talked about lost of income, higher costs for fund management, and working from inside a corporation to change it. For me the argument was really about people verses the institution.

I wasn’t really shocked by the positions of the two sides. They were very predictable. You can always count on one group speaking from the place of costs and fear and the other speaking from the place of morality and justice. I always side with morality and justice. But no one seemed to be speaking the word that needed to be said. As a Christian organization we have one priority. As the church we have one interest. As people of faith there is only one question that we need to answer, “Whom does this serve?” If those benefiting from some position or action are the institution and its members we are missing the mark.

You see the church, the United Methodist Church and for that matter all Abrahamic faith traditions have only one basic, overriding, and fundamental focus. It is on those outside our institutions. All our actions, our programs, our effort are supposed to be targeted outside ourselves, for the good of others. So whenever I am part of a debate about something like investments I hold up a filter and say, “Who is being served here the institution or me or my group, or is it others?” When Joshua asked the people of Israel to renew their covenant with God he asked them to decide whom it is they serve as God either the gods of the past or the gods of the land which they are entering or the God that lead them to freedom. I think the choice was really between self-serving and serving others. Worship other gods almost always meant giving something to get something for yourself. Serving God meant living life in a certain way for the betterment of all people. So in reality the question isn’t, “How much it will cost us?” The question really is, “How will this better the lives of others?”

I am shocked that the amount of interest earned, the amount management of funds will cost and the “it is better to remain a part of the corporation that is doing questionable things” argument is used by people and agencies of the church. If my pension funds earn slightly less, if they are reduced a little because of increased management costs that’s not important. What is important is how these funds are being generated and how the generation of those funds impacts others who are not a part of my institution.

I think it is time people of faith asked themselves, “Whom will I serve?” And we need to see that the real choice is between the self-serving gods of the land from which we have been set free and the God who has set us free and calls us to love and serve others. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

Dear God, help me to remain faithful the covenant I have made with you. Help me to serve you in all my decisions. If I am worried about myself more than others call me back to your will and way. Amen.

Please note that I will be on vacation the next couple of weeks and there will be no Musings.

How to Save the World Disney Style

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. Revelation 21:1 (NRSV)

Petter and I went to the movie Tomorrowland this week. We went expecting a typical summer action-adventure movie; something we would like to watch but that won’t challenge us too intellectually, theologically or philosophically. And while this movie did provide the requisite amount of action, adventure, good guys verses bad guys and saving the world plot we both found ourselves reflecting on the overall message of the movie.

It is hard to summarize the film’s plot but Noah Berlatsky in his review on the QUARTZ website http://qz.com/418227/tomorrowland-tries-to-tackle-hollywoods-biggest-cliche-how-do-you-actually-save-the-future/

 writes: The plot is farcically convoluted, but in broad outline, a group of elite geniuses have created an extra-dimensional city from which they can view the future. They realize that the earth is going to destroy itself through a heterogeneous mixture of war and environmental destruction, and it’s up to genius inventor Frank (George Clooney), young genius inventor in embryo Casey (Britt Robertson), and the robot girl Athena (Raffey Cassidy) to prevent catastrophe.

Berlatsky goes on to summarize how the movie would have humankind prevent catastrophe: So how does preventing catastrophe work, exactly? The film offers three somewhat contradictory, if familiar, answers. The first is the aforementioned standby: blowing up the bad guys…Tomorrowland is, to its credit, unusually forthright in acknowledging that shooting a robot is not really a solution to global warming. “It isn’t hard to knock down a big evil building,” Frank declares. “What is hard is figuring out what to build in its place.”…And here’s where another Hollywood (and Disney) trope comes in: namely optimism. Casey is, naturally, a “Special One” destined to save the earth—and her special superability is hope. The real source of change, the film argues, is not action, but the faith in action…the third way to change the future according to Tomorrowland is through gizmos, or technology. Inventions and new tech are presented as part of a pragmatic solution—Casey is going to “fix the world” because she “understands how things work.” Averting the apocalypse is an engineering problem, different in scale, but not in kind, from fixing kinks in the jetpack.

Now Berlatsky’s review is that this movie a flop, that it does nothing new and that the solutions to the catastrophe are not really what the movie presents. This is where I think the movie actually does its best work. The three solutions mentioned above might actually be the real solutions to our problems. Ok I don’t like violence as a solution but like it or not, some of the bad guys will need to be removed from power in order for change to happen and as history has taught us people in power do not usually willingly hand it over. And the movie gets it right that destruction isn’t the end, it’s what you put in its place that will save us; anarchy never works long term. But it is the other two solutions that I think offer us a way forward into survival.

Optimism, hope, faith in action these are necessary elements in any recipe for change. You cannot expect meaningful, lasting change to come if there isn’t a healthy degree of optimism that change will save us. I believe that without a firm belief in what might be you cannot envision a better world and without that vision you cannot change things. One of Walt Disney’s most famous quotes says is best: “If you can dream it, you can do it!” In order to overcome catastrophe you have to have a pretty good idea of what you want to see so that you can make it happen. Faith in action is the only thing that will bring the change that is needed, as Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

And finally technology as a part of the solution is a must. Averting the apocalypse is at least in part an engineering problem because a lot of what ails our world has to do with what we have created, how we have engaged creation, and with how we can find workable solutions to our very real problems. For example, growing food to get maximum yield will mean engineering irrigation systems that get the water to where it is needed with the least amount of loss. It will mean engineering harvest equipment that has the lowest impact on the earth. It will mean engineering delivery systems that are sustainable. And what goes for agriculture goes for all other areas. Technology has been responsible for how we’ve gotten into this mess and it can and will help provide a way out.

The world is a mess but through having the right people in leadership, having hope and putting your faith that tomorrow can be better than today into action, and making sure that research and experimentation are funded and happening to discover ways to improve our situation then there is hope for the future.

Dear God, help me to have faith, to be optimistic, to put my faith into action. Help me to lead in ways that bring about healthy change. Help me to advocate for research and experimentation so that our best minds can be engaged in finding solutions to our problems. Help us use the gifts you have given us to create a new earth.  Amen.