Thought for Today
Genesis 10:25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.
Genesis 11:9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Matthew 10:35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
Mark 3:25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
The theme in These Days this week has been “God’s Bigger Picture.” This morning, my thoughts have turned to division. We live in a very fractured, divided world. Maybe, since humanity has been fractured for so long, I should refer to the whole issue as ‘long division.’ I distinctly remember my older brother warning me when we were young about the terrors of long division. How impossibly hard long division would prove to be for me. Somehow, I coped, I survived, I even progressed further in mathematics beyond long division.
Is it God’s bigger picture for God’s children to be divided? To be ‘long’ divided? Is our fractured world with its multiplicity of nations, power blocs, economic systems, religions, etc., etc., etc. an integral part of God’s bigger picture?
Maybe like me, you remember from a Sunday School lesson long ago the story of the Tower of Babel. Whether ancient history long lost in the dusty annuls of the past or metaphorical poetry, it is obvious that our ancestors-in-the-faith themselves lived in a fractured, divided world. Different languages, different nations, different kings and emperors, all different. Is it God’s bigger picture for God’s children to be divided? We truly are divided!
At some point in my primary education I took a course in American History and learned about the famous rallying cry, “United we stand, divided we fall.” “Patrick Henry used the phrase in his last public speech, given in March 1799, in which he denounced The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.” I don’t remember “The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions,” but I do remember Patrick Henry and that phrase. And, I remember those words of Jesus above about a house divided.
As a Christian minister, I find it uniquely troubling that the world’s 3 monotheistic religions cannot even agree whether or not we worship the same God. For 1500+ years scholars and theologians have argued the question whether Allah and God are the same deity. I have my own opinion; but, that is not what I am focused on today.
Whether they are the same deity or not, even these 3 monotheistic religions are divided into numerous sects and denominations. There are Shia, Sunni, Wahabi and others divisions within Islam. There are Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed and other divisions within Judaism. There are Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and other divisions within Christianity. Apparently, God didn’t merely confuse the language of all the earth and scatter us abroad over the face of all the earth, God divided and subdivided humanity in almost every imaginable way.
Yesterday, in our Wednesday social group, I mentioned a book I recently read, American Nations. Its subtitle is, “A History of The Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.” We are evidently “One nation, under God . . .,” 50 different and diverse states, and 11 rival regional cultures. Greta and I grew up in 1 state, in a city on the border of 2 rival regional cultures and now live in a different state and a different rival regional culture. Is it God’s bigger picture for God’s children to be divided?
Some days I yearn for a future where all of God’s children could at least unite under a single statement of faith. Irrespective of religion, sect, denomination, nation, economic system or everything else, I dream of a world where we could all say something like, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth.” (the beginning of the Apostles’ Creed) Maybe that is part of what I pray for when I say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I do believe that is God’s bigger picture for God’s children. I do believe that is what is meant when we speak of the Kingdom of God. We just need to make it so!
Stay safe, pray for and work toward the Kingdom of God, trust God,
Pastor Ray