Sep 24 2007
playgrounds and old tires 4
I have realized that perhaps the titles of these sermon reflection posts needs some explanation. (To hear the sermons upon which I am reflecting, go here.) Many of the hippest playgrounds these days not only have tire swings and ladders, but they also have a soft squishy surface that is made from shredded tires.
My first reflection this week does not come specifically from the sermon or even the specific topic. (Although I have a few of those coming.) Rather I have a general reflection on recycling. Most recycling involves destruction. Turning an old tire into a tire swing is not very destructive, but to turn it into a play surface involves at the very least, shredding the tire into little pieces. Recycling paper involves shredding it, and soaking it in water and mixing it with chemicals and mashing it back together.
In Douglas Adams wonderful book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect describes traveling through hyperspace as “Unpleasantly like being drunk.” Aurthur dent replies, “What is so unpleasant about being drunk?” Prefect deadpans, “Ask a glass of water.”
That is funny stuff.
Back to our topic, I find myself thinking, “Recycling feels great if you are the recycler, but I doubt it feels good to the piece of paper. And in this metaphor, we are the paper, not the recycler.”
Jesus uses similar metaphors to describe our role in God’s plan to redeem us and the whole world. We must “die to ourselves and take up our cross.” He uses the image of seed that “dies” before it can grow again. Jesus says that he plans to prune all those attached to him. Paul talk a lot about our need to get the dying part over with so that we can get busy living. (Check out Romans 1 – 16 for more on this.)
In my reading, no modern author captures the role of death and sacrifice in redemption better than C.S. Lewis in the Great Divorce. The premise (for those who haven’t read it but should): A bus trip from the less-than-real world of hell has come to the outskirts of the more-than-real world of heaven and ambassadors from heaven come to urge people to give up their life in rebellion to God and instead submit and enter heaven.
I will not try to summarize the story, for there are some stories whose power is in their telling and not in their outline. This is certainly one of them. I will urge you to read it and quote a paragraph that gets to our point. I will add in brackets some things that are obvious from the context but may need explaining here.
Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on [into the kingdom of God] as it is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains [that is God's land]. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with the richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.
I cannot recommend highly enough the whole book, but this paragraph represents the climax of a my favorite section. Nothing I have or am is fit for God’s kingdom. Everything about me is weak and impure and tainted with some selfishness or petty insecurity. Even my best traits are unfit. My worst traits are downright despicable. But if I will die and be born again, God can do something with all of it.
This reality helps me to understand so much that Jesus teaches about “hating family” and taking up crosses.” If a tire wants to become a playground, it must be willing to die to its reality as tire and trust that on the far side of death, a new reality awaits.
on the walk
-Ethan
