Wednesday, April 13

Danger

Today I thought I'd share a reflection I wrote yesterday for my Religion and Arts Symposium class.  We are putting on an event with the theme "Feasting in Dangerous Places" as the capstone event of our college career, and each of us were given a part of the theme to write on.  This will be part of the theological framework to help connect the different pieces of art being presented.  My part of the theme was danger, but I wanted to focus this idea on more than the connotation we typically think of, which is physical danger.  I wanted to focus more on the Biblical idea of danger.  So, without further ado, here is my reflection.

Danger. 

It makes us think of the movies, of war zones, exploding bombs, and machine guns relentlessly banging, aiming at anything in sight.  We think of innocent civilians, ducking, covering their heads from the cracking ceiling that could cave at any moment.  We think of broken glass and used needles littering the streets or small children, shrinking day-by-day with the deep, relentless hunger that pains them.  We think of poverty, of disease, of despair.  The bleak.  The hopeless. The broken.

We sit back in on our cushy, decorative couches, watching these events roll by on our new flat-screen TV that we received for Christmas.  We feel a sadness and burden for these people, one that probably will go no further than donating a few dollars to the Red Cross.  We turn off the television and go on with our lives: our very own busy, consumer-driven, American dream.  Our minds are consumed with getting ahead and staying ahead and we can only thank God that we live in this nation that makes us feel safe and full.

What is our danger?  We have it all figured out.  After all, we have mended bodies and cured disease.

Our danger is found in the comfortable, the happy and content.  It is dangerous when we go buy the latest model of iphone and walk right past the homeless man who desperately needs a meal.  We find danger when we make big meaty dinners, only to throw away a third of what we made.  We find it when we go out and buy new clothes when our closet is stuffed to the brim.  We are in danger when we entertain a selfish dream and risk losing our souls in the process.

Consider Jesus’ words to us:
Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  What will it profit you if you gain the whole world but forfeit your life?
 

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