Thought for the Day

I realized that I don't seem to take time very often any more to write for fun--I love doing it, but I don't take time when things get busy, and I've decided that needs to change. So, I'm going to work on one thought a day that I post here--they will come from something I heard in class, read in a book, saw on film, or experienced in a conversation. Or it could just be a cool photo from around here that I wanted to share. Sometimes I'll quote something from a book and expand upon it, others I'll just let the quote speak for itself.

I'm reading my favorite author, Rob Bell's new book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians: a Manifesto for the Church in Exile, and already he's living up to his reputation of calling things as he sees them in a prophetic voice; calling Christians to really look at scripture and live as scripture commands--not caught up on rules, regulations, and pointing fingers at others, but practicing justice and joining together with the God of the universe to truly live lives the way we were created to live. The back cover of the book says: "There is a church in our area that recently added an addition to their building which cost more than $20 million. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. This is a book about those two numbers." My guess is that since I'm currently taking an ethics class, and reading this book for fun, many of my "thoughts for the day" coming up will center around the issue of justice, and the Christian's role in living out justice. Today's thought for the day is no exception.

On page 23 Rob is setting the stage talking about the God who hears the cry of the oppressed and acts. God doesn't sit back passively and let injustice happen; God moves on behalf of those in pain. He writes of the Israelites in Egypt: "A God who sees and hears. A God who hears the cry. The Hebrew word for cry is "sa'aq" and we find it all throughout the Bible. Sa'aq is the expression of pain, the ouch, the sound we utter when we are wounded. But sa'aq is also a question, a question that arises out of the pain of the wound. Where is justice? Did anybody see that? Who will come to my rescue? Did anybody hear that? Or am I alone here?...This is a God who always hears the cry. This is central to who God is: God always hears the cry of the oppressed...but God doesn't just hear the cry. God does something about it...God hears and something new happens. Things aren't how they were. Things change."

I can't help thinking that perhaps we are entering into a time where things might change here in America. I am not jumping on the bandwagon of the prophetic, doom and gloom, things are going to hell in a handbasket mentality that is sweeping the internet, but I can't look at what is happening around us today and not ask the question, "what is God up to?" There are millions around our country, and world, who have lived lives of oppression for so long, I wonder if God is finally going to turn the tables, act in response to the cries that have been uttered. I know many reading this have a much more "people can help themselves" mentality, but I can't ignore the reality that many of the systems we have created don't always give people the opportunity to do so. People here in America have been crying out just as the Israelites did so many years ago, and I can't help but wonder if God is beginning to move, to act, to respond to the "sa'aq" that has been rising from the cities of this land.