I’m sitting relatively still writing; you, reading. Or are we? Writing and reading, yes. Sitting still, no.
Imperceptibly the plate of the earth’s crust on which we’re riding is sliding over the mantle. We only notice during an earthquake. (I served a congregation in Anna, Ohio’s “earthquake capital”)
The earth is spinning on its axis at about 10,000 miles an hour at our latitude: Day/night; and wobbling another 6,600 miles a year: Seasons.
More: We’re orbiting our star – give or take another 87,999,998 miles every 365 days, five hours and a few minutes.
Add more speed. Our star and its cluster of planets are in a galaxy orbiting its own axis. Our galaxy and others are speeding out into space from a center where all this matter and energy had become so concentrated it exploded.
Shall we pass around the Dramamine?
That’s the stuff of science. We’ve been able to observe “what” is happening. We’ve worked out some of the “hows”. There remain the “whos” and the “whys”.
After many billions of trips around the sun, life coalesced on the planet. In the past few hundreds of thousands of years, what became recognizable as humans, who we are, came into being. We gained self-awareness and began trying to figure out why we are and what it’s all about.
Six thousand and some orbits ago, some of us discovered that all the matter and energy, all the natural processes that were or might be, were the creation of a single, identifiable being who has a personality. We refer to this being as “God”. Apparently we were developed so that God wouldn’t feel so alone in the universe.
And 2,020 orbits ago, some of us detected God’s presence among us. Him we called Jesus.
The “why”, the message (good news, it turns out) was that God’s unconditional good will, God’s love and support were with us humans. Our purpose was to take care of each other and the planet on which we exist.
Power and authority are God’s, not ours. We didn’t like that so we killed Jesus. He didn’t stay dead. He forgave us, reiterated the mission, and dropped out of apparent sight for the time being. He did promise to reappear.
Four hundred ninety nine orbits ago this past Monday, some of us asserted that it seemed way, too easy for people to forget the mission on which we are sent, and substitute our will for God’s – that the gathering of God’s people needed constant reforming.
We speed forward. The larger and more complex the universe – the cosmic one and our national, local and personal ones – the larger and more powerful the God who creates and sustains it.
We speed forward, secure in God’s good will, His grace. Hang on!
Pastor Doug Campbell is retired from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and is a member of Faith, Wilmington. He retired from Peace, Hillsboro and has served interim pastorates in Cincinnati, Lebanon and Beavercreek as well as supplying pulpits in the Southern Ohio Synod, ELCA.
