Tag: deaths of despair

Getting Better?

Theme Week: Review of Paul – 2 Timothy 3

Old Testament: Song of Songs Intro – see below

Poetry: Psalm 54

On their Sgt Pepper Album, the Beatles had a track called “Getting Better”.  “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time.”  It’s actually a pretty optimistic song coming in the aftermath of WWII and what was then well into the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union when everyone was waiting for nuclear war to break out (it almost did in 1962 during the Cuban Missal Crisis).

Should our expectation be that things will just keep getting better and better?  There was a theological movement that was very popular in the 19th and 20th centuries called Post-Millennialism.  The essential thrust of this teaching was that through the work of the Church and preaching of the Gospel and later the social ministries of the Church that we would usher in the Kingdom of God on earth and then Jesus would come back to rule.  This belief was in sharp contrast to much previous teaching in the early centuries of Christianity which saw this age ending with a big apocalypse and global destruction and time of great tribulation before the return of Jesus to bring about the Kingdom of God. 

Postmillennial preaching roughly corresponded with the optimism that accompanied the utopian vision of many in that same time frame.  Advances in technology and health care had many convinced that we would bring about a much better world through human effort.  For most, this all fell apart after two World Wars, the holocaust, the Cold War, and the nuclear age etc…

Where did the Apostle Paul stand in all of this?  It’s pretty clear from today’s reading in 2 Timothy 3 that Paul did not hold optimistic hopes for a world where things just keep getting better and better.  Paul gives no indication that he had a post-millennial hope of the kingdom being brought to completion solely through the efforts of the Church.  Paul warns that the “last days” would be days of difficulty: “People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,  treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (vs. 2-4).

Paul paints a dismal and disheartening picture of where he sees the human race headed.  But against this backdrop of increasing sin and brokenness, Paul presents the followers of Jesus Christ, those who will follow both his teaching and example, as standing out from this world in all its sin and brokenness, equipped by God to do good works.

As I look at the trajectory of this world during my lifetime of nearly 60 years, I see little evidence that the world is capable of creating the utopian vision that many dreamers had or that the Church’s power and influence is becoming greater and leading the world closer to the paradise envisioned in the Kingdom of God vision of the Bible.  I see Paul’s stark predictions being lived out every day.  In the US the life expectancy rate is now shrinking due to “Deaths of Despair”- deaths caused by suicide, opioid overdoses, and diseases related to alcohol abuse.  I won’t take the time to give examples of all the things that Paul warns against.  A quick scan of the social science writings over the last 50 years from Christopher Lasch’s Culture of Narcissism to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death shows that one does not even have to have a Christian worldview to detect that things are not getting better and are exactly as Paul said they would be.

As Christians how should we respond?  Do we throw in the towel and give up?  Of course not.  God is still saving people from this present evil age.  People are still turning from darkness to the light of Jesus Christ.  Even as Paul kept preaching the gospel even in the midst of his trials and persecutions, so should we.  We know how the story ends. Jesus will come and make all things new.  In the meantime, we are invited to do the work of showing people Jesus Christ.  Many will reject us and our message, but some will believe and follow.

I’m reminded of the story of the man who was out on the beach looking at thousands of starfish that had washed ashore.  He was picking them up one at a time and throwing them back into the water so that they might be saved.  A man came along and watched him throwing them one at a time.  He scoffed and said “There are probably millions of starfish on his beach and most will die.  What possible difference do you think you can make?”  The other man reached down and picked up one single starfish and returned it to the ocean.  “For that one, I made all the difference in the world.”

There are billions in the world who do not know Jesus Christ as Savior.  You and I can’t save them all today, but there is someone that you will meet today or tomorrow that you can share the hope of Christ with, and for that one, your efforts might make all the difference.

-Jeff Fletcher

Reflection Questions:

  1. As you weigh the current condition of the world against the hopes of the postmillennial and utopian dreams of the 19th and 20th century and the predictions of Paul 2000 years ago, which do you think was more accurate?  Why?
  2. What can we do to stem the Deaths of Despair?
  3. Which starfish will you pick up first?  When will you start?

Song of SoNGS Introduction

King Solomon likely wrote the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon, which is considered one of the books of poetry in the Bible.  The book is written as a series of monologues between “Beloved” (her) and “Lover” (him), with some commentary from “Friends”.

Many have suggested that Song of Solomon is an allegory, pointing to how much God loves us, and how we should love God.  I completely dismiss this interpretation.  The book clearly describes the romantic love between King Solomon and one of his wives.  (Song of Solomon 6:8 mentions that at the time of its writing, there were 60 queens and 80 concubines.)

Even though the whole book is sexually suggestive, it repeatedly warns (in 2:7, 3:5, and 8:4), “Do not arouse or awaken love before it so desires.”  – presumably warning to wait for sex until marriage.

-Steve Mattison

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Agents of Hope

Psalm 37 37

Happy Saturday!  Some of you have been walking with me on this slow and steady journey through Psalm 37.

We started reading and chewing on and praying and resting with God in these verses on Sunday.  Hopefully you have found times when you were able to delight in God.

Today we come to the final portion of this magnificent Psalm.

Once again, let us read it Lectio Divina Style: Read, Meditate, Pray, Rest in God.

1.  Read through verses 35-40 slowly, at least 3 times.

35 I have seen a wicked and ruthless man

flourishing like a luxuriant native tree,

36 but he soon passed away and was no more;

though I looked for him, he could not be found.

37 Consider the blameless, observe the upright;

a future awaits those who seek peace.

38 But all sinners will be destroyed;

there will be no future for the wicked.

39 The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;

he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

40 The Lord helps them and delivers them;

he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,

because they take refuge in him.

2.  Meditate.  Choose a word or phrase and spend some time thinking deeply about what it says and what it means.

For me, two contrasting phrases stand out and speak loudest to me.  “A future awaits those who seek peace” and “there will be no future for the wicked.”

I have spent a considerable amount of time in recent months studying the phenomena of despair and the state of depression.  Life expectancy in the United States has declined for three consecutive years.  More younger people are dying from what has been labeled “deaths of despair.”  These are deaths that result from drug addiction, alcohol related deaths and suicide.  The rate of deaths of despair is massively increasing.  Despair can kill a person.

In the story, The Inferno, Dante has the gates of hell have a sign over it that says “abandon hope all ye who enter.”  Dante wasn’t really talking about an afterlife here, but more likely a state of being.  Hell is where people find themselves when they are living without hope.  The absence of hope is despair.  When a person lives without a meaningful hope for the future it is soul destroying.  As I see it, as followers of Jesus Christ we are called to be agents of hope who are called to share that hope with a world of people who are in despair.

In a world in despair and hopelessness we bring with us a message of hope and with that, the opportunity to bring people into a state of shalom or peace.  People need not live in alienation from God, from others or from themselves.  People can be reconciled to God, to others and selves.  They can be made whole.  They can experience salvation/wholeness from God which results in healing and hope.  The Psalmist rightly says “the salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord.”  Only God can save us, heal us, make us whole and bring an end to our existential despair.

God, I want to continue to be one who lives life with a hopeful future.  I want to be one who seeks peace/shalom.  Jesus was probably thinking about this Psalm when he spoke in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God” (See Matthew 5:9).

3.  Pray.  Whatever your meditation brings up, bring that to God in prayer.  For me I pray- “God, am I living as a peacemaker?  Am I acting as an agent of your shalom/healing/wholeness/salvation in this world.  Am I living life out of the deep well of hope?  In what ways do you still want me to seek peace in my home, in my church, in my workplace, in my neighborhood and community, in my country and in this world?

4.  Rest in God.  Living as a peacemaker and an agent of hope in this divided and despair filled world can be spiritually and emotionally (as well as physically) exhausting at times.  We need to draw our strength from the deep well of God’s love and mercy.  As you prepare for whatever the day may bring you as you prepare to be a peacemaker, spend a few moments resting in God’s love.

This concludes our slow and deep reading of Psalm 37.  We have divided the 40 verse Psalm into 7 smaller sections and, within each section we have read, meditated, prayed and rested in God.  I hope that you have come to appreciate how this form of reading and praying the Bible can deeply enrich your spiritual life as you seek to serve God.  I encourage you to practice Lectio Divina prayer/scripture reading on a regular basis and note how it helps strengthen your life of prayer with God.

Pastor Jeff Fletcher