Lamentations

For Lent this year I read all of Lamentations. It was horrible. I believe that's what the author was going for though, so I think my response is appropriate. Lamentations is about a lot of things, all horrible. One of them is how the people of Jerusalem were repeatedly warned to change their ways. They hadn't and now there was catastrophe all around them.

You might wonder what those people were warned about. From what I can tell they were warned to care for those less fortunate than themselves, to follow God's ways, to "seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their God." They weren't called to religious activity exactly, in fact, Isaiah warns against just that way of living, they were called to a humble way of living in the world.

Now here's the leap. We, now in the twenty-first century, are being called to do the same things, and I also believe that we are being called to be better caretakers of God's creation. We are being called back to one of the commands given to Adam and Eve. I think what's messing up the receiving of the message is that the prophets don't look like you'd expect. Some of them aren't even Christian. But I'm thinking Baalam's donkey wasn't Jewish either.

Those prophets who would have us use less energy and create less waste warn that it will be catastrophic for somebody if we don't. And how do many people respond? By arguing whether or not it's even true! I imagine that the people of Jerusalem did the same thing before the Babylonians invaded and leveled the place. At that time there were plenty of prophets that promised only good times to come. People listened to those who made them feel comfortable making the choices that they were already making. Weird how the Bible doesn't apply to us here and now, huh?

Perhaps it doesn't matter whether the prophets are right about the coming catastrophe. It's plain to me that we aren't living the way God as called us to live in respect to the creation, and the consequences of that reach far beyond global warming. I don't claim that God is going to rain down judgment on us if we don't start being more energy efficient; I'm going to claim that he won't necessarily shield us from the consequences of our choices, and that if a catastrophe does come on us or our children or grandchildren, saying that God should have sent more appropriate prophets is going to be small comfort.