How are we going to save the planet? It seems like I read an article on this every week with new advice — almost like a new dietary fad: “follow this one wacky tip to melt your belly weight and stop climate change.” The answers feel more hollow all the time, as clickbait is wont to feel.
I say the parable of the Samaritan’s kindness is a migrant story. It’s another story set very intentionally along a road, and one that very intentionally includes a foreigner. And it’s told on the heels of seventy of Jesus’s disciples’ having been sent on an empty-handed mission through their world to see where they find welcome and where they do not.
God’s healing often comes even and especially in the midst of the imperfection and messiness of our lives. It does not always come on our terms or in ways that we expect.
When we seriously read the Bible, we begin to see that our realities are just old systems, cranking out the same rivalries, competitions, winner/loser, insider/outsider narratives century after century.
“Elijah’s stellar prophetic performance is interrupted. It’s interrupted by the sound of silence and the notion that God may be all the more present when the activity stops, and we’re not so sure we can go on, than when we’re calling down fire and apparently at the top of our spiritual game.”