When Lightning Strikes

Forgive me.  I’m on a rant today. Farm tractors and many other types of power equipment have a device on them called a governor.  The operator sets the speed of the machine and the governor does the job of keeping it constant even though the load varies.  The cruise control on a car is really a type of governor.  This is all fine and good until lightning strikes. I don’t know if this story is accurate but it’s been the subject of legend for decades now.  A man was driving on a rural highway on a day when thunderstorms threatened.  He was looking out at a field where a farmer on an old tractor was pulling an implement that swept straw into neat rows to be picked up later and baled.  To his horror, the driver saw lightning strike the moving tractor.  It knocked the farmer off the tractor seat and onto the ground behind the tractor, then the tractor, controlled by its governor, pulled the implement over the poor guy who had just been struck by lightning. He lived.  He survived electric shock, burns, and broken bones and was back to work in a couple of months.  His tractor and implement were found a quarter mile away, turned over in a ditch.  The governor just kept it going, albeit not in a straight line. Lightning has struck the environment of our planet, and the human race seems to be running on a governor, mindless that something drastic and energetic must be done, and soon, before a more serious catastrophe happens.  This is God’s creation and our home and, believe it or not, some religious people don’t care and they don’t care for “theological reasons.” It is the weak and sad side of Christianity that says Jesus is returning (Soon!) and will execute (take that literally) judgment on all people who have rejected him, and will take everyone else to heaven, which is somewhere else.  The earth we know will be destroyed.  This is all wrong. But some people maintain that if God is going to burn the earth up anyway, what’s the point in trying to save it?  In fact, some of these folks hold to the unbelievable notion that we’re doing our part to hasten the day of judgment when we pollute and smother the planet! This ancient belief, which may date as far back as the second or third century, has developed into the destructive, egotistical, self-righteous preaching we sometimes hear today.  I’m putting this in strong terms because I oppose it in strong terms.  I don’t believe in a God who intervenes and punishes people and destroys God’s own work.  And isn’t it interesting that the people to be judged are people who I dislike, and the planet to be burned is a place of consequences for my own greed and ignorance. This heresy flies in the face of a God of creativeness, and in the face of Jesus of Nazareth, who worshipped this God.  It is irresponsible toward God’s creation, a creation that the human race is biblically commissioned to steward. If we can’t learn, over a period of two thousand years, from God’s steadfast nurture of creation, then humanity has indeed become hopeless and is bound to die off, not from God’s judgment, but from the natural consequences of its own inability to adapt.  The human race needs to accept responsibility for its own actions.  We’ve lost our moral compass if we’re calling on God to destroy the planet because we’re offended by a majority of its population. The call today is not to direct our energies against each other or against Mother Earth.  We need to see with open eyes what is really going on, and take action to curb our own excesses. Ego-based Christianity must be once and for all rejected as the worst heresy of the faith, a heresy that is not just theologically wrong, but in fact, literally threatens our physical existence.  Jesus doesn’t need to come again.  He’s already been here and his spirit lives in the hearts of those who bind themselves to the creator, and to creation.