Who's Got Talent?

 I miss my dad.  Growing up, I visited him every summer for about a month, and I visited him every other holiday:  Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, Easter.  Some of my best childhood memories were with him.  Also, whenever he told me he was proud of  me, I knew he meant it.  There were no strings attached.  There was no, "I'm proud of you, but-" or ,"I'm proud of you, now can you-".  Looking back as an adult, I decided it must be because of just how hard he head it growing up, how badly he got in his own way as a young man.  I graduated high school, I was able to be gainfully employed, I went to college, got married, got my degree.  All these things were leagues away for him at my age.  Still, the power of his pride in me was real.  He died the year before my oldest son was born.  He never got to meet either of my kids, despite having been there to greet both of my sister's kids the days they were born.  I will forever mourn that.  He died of advanced lung, liver, and bone cancer.  

His death, at the age he died, was preventable.  When he was young, he was a serious alcoholic, I think having done irreparable damage to his liver.  But he was also a heavy smoker, for as long as I could remember.  Knowing that he could have met my kids if he had just made some different choices with his lifestyle makes me sad.  I think about my own kids and the milestones in the lives they'll lead.  I want to be there for as much of their lives as I can be.  I've talked to my own mother about this kind of thinking, the mother of my kids, too.  They're responses can basically be summed up by the statement, "I'd rather live an eternity in heaven, then a few more years on Earth."  This is the very core of the Christian nihilism that I've mentioned in my last post.  

I'll tell you a secret.  One of the results of my attempted suicide ten years ago was a very healthy fear of death.  I spent a good long time looking into the abyss of death, thinking I knew what was on the other side.  But afterwards?  Now?  I don't really know.  I want to believe, I choose to believe.  But I don' t actually know if there's a life after death.  I don't know if there is even really a God, or one that I can fathom enough to pursue.  What if there's nothing after death?  What if I was wrong about all of it?  What if Zeus is really in charge? But then I think about Jesus.  I think about what the world would look like if we actually pursued the ideals he said were those of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And I know I'm on the right track. 

Imagine a world with no murder, no theft, no violence.  Imagine a world where people are allowed to pursue the creative parts of their souls to their heart's content.  Imagine a world where people value life, peace, and community, liberty, creativity, and love.  There are no wars, there are no famines.  When there are earthquakes, or hurricanes, or tsunamis, people all over the world descend upon the disaster and help rebuild, providing emergency relief, but also a place where people can find therapy and support when and where they need it.  That is a world that's worth fighting for and that's the world that Jesus was talking about when he said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  

From Psalm 139 talking about how fearfully and wonderfully made we are, to Romans 12 talking about offering ourselves as living sacrifices and I Corinthians 3 talking about our bodies being living temples, the Bible has plenty to say about treating our bodies as holy.  The very story of Adam and Even, even the story of Noah, is very representative of the stewardship God expects us respect in return for dominion he grants us.  Our relationships with others, from Ezekiel calling Sodom's true sin "not taking care of the poor and needy," to the story of the how God will judge the nations at the end of time in Matthew 25, is also pretty clearly addressed in the Bible.  

There is another parable, another story Jesus tells, that is recorded in Matthew 25, that I think can easily be used to address all of these issues: how we take care of our bodies, how we take care of each other, how we take care of our environment.  That's the parable of the talents.  You've heard the story.  There's a master, and three servants.  The first gets one talent, and he buries it.  The second gets five, and he invests it and doubles his master's talents.  The second gets ten, and also doubles his allotment.  The master comes back, rewards the second two.  The first one says he knew the master was a hard master, and thus didn't bother working with his talent.  Then the master fired him.  

That's us.  We take the time to invest in our bodies, by feeding it right, by keeping it active, and it will reward us with more time with our loved ones.  We take time to invest in others, and they find dignity in providing for themselves and their families, they find that they have time and energy to express creatively to enrich all of our lives.  We take time to invest in the environment and we can make sure that generations to come get the opportunity to enjoy the splendor of God's creation for centuries to come.  

I think that's it, really.  The answer to Christian nihilism is stewardship.  When some nihilist wants to bring up the idea of storing treasures up in heaven, rather than building up something here, I think the story of the goats and sheep in Matthew 25 is a great place to send them.  "Get away from me, I never knew you."