Rumours of Grace: A single person can change the world in 2016
There’s a great line in the BBC mini-series
called The Bible. It happens when Jesus
meets Peter, a man who catches fish for a living.
In this scene, though, we discover that
the fishing has been bad. Peter is just bringing
his boat in after a failed attempt to bring
in a catch.
If you know the scene, or the biblical story on which it is based, you might remember that Jesus advises Peter to try throwing his net in the water once more. This time, when Peter hauls it in, it is heavy with fish. Peter is, understandably, astounded.
Realistically, this was probably not the first time Peter had encountered Jesus. Jesus had been visiting villages and families along the shore of the lake, a large lake, called the Sea of Galilee, in northern Israel about 2015 years ago. He had been teaching people about God and how they were, and we are, supposed to live. The people would have been Jewish, as Jesus himself was.
His teachings fell within the boundaries of what devout Jewish believers expected from a traveling teacher of that time. Jesus wasn’t the only one doing this sort of thing, although he was unique for many reasons, which is why the movement he began continues to thrive to this day.
Peter, probably having heard Jesus now and then, was nevertheless taken back by the terrific catch of fish the day after Jesus advised him to keep trying. He was also taken back by an offer Jesus made him. Jesus proposed to turn him from a catcher of fish into a catcher of people.
And the great line I am thinking of comes at this point. Peter asks Jesus, “What are we going to do?”
Jesus answers, “Change the world.”
Increasingly, it doesn’t look like our world is going to change all that much. We certainly are not seeing an end to wars; we still bomb our enemies when we get angry. Dire warnings about pollution and global warming have been with us since at least as far back as the ’80s when students in Environmental Studies were learning about the link between CO2 emissions and rising temperatures. Racism has not disappeared. Work hours, if you have work, are not going down.
Feminism has succeeded in opening all kinds of doors for women. But this has come at the price of women having now to work just as hard outside of the home as their, or your, male counterparts in order to pay for the increasingly materialistic approach to life that consumerism demands of us. Well, actually, we demand it of ourselves, but that might be another topic. Many of our friends to the south continue to believe that a well-meaning American carrying a gun will solve international problems. And maybe we do too.
So, has Jesus’ attempt to change the world failed? Possibly. The fabric of violence and fear that operated in his time hasn’t disappeared. In fact, if the truth is told, we all contribute to it.
However, we should not despair. Even if the narratives of violence, terror, consumerism and cyber-capitalism are alive and well, Jesus did offer an alternative that is, as I believe, even more alive and well.
This alternative begins with a sobering, even disturbing self-assessment. The assessment is that the unchanging presence of evils in the world is not someone else’s fault. It’s mine. As Jesus taught, somewhere in the opening pages of Matthew, if you want to judge someone, that’s ok. But make sure it’s you that you are judging.
You and I will find lots of behaviours and character flaws to improve on. In fact, life with Jesus is purgatory. Some say that purgatory is a state we enter after we die, a kind of place where we are purged of evil. I myself think that life with Jesus in the here and now is purgatory. It is a life of ongoing shedding of sins and ongoing participation in the rightness and glory of God.
I don’t know to what extent I can change the world, but I do know that my first responsibility is to see that putting into practice the teachings of Jesus Christ changes me. And then I’ll have to see how far the changes take effect. If I change, hopefully that will affect my family, especially my kids, in some great ways.
Come to think about it, my kids, my wife and extended family, my colleagues, my Facebook friends, the people in my neighbourhood, a lot of people are going to be affected by what I say and do.
Big Sean raps about one man, which I take to mean one man or one woman, changing the world. Well, why not? Putting the teachings of Jesus into practice will have ripple effects. And who knows how far those ripples will travel. It’s 2016, why not change the world?
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
If you know the scene, or the biblical story on which it is based, you might remember that Jesus advises Peter to try throwing his net in the water once more. This time, when Peter hauls it in, it is heavy with fish. Peter is, understandably, astounded.
Realistically, this was probably not the first time Peter had encountered Jesus. Jesus had been visiting villages and families along the shore of the lake, a large lake, called the Sea of Galilee, in northern Israel about 2015 years ago. He had been teaching people about God and how they were, and we are, supposed to live. The people would have been Jewish, as Jesus himself was.
His teachings fell within the boundaries of what devout Jewish believers expected from a traveling teacher of that time. Jesus wasn’t the only one doing this sort of thing, although he was unique for many reasons, which is why the movement he began continues to thrive to this day.
Peter, probably having heard Jesus now and then, was nevertheless taken back by the terrific catch of fish the day after Jesus advised him to keep trying. He was also taken back by an offer Jesus made him. Jesus proposed to turn him from a catcher of fish into a catcher of people.
And the great line I am thinking of comes at this point. Peter asks Jesus, “What are we going to do?”
Jesus answers, “Change the world.”
Increasingly, it doesn’t look like our world is going to change all that much. We certainly are not seeing an end to wars; we still bomb our enemies when we get angry. Dire warnings about pollution and global warming have been with us since at least as far back as the ’80s when students in Environmental Studies were learning about the link between CO2 emissions and rising temperatures. Racism has not disappeared. Work hours, if you have work, are not going down.
Feminism has succeeded in opening all kinds of doors for women. But this has come at the price of women having now to work just as hard outside of the home as their, or your, male counterparts in order to pay for the increasingly materialistic approach to life that consumerism demands of us. Well, actually, we demand it of ourselves, but that might be another topic. Many of our friends to the south continue to believe that a well-meaning American carrying a gun will solve international problems. And maybe we do too.
So, has Jesus’ attempt to change the world failed? Possibly. The fabric of violence and fear that operated in his time hasn’t disappeared. In fact, if the truth is told, we all contribute to it.
However, we should not despair. Even if the narratives of violence, terror, consumerism and cyber-capitalism are alive and well, Jesus did offer an alternative that is, as I believe, even more alive and well.
This alternative begins with a sobering, even disturbing self-assessment. The assessment is that the unchanging presence of evils in the world is not someone else’s fault. It’s mine. As Jesus taught, somewhere in the opening pages of Matthew, if you want to judge someone, that’s ok. But make sure it’s you that you are judging.
You and I will find lots of behaviours and character flaws to improve on. In fact, life with Jesus is purgatory. Some say that purgatory is a state we enter after we die, a kind of place where we are purged of evil. I myself think that life with Jesus in the here and now is purgatory. It is a life of ongoing shedding of sins and ongoing participation in the rightness and glory of God.
I don’t know to what extent I can change the world, but I do know that my first responsibility is to see that putting into practice the teachings of Jesus Christ changes me. And then I’ll have to see how far the changes take effect. If I change, hopefully that will affect my family, especially my kids, in some great ways.
Come to think about it, my kids, my wife and extended family, my colleagues, my Facebook friends, the people in my neighbourhood, a lot of people are going to be affected by what I say and do.
Big Sean raps about one man, which I take to mean one man or one woman, changing the world. Well, why not? Putting the teachings of Jesus into practice will have ripple effects. And who knows how far those ripples will travel. It’s 2016, why not change the world?
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
