A Shattered, Disordered World

In John Wesley's sermon entitled "On Temptation,"  he refutes the idea that a person can be tempted beyond the point of resistance, or that anyone can claim to have experienced temptations that are stronger than those suffered by others. He does so by pointing to scripture and asserts that we ought not ever be surprised by the temptations we face because we are after all sinners living in a shattered and disordered world.  Life is hard and following Christ is not always easy.

First, “Let him that most assuredly standeth, take heed lest he fall” into murmuring; lest he say in his heart, “Surely no one’s case is like mine; no one was ever tried like me.” Yea, ten thousand. “There was no temptation taken you,” but such as is “common to man;” such as you might reasonably expect, if you considered what you are; a sinner born to die; a sinful inhabitant of a mortal body, liable to numberless inward and outward sufferings; — and where you are; in a shattered, disordered world. surrounded by evil men, and evil spirits. Consider this, and you will not repine at the common lot, the general condition of humanity.

That phrase, "shattered, disordered world" really jumped out at me today when I ran across it in my devotional reading.  What an apt description of the reality of our lives! We've been enduring a worldwide pandemic of disease and death that has brought even the most resilient among us to feel a great deal of stress, uncertainty, and loss on an unimaginable scale.  And while everyone has been affected by the coronavirus in one way or another, it is the vulnerable among us who are suffering most.  

The longing to return to normal is a pipe-dream for we must face the fact that the old normal wasn't actually working for a lot of people. Inequalities based on race and gender and the lack of a real safety net for people barely getting by have been revealed in stark contrast to the idea that things are getting better all the time.  We are having to face the reality that we live in a shattered, disordered world, and we can either ignore or deny it, or perhaps give into despair and rage, or we can see this revelation of our brokenness as a gift. Just as the child in the story bluntly proclaimed that the emperor's new clothes were imaginary, fake news, we must bravely look at ourselves and the economic and political systems in which we operate and recognize them for what they are, structures that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

The well-worn narrative that says that the poor are lazy and somehow deserve whatever woes befall them is a very old one. In Wesley's day, just as in ours, there were many who found it easy to justify their own wealth as something they deserved and as something they had achieved singlehandedly while ignoring the clear biblical injunction to share generously with others and to care for the poor, the foreigner, and those on the margins.   He wrote:

Has poverty nothing worse in it than this, that it makes men liable to be laughed at? It is a sign this idle poet talked by rote of the things which he knew not. Is not want of food something worse than this? God pronounced it as a curse upon man, that he should earn it "by the sweat of his brow." But how many are there in this Christian country, that toil, and labour, and sweat, and have it not at last, but struggle with weariness and hunger together? Is it not worse for one, after an hard day's labour, to come back to a poor, cold, dirty, uncomfortable lodging, and to find there not even the food which is needful to repair his wasted strength? You that live at ease in the earth, that want nothing but eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand how well God has dealt with you, -- is it not worse to seek bread day by day, and find none? perhaps to find the comfort also of five or six children, crying for what he has not to give! Were it not that he is restrained by an unseen hand, would he not soon "curse God and die?" O want of bread! Want of bread! Who can tell what this means unless he hath felt it himself? I am astonished it occasions no more than heaviness even in them that believe! ~ John Wesley ( Sermon 47, Heaviness through Manifold Temptations)

John Wesley calls us back to the heart of our faith, which is love, love of God expressed through love of neighbor in concrete ways that sustain and give life rather than caring for ourselves and seeking only to feather our own nests.  When he rhetorically asks how many people work hard every single day only to come home to misery and poverty and hunger, we should pay attention and ask the same question of today's world, and we should respond by answering it by acting as Christ did in sharing, loving, giving.  

As we begin to see glimmers of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that started in 2020, let us also begin to see new ways of ministry and mission that are not limited by our previous ways of engaging.  The Holy Spirit is at work, even though we don't yet clearly understand what the new life of the Church will be like.  May we have grace to discern and follow the divine promptings that invite us into something new in this shattered, disordered, but beloved world.  And may our hearts be moved from complacency and willing blindness to action and clarity of vision for the good of all God's children.