We spend endless amounts of time, energy and resources on protection: protecting our homes, protecting our communities, protecting our country, etc. This can often lead to a dangerous illusion that we live in a protective bubble that cannot be affected by a tragic occurrence. We witness a mass shooting or a catastrophic natural disaster and think: “This could never happen to us.” Then one day, the bubble bursts. We come to the realization that we are not as protected and self-sufficient as we thought we were.
The Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible is brutally honest. The writers (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms) do not speculate “if” the bubble will burst. They describe what occurs “when” the bubble bursts. Through it all they proclaim a message of ultimate hope where our dependency on God far outweighs our ability to ensure (and insure) that we will never face tragedy.
In this series, we will examine some of
the most common illusions in our culture. They are illusions that lead us to false assumptions about what we believe and how we behave as God’s representatives in the world. They are illusions that lead to a lack of resiliency. They are illusions that cause us to be fragile or rigid. Instead, God calls us, like Jesus, to share and abide in the brokenness of the world. It is here that God’s work of redemption and reconciliation most readily occurs.