This is the twenty-seventh in a periodic series of reflections on Brian D. McLaren's everything must change. Quotations used by kind permission of the author, with page citations from the edition featured on the Emerging Church Reading List to your right.
“Look at the birds of the air,” said Jesus; “they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26)
“To convey his alternative framing story,” writes Brian, “Jesus refers to the birds. They live in a story centered in a caring and faithful God― ‘your heavenly Father”― who feeds them day by day. Then Jesus uses one of his favorite figures of speech: the ‘how much more’ construction. These little sparrows are so valuable to God that God feeds them. How much more valuable are you to God than sparrows? . . .
“The industrial world was driven by its own imperial, colonial framing stories . . . [and] in the theological wing of colonialism, God no longer cared about sparrows and wildflowers; God cared for people’s souls. . . .
“For Jesus, though . . . the value of humans was rooted in their identity as God’s creatures, alongside flocks of chattering sparrows and fields of brilliant wildflowers. . . .
“In [Jesus’] narrative, God actually cares for each creature, without its value needing to be justified by being useful to human beings. Each has intrinsic value in relation to its Creator. . . . In fact, economist Herman Daly suggests that we should reverse our human egoism and consider our value in relation to our service to others of God’s creatures: ‘We grant ourselves intrinsic value. . . . But we do not count our instrumental value to other species, which is too often negative but could be positive if we cared about it.
“So Jesus counters the imperial framing story that isolates humanity from creation by placing us back with our fellow creatures in a story of creation, secure and beautiful under the care of God. . . .In God’s global economy of love we find all the prosperity, equity, and security we need (pp. 136-139, passim.).
Participants in the environmental movement and in the drive for health care reform in the United States, for all their human frailties and imperfections, have “switched sides” and joined Jesus’ framing story. I was particularly moved by remarks by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) at today’s summit between the President and the Congressional Leadership. He pointed out that 40 years ago we outlawed segregation by race, and 20 years ago we outlawed segregation by disability; and yet, “We still allow segregation in America today based on health. Why should we allow that to happen? This is why health care reform is so vital.”
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