The Y2K crowd proved to be wrong. They were harbingers of doom and posited their conclusions based on a combination of calendar tweaking, biblical "prophecy", conspiracy thinking and political uncertainty. All of these may have had some relative merit for consideration on their own but combining them together wreaked havoc in the mindset of some. So they stored food and water, bought extra flashilights and matches, and waited for the end.
Some close friends of mine were seriously concerned about what the new millennium would usher in, and it turns out, in my opinion, they were not that far off. Almost ten years later we seem closer to that place of Armageddon-like drama than ever before.
Interestingly, this kind of thinking seems totally out of sync with the dawning of a new age as heralded in Obama's ascent to power and an almost messianic Inaugurational tone. This is not to suggest that I think Obama is the proverbial antichrist, as some of my friends have suggested; nor does it mean that I think the new administration is ready to push us over the precarious edge of political change into national oblivion. I do believe, however, we are at the cynosure of perilous times and the whispers of global "warning" and financial holocaust should not be ignored.
In our own county the empty new and used car lots, the unoccupied commercial space, the frigthening stories of the unemployed and under-employed, the acceleration of local crime, the burgeoning number of homeless and bankrupt--all of these things are testimony to the fact, the times, "they are a changin'".
I pastor a local church and every Sunday there are new stories about lost jobs, new requests for prayer for more work, questions about ways to save a home, gripping stories of large amounts of money lost in the stock market, families wondering about escalating medical costs and a general inescapable sense of the financial cloud hanging over us.
The newspaper is a compilation of horror stories strecthing from the bloody fight for land in the Middle East, to the perilous countryside of Afghanistan, to the lurking re-emergence of Russia on the world scene, to the fragile "peace" of Iraq, and the list goes on. We cannot escape the images of the disgraced governor of Illinois protesting his innocence, Tom Daschle's recent exposure as a tax evader, Barry Bond's voice on tape contradicting what he has always protested, and State authorities defying our own governor's directives to cut spending. The voices and faces of failure are all around us.
What are we to do? Do we find solace in the potlical assurances that we will be okay because in America we have always found a way out...of the Great Depression, World War II and double-digit inflation?
Or, do we seek comfort from the knowledge that (1) We are a nation of plenty (2) We are a people of initiative and resource (3) We have always worked best together in crisis, whether in the hideous aftermath of 9-11 tyragedy or the humanitarian challenge of Hurricane Katrina's devastation.
On Sunday I will be speaking about the "body of Christ", a New Testament metaphor for the bond that exists between fellow believers and the care and concern we assume for one another. I have been challenging our congregation to the idea of "overflow" ministry--the concept of utilizing the difference between what we need and what we have--a surplus for most of us--to meet the needs of others.
On a larger scale in our community we should be actively looking for creative ways to help one another. In the Y2K days I heard stories of people identifying places they agreed to live in together to wait out the doom they anticipated.
It is almost ten years later--and the future is a lot more bleak in the eyes of this observer--and we need to be drawn together for the purpose of taking advantage of the opportunities before us--to rely on the strength of our faith in a sovereign God, and the good will of His people to work together.
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