Feature Article

Tsunami
By Dwight Liles

Tsunami. I’d heard the word before, but I never knew what it meant until just after Christmas, 2004. Now I know what it means, but not with the kind of experiential knowledge that I would know if I lived in Thailand or Indonesia. Within a week, the death toll climbed to 150,000. I thought about that number, and compared it to the losses of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. It began to sink in just a little. This was 9/11 multiplied 50 times…at least.

How does one respond to such a catastrophe? Nothing seems to be enough. I was proud of the little rural congregation I pastor here in the hills of Tennessee. Over two Sundays they came up with around $860.00 to send to our board of missions for relief efforts. But in the face of such incredible loss, it seems like less than a drop in the proverbial bucket. Whole communities are gone. Whole infrastructures are destroyed.

I watched the tsunami aid concert that one of the major TV networks sponsored a couple of weekends later. Well, I watched as much of it as I could emotionally handle. I found myself reduced to a puddle of tears time and time again. It was Saturday night. I had a pastor’s class to teach and a sermon to preach the next morning. After about an hour, I decided that if I was going to have anything to offer to my congregation the next day, I’d better pull myself together.

One of the artists—everybody knows her name, but it really doesn’t matter right now—sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” to open the show. That’s a song that always throws me for a loop. I love the melody. It’s one of Lennon’s best. But then I have to deal with lines that challenge much of what I believe as a Christian. Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try. No hell below us; above us only sky…Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. That’s hard for me. I see the point. I know my history. I know how many have died—and have killed—for religion. Yes, for my religion, even. I know John had a point there.

I’m sure that whoever chose Lennon’s song to open this program did so with some forethought. After all, religious conflict rears its ugly head right in the middle of this disaster. The leader of Indonesia, a Muslim state, has gone on record that people of other religions (especially Christianity) who offer aid to their country are to keep their faith to themselves, and not to try to change the faith of the people they are helping. I read that in the news the other day, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. So often, religion divides people, and breeds hatred and misunderstanding among people.

Maybe John Lennon wasn’t as far from the way of Christ as we might think. Did Jesus come to this earth to start a religion? Or did he come here to transcend religion with love? The question has been reduced to a slogan and a line of products, but now it really begs to be asked: What would Jesus do? Would he pompously say, “You have no right to prohibit my free exercise of my religion,” and then turn away? Or would he simply heal their sick, bind their wounds, hold an orphan child close to his heart, distribute food and water to the hungry and thirsty, and let theological issues wait until later?

You’re expecting me to offer answers now, aren’t you? Well, it’s often been said that Jesus is the answer, but a friend of mine once observed that sometimes, Jesus is just as likely to be the Question.