Acts of God...

May All Gather around the Table

"In and of themselves, "acts of God," as they are called in legal jargon, are not events with easily discerned messages. But disasters -whether "natural" like Katrina and the Asian tsunami, or "man-made" like the September 11 terrorist attacks -shake us personally and as a nation. They compel us to think anew about ourselves and the world. As Christians, we are invited to think and pray about what God is doing in such situations.

"Some Christians believe that God singles out people for judgment and visits disaster upon them as punishment. But the Bible includes stories of natural disasters in which God is "not in the earthquake, wind and fire" (1 Kings 19), and we should avoid the error of "blaming the victim" in the manner of Job's "friends." Rather, the God we know in Jesus Christ is graciously present in disasters, sharing in the suffering and calling us to become a new creation.

"God's heart was the first to break when Katrina struck and people's lives were torn apart. God's healing presence is at work among all those who are still afflicted in mind, body and spirit. God's anger burned at the indignities perpetrated in the shelters after the storm. And God is desperately determined to open our eyes and ears to the cries for justice from poor and hungry people in this country and around the world. God wants to shake us from our complacency and materialism to seize the opportunities we have to foster justice in our nation and worldwide."

These paragraphs are a quote from Bread for the World's newsletter by Jim McDonald. Jim participlated in an Oregon Hunger Round Table in Portland Oregon in the summer of 2004. (or was it in 03?) Why not take a look at this Organizaton? Bread for the World believes that taking political action is a major way to make changes. I agree.