
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994                   TAG: 9403150174
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: DANIEL SCHNECK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

IF GOD'S COMMUNICATING, PUNISHMENT ISN'T THE MESSAGE

The world has been deluged of late with earthquakes, major winter storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters of record-breaking proportions. In the wake of these unfortunate events, the gloom-and-doom pessimists have descended upon us en masse, proclaiming that all of this havoc is the work of God - expressing his wrath upon us for being such terrible people, and punishing us by making us suffer this way. As I listen to them and read their ill-fated forecasts, I am reminded of what Abraham Lincoln said early in his law career to one of his colleagues.

"Sir," he said, "you have all your facts right, but you have come to the wrong conclusion!"

You see, I believe that God does communicate with us every so often, but not to punish us. He does it to point us in the right direction when we stray too far from his (or her) ultimate plan for humankind. When the terrible floods hit the Midwest last summer, they brought out the very best in people. Suddenly, neighbor was helping neighbor and it didn't matter whether you were black, white, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Democrat, Republican, Northerner, Southerner or whatever.

What mattered was that there was a job to be done, and everyone pitched in to do his or her share. When the devastating earthquakes hit California this past fall, the day-to-day struggle for success and survival suddenly took on a new meaning and put everything into the proper perspective. Again, what mattered most was common decency, respect for life, aid to those who needed it and a mutual desire to work together for the common good.

Most recently there have been the ugly winter storms that have both humbled and challenged our perseverance. Dedicated men, women and even children worked side by side, together, round the clock, to restore power, to clear roads, to provide shelters, to keep water clean and suitable for drinking, to care for the homeless, the sick, the aged, the disabled, the needy ... and to clean up afterwards.

Is there a message in all of this? I believe there is, but it is not one of gloom-and-doom. I believe what God is trying to tell us is that we should always be working together for the benefit of all humanity. I believe God's flair for the dramatic is designed to show us what life could be like if we put our priorities in the right places. I believe God goes to these extremes because that seems to be the only way to get our attention, and to get a message across. The intent is not to punish. The intent is to drive a point home using the only method we seem to understand. The intent is not to make us suffer, but to bring out the best in us. The intent is not to bring ruin and destruction, but to show us that working together, there is nothing we cannot overcome.

I have always believed that this may also be the deeper meaning of Christ himself. I believe that the incarnation of Christ as a human being was God's way of sending a message to us. Christ the human being was intended to be symbolic of all humanity - of all human beings. And God's message was not to worship Christ, the son of God, but Christ, the symbol of humanity.

"Worship Christ" meant honor thy neighbor, the person. "No one enters the kingdom of heaven but through Christ," meant "No one enters the Kingdom of heaven except through their love of one another and through the teachings of Christ." I believe what God was trying to say was "Look, I am God, I can take care of myself, thank you, I don't need your help or your worship. If you want to know what is really important to me, it is to have you love each other, and I am sending this message to you by incarnating myself through the symbol of humanity, which shall be Jesus Christ. Love him, and, through him, you shall be showing your love for me." I believe that this is the reason that Christ's most important statement was the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

So, every so often, God has to remind us that we are, all of us, his people. We are not Americans, Europeans, Bosnians, South Africans, Northern Irish, Jews, Spaniards, Christians, carpenters, musicians, engineers, doctors, lawyers, blacks, whites or what have you. We are, first and foremost, God's people - citizens of planet Earth. It is our job to take care of this planet and each other. Everything else is, and should be, secondary to that primary mission.

If it takes floods, earthquakes, ice storms and natural disasters to keep reminding us of this primary mission, then so be it. Perhaps one day we will finally learn our lesson and then things can settle down to normal. But, certainly, they never will if we keep interpreting these disasters in a negative way. We need to turn the horror into a challenge for improvement. Not improvement in how we construct electrical power lines, but improvement in how we treat each other when there are no disasters. It shouldn't take anything so dramatic to raise our consciousness of how we treat each other. That should be the norm, not the exception.

As a postscript, let me add that as chairman of the Montgomery County School Board, I tried to do my share to help all of us live up to God's expectations - to recognize the inherent worth of every individual and to be sensitive to the individual needs we all have.

I deeply regret that some people misunderstood my motives. I have a great love and respect for all of the citizens of Montgomery County, and it was never my intent to take the "Christ" out of Christmas. Quite to the contrary, my intent was to put "Christ" back into the real meaning of Christmas.

Daniel Schneck, from Christiansburg, is a professor of engineering science and mechanics at Virginia Tech and the former chairman of the Montgomery County School Board.

by CNB