White Walkers.

Like many Americans, in our house we are spending our Sunday evenings watching the new and, apparently final, season of Game of Thrones.  The growing threat for most of the series has been the “white walkers,” an army of the dead which is gathering in the far north and moving inexorably south with the coming of winter.  The last few episodes have been about a) convincing the leaders of Westeros that this threat is real and not a fairy tale, and b) figuring out how to get the characters to set aside the complicated and vicious personal and family vendettas to unite and face this existential threat from the north.  The problem is that characters would rather cling to the stupid and petty nonsense that defines their lives and gives them a reason to keep killing each other, than let that go and deal with something that could destroy their whole world.

The author of the books upon which the series is based, George R. R. Martin, has noted the parallels between his work and the threat of climate change.  It is a sad fact of history that leaders tend to focus on short-term personal gains and successes, while ignoring or denying larger problems, even those that threaten the lives and well-being of everyone. 

Climate change is our white walkers: a comprehensive threat to our whole civilization.  Our leaders often deny this existential liability.  Even the ones who don’t deny it appear powerless to address it.  We continue our squabbles, competition, business, and wars.  We even press on with the very economic practices that caused the problem in the first place, at best convincing ourselves that the same thinking that got us into this mess can somehow extricate us.   

There is in the Bible — and in history — a repeated pattern that also applies here.  Idolatry produces injustice which produces disaster.  We see it with what happens to the Egyptians when they enslave the Israelites and so bring down those ten mostly ecological plagues upon themselves.  We see it when Israel and Judah, in turn, sink into idolatry which results in societal injustice and inequality.  The consequences of that are the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians and the exile of the Jews by the Babylonians.  And so on.  

Thus I don’t have to read the voluminous scientific literature and mountains of data to understand the threat of global warming.  I just have to notice the breathtaking idolatry of a global economy that puts money, growth, and the wellbeing of owners first, and how it spawns terrible injustices in terms of violent exploitation of people and planet, to realize that this will not end well.  Such circumstances have always brought down catastrophe.

The most granular and comprehensive examination of this is found in the book of Revelation, which we are now walking through together.  It is an immensely sad book, detailing the ultimate consequences of human idolatry and injustice.

And yet, at its core is a profound hope, which is finally realized in the last chapters of the book.  For the good news is that God and life and love and joy always win in the end.  And because they will in the end, we may participate in that victory in advance all along the way.  We can dissociate from the bad things happening around us, and witness instead to the Truth of God’s love revealed in Jesus, letting his power sustain us.

This is what is going on in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  This weekly participation in God’s life, given for the life of the world, grounds our faith, opens our eyes, and strengthens our witness to God’s love.  For this meal is the antidote to idolatry.  In it we connect in a very tangible and visceral way to two things:  First, we encounter the cross of Jesus, and through him identify with all the victims of injustice and terror, all the scapegoats, all those whose lives were taken in the name of someone else’s power and fear.

Secondly, and at least as importantly — and this is why we are doing this during the joyful season of Resurrection — the Sacrament is how God gives life to us.  It is, after all, a meal, a place where we are fed and a nourished, where we receive the energy we need for repentance and discipleship.  As the disciples’ eyes were opened to recognize in the breaking of bread the presence of the risen Lord with them, so may our eyes be opened to understand the living presence of Christ in ourselves and even in all things.  For he makes us one with each other, and with all.

Only this sense of oneness in love will get us through.  Expressed in acts of forgiveness, simplicity, acceptance, compassion, welcome, justice, and love, the body of Christ, which we both consume as individuals and are as a community, means that we present a different kind of life to the world. 

I do not know if the white walkers will be defeated on Sunday nights.  I do not know if we will avoid the dire consequences of climate change.  I do know that no matter what happens we have to live according to Jesus’ example and commandments.  That is, we have to approach everything with gratitude, gentleness, and wonder.  If that’s what we receive in the bread we break on Sunday mornings, we will be okay. 

Only Jesus’ life will save us.  So let’s live that life.

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