There is no way, of course, to completely avoid the news. As good as that sounds, it would be impossible to be totally unaware. What's more, being totally unaware wouldn't be a good thing anyway. The theologian Karl Barth advised pastors (and by implication all followers of Jesus) to reflect on the world with a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other hand. Evidently, there is something to be said for staying in touch with the things that happen in our world.
All the same, simply being aware these days is a heavy burden. I have not yet seen the study, but I suspect that there's a direct correlation between how aware we are of the things happening in our world and our level of personal unhappiness. The more we know about the world, the harder it is to pretend that everything is fine.
There is simply no way to watch what's happening in our world and somehow believe that everything is okay. Everything is not okay. Ours is a terribly broken world. And it seems to get a little more broken with each passing day.
Even before the shooting down of the airliner and even before the recent escalating violence in the Middle East, there was plenty of bad news last week. Then, almost immediately, newer news - and worse news - moved all that other bad news off the front page. The "new" bad news was so bad, in fact, that we could barely remember what we had been upset about before all this other stuff happened. It's probably not very productive to watch the news while we mutter repeatedly, "I can't even believe what I'm seeing," - but that's what I've done for several days now.
It's tempting to sit in judgment of others as we watch these news cycles pass. After all, most of us don't live in the Ukraine and most of us have very little influence over Russia. While we might have clear allegiances in the Middle East, we aren't there and we aren't directly responsible for the suffering that continues even now. Most of us don't live near the Mexican border in Texas. And we weren't party to that particular police brutality or the newest political corruption or the latest egregious travesty of justice. "I would never do that," is our ace in the hole. And if we can only convince ourselves of the truth of that claim, we can live with a measure of comfort (and even pride).
And I hope that the statement is true. I sincerely hope that "we would never do that." All the same, I'm reminded today that our sin - my sin - is not all that different than the ugly stuff that shows up on the news.
When I was growing up, I remember insurance companies always talking about "acts of God." That phrase referred to storms or natural disasters that couldn't really be blamed on any human being. It was a way of describing and defining things that we couldn't otherwise control. But recent events haven't really been "acts of God." Instead, the things that grieve us so deeply today tend to be . . . things that human beings do to one another.
We might not, in fact, be able to believe what we are seeing. But, honestly, we know full well who is responsible. Despite our protests, we all are . . .
I know. You probably didn't shoot down an airliner this week. I didn't either. Even so, God would invite each one of us to look within and to examine our part in making our world the way it is.
Hopefully, our missteps won't show up on a news program. But if we are contributing to the brokenness of this world - even in a small way - our responsibility is plenty to bear.