Is it not interesting that it takes a long time, many tries, to get our attention? Not only did God call Samuel multiple times before Eli recognized what was actually going on, but God had given warnings to Eli about his sons numerous times, as well. Eli, who was technically innocent, was not innocent because “he did not restrain” his sons’ behavior. Eli, to his credit, accepts the judgment of God. But I wonder if we don’t feel mistreated when we have to suffer for the actions of others, without recognizing that what we do not speak out against, we condone by our silence? We can see this clearly in those who did not speak out against the Nazi campaigns against the Jews, but can we see as clearly our complicity in social, economic, and environmental injustice in our own day? Will we accept the judgment of God with the grace of Eli?
We see in the Acts passage that the appropriate response to the truth about ourselves and our actions is repentance, a complete turnaround, revolution, in the way we live. Acts records the reorientation of those who have “heard” towards one another, towards the building of a new world through willing sacrifices involved in mutual care, that is, genuine community.
The cost of this revolution is everything, everything, that is, except one’s deepest being. All that is familiar to us—our preconceptions about the world, our notions of who we are, of what is important—are ultimate false and will return to chaos. The picture of disorder that Jesus gives us of the End Times images the implosion of all we had trusted in, and the images are theoretically feasible on many levels. We can read into them political disaster, economic collapse, or psychological breakdown. They can be seen as a symbol of the unstable inbetween-ness in the transition from one paradigmatic order to another.
On the other hand, reading these images through an environmental lens gives us an all too literal picture of climatic disruption. We are already feeling pressures from environmental degradation all over the world: water scarcity, food insecurity, competition for energy resources, insurrections, massive migrations.
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