Talk or Assembly For Harvest Appeal And Harvest: disaster relief, flood, Pakistan

Readers might find this useful as well for Bangladesh and Zimbabwe Blackburn diocese bishops harvest appeal 2010 talk or sermon idea.

I was asked to speak at a local county school harvest assembly this week, based on the money that the children had been saving for the Pakistan disaster – which incidentally the last report was in August!  Hmmm…..

I was asked for a short talk, and a quick prayer.  I realised that there was a theological issue here, and just telling a story might not cut it.  Thus, I explored it and decided that the question being asked was the ‘why does God allow disasters,’ or words to that effect.

My thought was that God doesn’t make the disasters happen…but is he responsible.  I won’t work through all my thinking this time, but I will write out here what I said.

Adaption should be pretty simple: although I have used my two boys as an illustration, you could refer to any child I think!

Script

I have two boys.  You have met them, Byron and Reuben.  Now everyone thinks that they are fantastic lads.  They are really good when they are out, and rarely has anyone heard me growl at them.  And we all go out together and they are happy and good…

But the moment they step into the house, within 30 seconds they suddenly change.  These two wonderful lads become monsters!  I teach them.  I help them to understand about being self controlled but it doesn’t work!  My wife asks why and there’s only one explanation: it’s the nature of boys!  Being a boy I know what it’s like…I am not a girl, but are girls the same?

[ASK THE AUDIENCE] Tell me, how many of you are really nice when you are out?  And how many of you fall out with your brother or sister when you get home?  See…it happens!  It’s the nature of who you are.  I don’t think that your parents are always to blame either…

Still, it’s our role as parents to love and care for our children.  To provide for them.  To look after them.  Even if sometimes they do change into monsters.

My two boys also like to play football.  If they could they would be out in the garden all the time playing, but the problem is we have low fences and no matter how many times I tell them to keep the ball low they kick it and….it goes over the fence.  Every time!  I am quite relieved that next door doesn’t have a greenhouse because if it did what do you think would happen?  Almost certainly a window would be broken!

Thing is, who would have to pay for the broken window?  Exactly, me!  Why?

Because I am the one who cares for them.  It is in their nature to be a bit wild.  But they can’t afford to fix anything that the damage.  If my boys were to break something of someone elses, then as a responsible and caring dad I would have to put it right.

Let’s think about the world that we live in.  The earth.

Where we live in our country occasionally we get a bit of rain.  We have had a tornado that damaged someone’s roof a couple of years back and we made the national news!  We have had a bit of rain and a few people’s houses got flooded.  Not nice, but certainly not a massive disaster.  Much of the time we can go out to play, have fun, enjoy the weather whatever it might be.

But the nice world where we live can also be a bit of a monster.  My boys are nice in one place, then suddenly those same boys can be monsters.  Same with the world!

As a Christian I believe that God created the world.  So surely, he is responsible for it!  He must stop all these things happening?  But it’s not that simple.  I can’t even fully control my two boys, it’s in their nature.  And it’s in the earth’s nature to sometimes be a naturally dangerous place.  There are earthquakes, floods, volcanoes.  It’s part of nature.  We can try to control it, but in the end it is what it is.  God controlled the sun and made it go backwards (2 Kings 20:9-11; Isaiah 28.8), but that isn’t usual.  If it was then all the seasons would change, and people would starve.  The earth has to be what it is so that it will sustain life.

You can’t blame God for it, as much as you can’t blame me for when my boys go monster-ish!

But God also gives us responsibility for our world.  He tells us to take care of it (Genesis 1.28).  And that means that, as it would be should my boys break next door’s greenhouse, if the earth has an event that causes a disaster which affects people’s lives, we have a responsibility to those people to help in whatever way that we can.

[I THEN WENT ON TO THANK THE SCHOOL FOR RAISING THE FUNDS, AND I SAID THANKYOU ON GOD’S BEHALF.  WELL WHY NOT, WE SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT GOD IS SAYING…]

Finish with a suitable prayer for the aid agencies.

Link to: http://assemblyideas.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/talk-or-assembly-for-harvest-appeal-and-harvest-disaster-relief-flood-pakistan