Just Deserts

Asked in an exam to explain what a desert is, a child wrote this: It is so hot in some parts of the world that the people who live there have to live in other places.

Perhaps they know deserts are places of enforced learning.

More exam papers later, but first, a newspaper.

The Daily Telegraph, which recently reported how Karl Rabeder, an Austrian business millionaire, suddenly woke up and sold everything to charity, and bought a bedsit.

He had become heavy and unhappy with his version of success, and he kept hearing the words: ‘Stop what you are doing and start your real life'.

It all came to a head during a very expensive three-week five star holiday in Hawaii.

“We spent all the money we could possibly spend,” he said, “but we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person.

“We were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly, and the guests played the role of being important.”

Jesus is also offered civilized rewards.

Maybe not, he says.

And when he opens the scroll in the temple and claims Isaiah’s word applies to him, it’s an astonishing sermon, but they still say of him: “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

Maybe it isn’t, God says.

And maybe we are not just children of men either.

We journey through the world but we can reflect a parallel world in the crucible of the desert, like Jesus trying to work out what it meant to be Jesus.

Because it wasn’t clear at that point that he knew who he was.

He discovered it in the crucible of being tested, in his response to God.

Change stones to bread - assert your status. Maybe not.

Make angels rescue you - rely on drama. Maybe not.

Bow down to me - become the way of the world. Maybe not.

Use fantasy shortcuts to happiness, counterfeit attempts to avoid suffering, and pursue worldly recognition. Maybe not.

There is a richer reality whenever we die to a lesser reality, because God is unimpressed with our power.

Like this other comment, also from a children’s science exam:

Asked to explain horsepower, a child wrote: “One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.”

And asked about the relationship between thunder and lightning, another pupil wrote:

“You can listen out for thunder after you see lightning, to tell you how close you came to getting hit. But if you don't hear it at all, then you were hit, so never mind.”

And really never mind - the Christian life is a daily embrace of death and REAL life.

Because spiritual health is killed off by obsessive physical health, living faith by blind devotion, and genuine trust by trivial tests.

So if we too are in the desert, an enforced learning environment, do we depend on God, or do we do a spiritual risk assessment instead?

Do we share life or protect it instead?

Do we really meet people or engage in games instead?

Do we enlarge our capacity to suffer or project our fear instead?

Do we deepen our humanity or repress its difficult parts instead?

And is our faith attractively light - or tiresomely heavy, instead?

One final exam paper in the desert -

A child was asked how clouds are formed, and said this:

I am not sure how clouds get formed.

But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.

Amen.