Words, like clothes, go in and out of fashion. The meaning of words change over time. Often, we can recognise a person’s age by the words they use. National and global events create new words and new usage of old words, and none more so than the global event of the Covid 19 pandemic.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, when we barely realised what we were in for, and how long it would last, the Government and the media published daily data of the numbers of people contracting the virus, hospital admissions and deaths. These, as the Prime Minister has subsequently explained, will be used to follow the road map out of lockdown. ’Data’, not dates’, he said.
Of course, as has often been stated, statistics can be used to say anything, when you want to prove a point. That’s why I like listening to the BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘More or Less’. The presenter, Tim Harford, takes a statistic that has been floated in the media, and examines it closely, with the help of experts. It’s amazing how often the data has been skewed to justify particular decision –making.
Jesus had an interesting take on data. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law enjoyed quoting data to him, and he always turned it on its head. The Kingdom of God, like no other earthly kingdom, he said, is ‘upside down’ and not at all what we expect. The world may believe that we should strive for prestige, power and position, but read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and you will discover the upside-down kingdom looks like and who will enter it.
At one time, Jesus had been telling the story of the dishonest manager to his disciples, in order to explain to them about faith and faithfulness. (Luke 16: 1 – 13) He wasn’t really talking about money, just using it as an illustration, but the Pharisees who were listening as well, and to quote Luke, ‘were lovers of money’, ridiculed him. He replies, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God’.
So, we may justify our thoughts, actions and behaviour, believing them to be commendable in the eyes of others, but it is what is commendable in God’s eyes that is obviously most important. Reading the parable of the sheep and the goats explains this clearly (Matthew 25: 31 – 46) What we believe to be ‘more’ is actually ‘less’, and ‘less’ is ‘more’. Living our life in God’s ‘upside-down kingdom’ is challenging and sometimes very difficult, because we will often find ourselves at odds with the data of the world. However, as we emerge from the restraints and restrictions that we have been living under in the past year, hopefully we will find that some data will have changed; that the kindness, self-sacrifice and generosity expressed by many people through lockdown will not only continue, but be adopted by others through example. Then our world might look a little more like the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to establish.