A Lever and Place to Stand

Third century mathematician, Archimedes, coined the phrase, “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I’ll move the world.”  At the time he was talking about the power of a tool that uses force and a fulcrum to displace mass in order to create momentum and movement for a fixed object.
But I think he also meant it to stand for a whole lot more.
For instance, the claim that we can actually move the world is the claim we make when we devote our lives to Christ.  We emerge from the baptismal waters ready to join the cause of Christ; ready to offer grace, love, and forgiveness to a world trapped in sin, despair and regret.  It’s like a billboard shouting to the world, “I’m ready to help move you a few degrees closer to God.”  But in order to make this happen there are two key ingredients needed – a lever and a place to stand.
The lever is the skill sets you acquire and the spiritual gifts God grants, and it looks different for all of us.  Some people hold the levers of love, forgiveness, and grace.  Others hold the levers of restorative justice, global concern, and environmental sustainability.  There are even those who use mental health initiatives, contemplative prayer, and homiletical masterpieces.  The levers look different because we’re all uniquely and wonderfully made to function as the body of Christ.
The places we stand are important too.  There is so much need in this world (i.e. poverty, AIDs, depression, addiction, war, homelessness, mental health, disease).  There is so much pain too (i.e. resentment, anger, jealousy, hate, bitterness).  God needs us to stand against these evils.  God needs us to partner in the ongoing creation of the world.  But we must choose wisely when we offer our gifts to the world, for every attempt to move the world literally changes it – for the better or for the worse.
So stand somewhere good, somewhere meaningful, somewhere close together.
Archimedes may have been referring to fulcrums and stationary objects, but I think somewhere in his soul he was thinking of Christians too.
Realizing the levers God gives and finding a place to use them may just be the most important journey of our lives.  Partnering with others as we attempt to move the world closer to God is one of the things Christianity is about.  May we be so willing, be so open, and be so vulnerable to discover what and where these levers and places may be!
------
Originally published by the Associated Baptist Press on ABPBlogs

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Difficult Parable Ever

Image
Theologian N.T. Wright finds the parable of the fig tree to be quite strange.  He says, “Jesus' warning in Luke 13 is at once amplified by this almost humorous, yet in fact quite sinister, parable of the fig tree in the vineyard.” And it is sinister.  It’s a hard pill to take.  Jesus' parable goes like this: A man has as fig tree planted in his vineyard.  One day he comes out looking for fruit on it, but there are no figs.  He says to the vineyard keeper, “Look at this tree.  For three years, I've come hoping to find some fresh figs, but what do I find? Nothing.  So just go ahead and cut it down.  Why waste the space with a fruitless tree?” The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir.  Give me one more years working with it.  I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it.  If it surprises us and bears fruit next year, that will be great, but if not, then we’ll cut it down.”...
Read more

The Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long

Image
This Christmas I was moved by the words of Frederick Buechner.  For my last blog of the year I offer to you his wisdom rather than my own ramblings.  I hope it does for you what it continues to do for me. Frederick Buechner says in his book The Faces of Jesus: On the dark bulwark of Elsinore, Shakespeare has Marcellus and Haratio reflecting on Christ in the opening scene of Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairly takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time These lines from the first scene of Hamlet in a sense say it all.  We tend to think time is just progression . . . as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar measures.  But we ...
Read more

Sacrificing Joy

Image
I have been told my biggest weakness is I take myself too seriously. I agree. But here is my dilemma: My life is filled with responsibilities and deadlines. I go to school, pastor a church, assist my seminary in their admissions process, and feel obligated to be a good friend. My school takes up twelve hours a week plus roughly twenty hours of study. I work at least 10 hours on my sermon and spend two days a week with my congregation. Fifteen hours of my week is given to the McAfee Admissions Office and every Saturday I play softball with some friends. With this schedule I am up to 57 hours of responsibility time plus two days are given to my congregants. Why do I do this you ask? Because I can. Because God is blessing me in it. Because it gives me a sense of fulfillment. All of these shape an identity for me. And I love every second of it. We are all busy people. We all know what it is like to work the extra hour or sign up for one my volunteer role. We all over...
Read more