2023, Anyone?

He whose throne is in heaven is laughing . . . 

 - From Psalm 2

Recently, I shared that the reading of the day included one of my top ten favorite verses. This Psalm contains another one of them.

The phrase grabbed me the first time that I purposefully read it. It was probably during the Summer of 1980. I remember seeing it: "He who sits in the heavens laughs . . . " And when I first read it, I remember laughing out loud. 

God is like a doting Parent. A condescending Big Brother. He sees our behavior and shakes His Head. 

As a teacher, when I catch a student throwing something across the room, my first impulse is to smile inwardly. "Yeah, I would have tried that too, once." 

My ex had a memory she would share, that became one of my favorites: When she was younger, perhaps a pre-teen or teenager, she got in trouble with her mother, who got so mad at her, she began chasing her around the house with a broom, to swat her with. Her mom was normally very permissive and patient. But this time my ex had gone too far. As she evaded her mother's swinging broom and stayed several steps ahead of her, she began to laugh. This made her mom more angry, to a point. But finally her mom also burst out laughing and the thing was over. 

Our misbehavior can be funny. Our parents may laugh. Our teachers may chuckle inside. You think to yourself "They're just kids." And their deeds may remind you of your own days of foolishness as a youngster; and how over the course of time the memories may transform into warm, even happy thoughts. 

But when you look at the first three verses of Psalm 2, you see a description that has 2023, of all earth's years, nailed. 

In 1980, as a nineteen-year-old, I laughed because even then, I could see the craziness in the world, the foolishness of world leaders, and conclude that "yep, we're pretty messed up, and God finds it all partly amusing." 

But 1980's got nothing on 2023. 1980's world's leaders may have been narrow-minded and misguided. But compared to today, they were adults with some gravitas. They were the oldest kids in the family exerting their unprepared independence. But 2023's leaders are the babies of the family. The "kid brother" and "kid sister." They're the spoiled brats whose parents were too tired or pre-occupied to discipline. They're the generation that permissive parents and society looked the other way for, as they experimented with every kind of mind-altering substance and sexual adventure. They were protected from consequences and emerged into adulthood with underdeveloped brains and lack of wisdom. They are reckless, vain, and totally devoid of historical perspective and empathy. Their god is their belly, and their long-term view goes out about two weeks.

They make ridiculous threats against each other. They gather together in their global "forums" to plot the fate of the entire world. They seem determined to cast off any vestige of what we would call godly practices: responsibility, charity, service, selflessness, ethics, morality. 

If it feels good, do it. And if it feels good, it must be love. 

When criticized for cracking so many jokes in the middle of a terrible, violent war, President Lincoln said "I have to laugh. For I must not cry."

God laughs right now. And it's serious.