Fireworks, Unguarded Words, and Cultural Engagement

Eagle Creek Fire (Photo KATU)

While Houston was horribly flooded by Harvey and Florida evacuates in anticipation of Hurricane Irma, in Portland, known for its rain, it has been a long, hot, and completely dry summer. As usual, there are many lightning-started wildfires burning around the state particularly in Southern Oregon (Chetco Bar Fire) and in the Central Cascades (Milli Fire). 

As I write, approximately 35,000 acres along the Oregon side of the picturesque Columbia Gorge are burning in the Eagle Creek Fire as seen in this time-lapsed video.  

This last fire was believed to have been started a week ago by some Washington teenagers throwing fireworks off of a forest trail down into the canyon. While some may think that they wanted to start the fire, it might have been less intentional. Perhaps they just wanted to watch a smoke bomb fall and gave no thought to what would happen when it landed in the tinder-dry forest floor or as it bounced from rock to rock, throwing sparks onto very dry grass and leaves.

Photo KOIN-TV

So many have been hurt and inconvenienced by that careless action. All the fire departments in the region have sent resources to help, residents have been evacuated, and I-84 (a crucial transportation corridor) has also been closed to all traffic all week. The entire Portland metro area has been beneath the pall of the cloud of smoke and Mordor-like ashfall. The sun and the moon have been filtered and reddened to an apocalyptic degree for a hundred miles. Images and narratives fill the news and weather broadcasts (competing with floods and hurricanes elsewhere). Public opinion strongly contends that they should have known better. The damage is beyond anything they or their families could ever fix or pay for.

It is hard to watch this consuming story without seeing the latent object lesson in it... 

We all should know better. 

In the New Testament, one of Jesus’ half-brothers wrote a letter for all the churches to read. In an apt metaphor, he warned,

So also the tongue is a small member,

              yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze

      by such a small fire!

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.

The tongue is set among our members,

               staining the whole body,

               setting on fire the entire course of life,

              and set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and

 with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and saltwater? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. (James 3:5-12 ESV)

Our insensitive words are even more dangerous when spoken into an environment, a society, a culture, increasingly withered dry by disconnection and relational distrust, choked by structures and systems surprisingly unjust, made brittle by unkindness (even trauma) of “I must…”.

There are too many tragic cases. In such a context, one of extreme fire danger, we are called to speak, serve, and love. As followers of Jesus, we should submit our words (and the inner condition they reveal) to a higher love than the self.  To a love that when it speaks reveals the One who claimed,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Certainly, we need to set a guard over our lips so that instead of cutting people down, our words and deeds might heal wounds and bind up the brokenhearted in a God-honoring way (Prov. 12:18; Psalm 147:2-3). We also need to learn how to engage those whose beliefs and experiences are different than our own in a way that doesn’t start a damaging fire of invective or pollute the place of meeting with the noxious smoke of ignorance.

For those of us who are in places of leadership and influence, it is important that we learn to minister in this changing cultural environment. We must unlearn some of our old ways so that we can reach the world in a more biblical, more relational, and more Kingdom-oriented way than before. 

Our words, as well as our tone and demeanor, even when we are speaking the truth can be incendiary if we don’t first clear relational space to be heard with a healthy amount of love, listening, and learning how what we say is interpreted and understood. 

Photo by Bjørn Tore Økland
 on Unsplash

It is helpful to be reminded that we are not called to defend this place as our home, where we can demand our rights. Rather, we are called to die to that impulse in ourselves and serve God and humanity as ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven in a way that shows forth the overflowing heart of God. Christ’s ambassadors are not to leave scorched earth and a pall of smoke in their path; rather they are to turn the valley of weeping into a wellspring of life (Psalm 84:6)!