Hey, Cobblestone,
Call me a Trekkie if you will (I’m not), but the theme of a
certain episode has stuck with me for fifty-plus years. The starship Enterprise had been hijacked by
interstellar bad guys, who pulled off the heist, remotely, by hacking the
ship’s computer. Now, here’s where the old guy explains to a younger generation
how it used to be. A Star Trek viewer
in 1960-something would have seen no dilemma in this plot – pull the plug on
Computer, turn the dang thing off, and drive the ship where you want to go. To
set up the tension, a new idea had to be introduced, namely that all the ship’s
systems – propulsion, nav’s, weapons, comm’s – were integrated through
Computer. Now we have a problem. Enterprise
is doing loop-de-loops and blasting innocent life forms while the crew sit
helplessly in their swivel chairs. Consternation abounds.
You might think I’m about to go anti-technology here, or at
least urge caution about putting all of one’s digital eggs in one basket – and
I might have, if I weren’t compelled to do something else instead. Step with me
back into Gene Roddenberry’s world for a moment…
Spock, of course, was the one who found a solution by finding
a way to give Computer one command: “Computer, compute Pi to the last decimal
place.” Off goes Computer on its impossible task, with no capacity for running
the ship’s systems. Opening the book to the section on Manual Mode, Scotty got
his engines back, Uhura her comm’s, and Sulu his weapons (or was that Chekov?…
remember, I’m no Trekkie). To close out the episode, Spock levels his eyebrows
and Kirk swivels around one more time to order a new course – oh, and for the
bad guys, a photon torpedo to remember him by (I totally made up that last
part).
In the spirit of the day, I’ll present the solution as the
problem. Spock set the computer to a task that would render it useless for its
designed purposes. In dealing with the first two humans, the serpent in the
garden of Eden did much the same, presenting options that had no basis in
reality. With no means to deliver on the deal, he offered God’s place of
authority to Adam and Eve – just eat the fruit and you’ll figure it out, wink/wink.
Since then, as surprised as anyone that such a silly plan could actually work,
the serpent (who is called the devil and
Satan, the deceiver of the whole world… Revelation 12:9) has co-opted
humans into the scheme – human-on-human deception – which is where we are at
the moment.
From the apostle Paul’s perspective, he had a very specific
goal in mind, writing to the Colossian Christians, and that was to cooperate
with God in rescuing a segment of humanity from a tendency toward the unreal…
For I want you to
know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea
and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may
be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of
full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which
is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with
plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with
you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of
your faith in Christ
(Colossians 2:1-5).
Notice, Paul didn’t waste time cautioning them against
outlandish arguments, but plausible ones. What would have been a plausible
argument in the first century AD? There were various movements about, and Paul
spoke against some; but here’s the deal: Yesterday’s outlandish is today’s
plausible.
I was a kid once. Even then it wasn’t easy. Maybe life was
simpler then, but all the big stuff still had to be figured out – who am I, and
what the heck am I doing here? As a homely, overweight, pimple-faced teenager,
I definitely wanted to be something else. Unreal, invalid options existed then,
but not to the extent they do now: add another letter, pile up the adjectives
and adverbs. The very arguments that diligent and caring Christians would have
sought to counsel against, in times past, now bear the force of civil law –
yesterday’s plainly hollow and baseless argument is today’s plausible. And the
pace is quickening. If the goal is to derail a person from his or her designed
purposes, I’ve encountered no more effective tactic than setting that person to
the impossible task of picking something other than his or hers.
We owe it to one another to cling to reality. And we owe it
to anyone who is caught up in “computing Pi”. We’ll have to heed the apostle’s
instruction ourselves, to continue in the
faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel
that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under
heaven (Colossians 1:23) and to let the
peace of Christ rule in (our) hearts, to which indeed (we) were called in
one body (3:15). Faithful followers of Jesus are meant to be a lifeline in
the swirling chaos of invalid options.
Mr. Roddenberry had it made: he could turn the plot any way
he wanted, could invent a chink in the adversary’s armor and a Spock to strike
it. We, on the other hand, deal in what’s already real. We will have to
struggle for one another as Paul struggled for the Colossians. Though the world
runs headlong in its efforts to replace God and wreck humanity, we mustn’t be
drawn into the rush, but rather stand on solid reality, offering a way out of
the unreal.
Grace and Peace (and phasers set no higher than Stun),
John
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