World Troubles and Tensions
A commentary by Randy Stiver
United Church of God pastor, Columbus and Cambridge, Ohio
Titled
the Merry Little Minuet, it came straight from the "Hungry
i" café in San Francisco, a "mecca" of folk
music in the late 1950's. Performed by the Kingston Trio, it was
song-writer Sheldon Harnick's tribute to the troubles and tensions
of the world a half century past:
They're rioting in Africa, they're starving in Spain,
There's hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain
This whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For Man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we can be certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off…and we will all be blown away
They're rioting in Africa, There's strife in Iran
What Nature doesn't do to us will be done by our Fellow Man
Update those lines for 2006! Just change a few of the 'who-hates-who' entities.
Then add enough verses to enable more peoples, clans and nations—and
the non-ethnically-profiled—the opportunity to ridicule, hate or
harm whoever they don't like very much.
Iran and Africa will still be in the new lyrics. And we can add Islamic
radicals and the Middle East in general. France seems obsessed with hating
itself at the moment, as do the new factions of the former Yugoslavia.
Thanks to 21st century terrorism, many more potentially fickle fingers
are now on the nuclear trigger.
In the lyrics of his song, Harnick verbalized humanity's great
conundrum. We want to live in peace. But we just don't know how.
We don't even agree how 'peace' should be defined.
There is a reason why we don't 'all just get along.' The
great lyrical team of antiquity, Isaiah and Jeremiah, wrote to the same
puzzle of human peace vs. troubles and tensions:
O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself,
It
is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
Their feet
run to evil
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts
are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their
paths.
The way of peace they have not known,
And there is
no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked
paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. (Jeremiah
10:23, Isaiah 59:7-8)
While Harnick's satirical lyrics were sadly cynical, the poetry
of Isaiah and Jeremiah was actually inspired—make that thankfully
inspired. If there were no hope for the future, we people on earth would
certainly be a tragic troop of Adam and Eve's grandchildren.
But there is hope! The Great One who in inspired the works of Isaiah
and Jeremiah reveals that hope. Christ came the first time so long ago
to live the perfect life of peace and die for all of our un-peaceful
sins as the ultimate Passover sacrifice—the annual commemoration
of which is but a week away.
Then He left mankind to his own devices to read or not read Isaiah
and Jeremiah, or Peter, Paul and John, or the others who penned the Holy
Scriptures. He also left us here on earth with the promise and prophecy
that He would come again and bring peace on earth—for real!
Unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be
upon His shoulder.
His name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty
God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase
of His government and peace
There shall be no end… (Isaiah
9:6-7)
It's time, my friends, to shed your troubles and tensions. It's
time to leave the "Hungry i" café of yesterday and
the sad song of Sheldon Harnick, and go to the "Hungry Heart" café of
truth to hear and sing the new songs of what tomorrow will be—a new
and wonderful world.
  That
fantastic future has been carefully planned. For more about how Jesus
Christ will make it a reality, request, download or read online your
free copies of our booklets: God's
Holy Day Plan: Hope For All Mankind and What
Is Your Destiny?
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