Given the proclivity of the human race to make a complete codswollop of everything it is quite remarkable that life has any kind of normality to it at all. If you've ever read any P.G. Wodehouse or Tom Sharpe novels you will understand the kind of chaos that can ensue when situations get out of hand. But generally speaking societies manage to preserve some semblance of order. And a good thing too! When playing soccer we want to enjoy the fun of the game and we don't want it to degenerate into a fist fight. When we go into hospital we'd rather not be in the hands of the Carry On team. We want trains to run, shops and schools to open, courts and prisons to dispense justice, bank accounts to be filled with earnings and Tottenham to win the Premiership. All perfectly normal and to be expected.
So, there we are, leading the life of one Irishman, Riley, when up pops another one called Murphy with that wretched law of his. A bunch of farmers and hauliers called Disgruntled start waving their Daily Mails around, bad-mouthing the government and picketing fuel depots. Before you can say tractor, you can't get the diesel to put in it for love nor money. And whilst Mr. Blair is wondering if he's leading a democracy or a rugby scrum the rest of us find our lives truly stuck in the slow lane behind Eddie Stopout, or Stabheart or whatever he's called. Welcome to the year 2000 petrol crisis.
Oh how easily Channel 4's Jon Snow persuaded civilisation to become reduced to a dramatic quivering panic. The pollsters ran amok as the Labour Party discovered that one sensationalised Monday news bulletin could reduce a solid lead to a soggy bringing-up-the-rear. The public discovered to their horror just how brittle and fragile is this society that we've built for ourselves. Whichever wise man it was who said that society is only two square meals away from revolution was beginning to seem like a genius of perception.
In the midst of the storm, I was preparing a study on 1 Kings 18 for the Living Word web site (www.livingwordnet.com) and I saw just how appropriate that story was for the situation Britain found itself in during mid September. For Ahab's kingdom it wasn't petrol that was the problem but another basic resource - water. The farmers and hauliers of the age were just one man - Elijah. Three years earlier God had turned off the celestial taps and Elijah had been the bearer of the bad news to Ahab (17:1). The king intelligently (…not) concluded it was Elijah's fault (18:17)! He simply failed to appreciate that it was his own idolatry and his nation's wavering between God and Baal that was the cause. The Lord was teaching them about their spiritual destitution through drought.
There ensues a battle on top of Mt. Carmel where the Lord emphasises the lesson that has thus far been too subtle for them. Through Elijah he demonstrates in absolutely unequivocal terms that Baal is nothing and that he is the one true God. The people cry a little belatedly, "The Lord - he is God!" and the rain starts to fall. Incidentally, there is the implication that religiosity is just as unpalatable to God as idolatry, so we in the church have no room for being smug.
The thought that came to my mind was this. Calamity might very well be God's way of expressing his displeasure at our national idolatry. Could the petrol crisis be a warning shot? Might God be telling us just how easily he could cause the society whose protection and continuance we take for granted, to crumble and be crushed overnight? I had that uneasy feeling that it this was the case. My next thought was of Daniel (Dan. 9), the believer stuck in a pagan world, reading his Bible - Jeremiah to be precise - and discovering that the Exile was God's punishment on Israel for yet another bout of idolatry. He got down on his knees and prayed for the whole nation.
He churned over the shame of Israel and yet pleaded with God on the basis of the Lord's mercy. He knew that whilst the Lord had decreed a punishment he had also declared a time of rescue.
How many British Christians this past September emulated Daniel and pleaded the nation's collective guilt and asked for God to be merciful? How many saw a bigger picture - a spiritual lesson from the physical realities of life? Perhaps some longed for a longer petrol drought so that God could make a Mt. Carmel style demonstration of his power in 21st century Britain.