Word for Word
by Rev. Tom Buresh
Want to hear a joke about a trash can? Never mind, its rubbish!
Now why do you suppose I might start out with that joke in my article today? Well, it is because my wife, Connie, and I spent 90 minutes this morning picking up trash in the ditches for a mile stretch just east of the church on Highway 9. Next question – why is there so much trash in the ditches? Well, I guess it must be easier to throw cans, bottles, cigarette containers, empty fast food containers and everything else under the sun out the window and into the ditch than to take them home and throw them in the trash can.
I know this is probably going to sound more like a “letter to the editor” article in some ways, but protecting and saving our environment is certainly part of what God would have us to do. God created this earth for each of us and has instructed us to take care of it. Yes, some of the items we found, such as paper and cardboard, will deteriorate over time, but much of what we picked up was made of tin or plastic, which does not.
What is the danger, you might ask? One example is the danger of the plastic straps holding six-packs of beverages together. Animals and birds end up with them around their bodies or necks and as they grow, they succumb to a slow, suffocating death. Another danger is when someone mows the ditches they hit these objects and break mowers or worse yet, throw objects out of the mower at a high rate of speed. A third and final danger is causing a fire. You might laugh at that, but we noticed two spots in the ditch where the grass looked like it burned for a while and then fortunately went out by itself. I am guessing, but cigarette butts come to mind.
I will get off my “soap box” now and finish by talking about how Christ would have us to live life. The following is part of my sermon for Sunday that came to mind as I finished writing this. It is in response to the healing of the paralyzed man by Peter (Acts 3:1-11). Peter sharpens the distinctions between the Christians and the crowd who came to see what had happened.
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus - whom you, the crowd, handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you instead, and you killed the Author of life - whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.
We were witnesses today of the results of people throwing items from their vehicle. Did they kill a life by doing so? I’ll let you be the judge.
