Exiles
Preaching
Pulpit Science Fiction
Our story takes place on a small green-blue planet, partly covered with clouds, which circles near the warmth of a medium-sized yellow star. No, this is not the earth circling the sun. The earth is very different now. Its oceans are still blue but the land is gray, covered with radioactive dust. In the final throes of the environmental crisis of the late twenty-first century, when nations were fighting desperately for the last of the oil and clean water and other resources, nuclear weapons were finally used. Those old predictions about nuclear winter turned out to be right. Within a few weeks it was all over. There are still bacteria and there is a little life in the oceans, but very few things move on the planet's surface.
That happened just a few years after the first ships were sent out beyond the solar system. They weren't "starships" like those in the old science fiction movies, zipping around the galaxy in a matter of days. They were huge lumbering arks that would take generations to creep across the tremendous distances between the stars. With carefully controlled reproduction and use of resources, there was just a chance that one or two ships might find planets where human beings could live. It had been an act of desperation, a wild gamble, to send them out. But those who had done it, who had used earth's last precious resources to launch the ships knew that earth was past the point where it could survive itself. The ships seemed to be humanity's only hope.
So the ships had scattered outward from the solar system. Only three years into their centuries-long voyages, they heard earth's last radio transmissions telling of the nuclear destruction of New York and Beijing and Tokyo and Baghdad and Jerusalem and Moscow and Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro. They listened to claims of victory in different languages -- and then there was silence. The ships moved on through the interstellar night. Eventually they were so far separated from one another that they lost contact. Each ship moved on alone.
Our story takes place on a small green-blue planet, partly covered with clouds, which circles near the warmth of a medium-sized yellow star. There is a little human colony here, trying to establish a foothold for what may be the last members of the human race. The planet is somewhat like the earth which their ancestors left 1,000 years ago, an earth that they know about only from their computer library. This world has sparse vegetation and some fish in the seas, but very little animal life has been found on the land. The few humans are finding life hard. The ship was stocked with all the latest technology, but the voyage of centuries pushed its resources to their limit, and survival is a struggle.
They have few causes for celebration and no time for vacations or holidays. All the old religious and political holidays were left behind anyway. But, sometimes in the evening, they gather around the telescope and take turns looking at the star around which the radioactive earth circles:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
On one cool morning, two of the colonists are making their way through the mountains that stretch away from the little settlement. They don't have enough skilled people or working equipment to make a really good survey of the planet, so the exploration of the planet has to be done largely the old-fashioned way, on foot. The planet has very little good farmland and few mineral resources, and it's important to pinpoint just where those things might be. And there is always a thought in the back of some of the colonists' minds -- "Maybe we aren't really alone here."
So, John and Mary are making their way through the hills, taking soil samples and studying outcroppings of rock, and as they go, they talk.
"Maybe so," Mary said. "There might be more minerals here than we think, and perhaps we'll be able to find fuel and other resources that we need. But that still isn't any sign that things are going to work out for people here in the long run. We came here by accident and we could all get killed by accident. It would be comforting to think there's some overall force for good in the universe, but that doesn't mean there is one."
"Well," John said, "I can't believe that all of life is completely pointless. If the ships hadn't left earth when they did, the whole human race would have been wiped out. But we made it. We're here! Are you going to tell me that was just a coincidence?"
"Of course!" she said. "And if that coincidence hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here to talk about it. There's nothing mysterious about that. It was unlikely, and lucky for us, but that doesn't prove there's any higher power. There's no purpose to the universe, nothing arranging matters so that humanity survives and prospers. Or if there is, it isn't doing a very good job!"
"There's no way I can make you see it my way. I can't prove that there's some purpose to life. I just have a deep gut feeling that life is more than an accident or a bad joke. Our mothers and fathers wouldn't have had the courage to start the voyage if they hadn't felt that way."
"I suppose that's right," Mary said. "Our ancestors and people in a few other ships -- and those others are probably all dead now. Is that the purpose of life -- billions get killed so a few thousand can fly off into exile, and most of them are now dust floating between the stars? Sorry -- I just can't buy it."
During the conversation they were working their way up a ridge, through the thin grass and a few scraggly bushes. The ground was rocky and they had to watch their footing carefully. Sometimes they would stop to take soil samples and make notes, or swing the video camera around the landscape. They were getting tired as they approached the top of the ridge.
"If that's the way you feel," John asked, "why go on? Why keep on living, why push yourself out here, if you think that all of life is a pointless accident?"
"I don't know," she said. "I guess I just have to be as honest as I can. The universe is empty except for us, and soon we may be gone, too. But I like living better than being dead, so I keep going for as long as I can."
"Do you think there's no other intelligent life in the universe? That earth is the only planet where it evolved?"
"That's what it looks like."
"But there's life here -- and with life, intelligence would have to develop sooner or later."
"That doesn't follow. The fish here might never come out of the water -- and probably won't now that we've arrived. Even if life develops on a planet, maybe nothing will happen to make bigger brains an advantage for survival."
John started to reply as they neared the top of the ridge, but suddenly Mary silenced him in mid-sentence and pointed. Up in front of them rose a thin curl of smoke.
Very quietly, they came over the top and stopped, hiding behind a boulder and scanning the other side of the ridge with automatically stabilized binoculars. The smoke came from the shore of a little lake at the bottom of the ridge, about a mile away. Through the binoculars they could see a small fire burning. There was some wood there -- and there was a figure, humanoid, sitting on a rock next to the fire. As they watched, it reached out a stick and seemed to turn a couple of brown objects near the flames.
John slipped back down out of sight and pulled out the radio to check with the colony. A moment's conversation showed that all the colonists were accounted for. Nobody else should have been in the area. "Well," John said, "we've spotted something. An animal -- looks humanoid from this distance. It may be -- intelligent." The radio crackled with questions and sarcasm.
"Like it or not, it's there. No -- don't send the chopper out. It'd scare the thing off. I'll keep this channel open while we go down to check. Of course we'll be careful!"
"So much for being alone," he said to Mary as they got out their weapons and checked them. They'd never needed to use the old nine-millimeter automatics, but were glad they had them now.
"Okay -- maybe there are two intelligent races lost in the universe," she said nervously. They started down the slope as quietly as they could, separating to approach the figure from opposite sides. It still sat there quietly as they approached, looking at the fire.
Mary's brain raced as she came in quietly from one side. Too many things to think about -- what kind of gesture of peace to make, how to fire quickly if the thing attacked, and how to try to communicate if it was intelligent and didn't run away or kill them. The same kinds of thoughts raced through John's head as he approached from the other side. He knew that his heartbeat and his rapid, almost panicky, breathing could be heard over the radio link back at the colony. Sure he was afraid! What ever made him think he wanted to meet any other life form? It would be better to be alone and safe.
When they were about thirty meters away, the figure looked up and spotted Mary. It stood up and swung its head around and saw John, who had stopped dead. As it stood, they could see that it was indeed humanoid. In fact, it seemed to be a rather dark-complexioned young man. John and Mary both clicked off the safeties on their weapons.
Then, "Do you have any food?" it called. He was speaking their language! "Do you have anything to eat?" he called again. "If you do, bring it. We can share."
The radio was crackling at John's side but he didn't notice it. He and Mary both walked toward the young man by the fire, almost in a daze. He had removed what they could now see were a couple of round loaves from a rock beside the fire. Their weapons slipped back into their holsters almost automatically.
"Come and have breakfast," the young man said, and stretched out both hands to them with bread in each. His sleeves slipped back as he reached out to them, and they could see that his wrists bore fresh scars of what seemed to be some deep wound.
For thus says the Lord GOD: "I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness."
-- Ezekiel 34:11-12
Comment
The text from Ezekiel is the Old Testament reading for Christ The King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year for Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary. It is part of God's promise to the exiles in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem -- a situation that also evoked Psalm 137, which is quoted earlier in this story. Exiles from some future destruction of the earth would seem to be in an even more hopeless situation than were those Jews carried off a few hundred miles from their homeland.
It may seem fairly obvious that the appearance of Christ to John and Mary at the end of the story is based on John 21:9-14. This is, in fact, the case, but as the climax of this story the biblical account has been mediated through the conclusion of C. S. Lewis' The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" (New York: Collier, 1970), pp. 214-215. There the image from the Gospel of John is used in a somewhat different but related way.
That happened just a few years after the first ships were sent out beyond the solar system. They weren't "starships" like those in the old science fiction movies, zipping around the galaxy in a matter of days. They were huge lumbering arks that would take generations to creep across the tremendous distances between the stars. With carefully controlled reproduction and use of resources, there was just a chance that one or two ships might find planets where human beings could live. It had been an act of desperation, a wild gamble, to send them out. But those who had done it, who had used earth's last precious resources to launch the ships knew that earth was past the point where it could survive itself. The ships seemed to be humanity's only hope.
So the ships had scattered outward from the solar system. Only three years into their centuries-long voyages, they heard earth's last radio transmissions telling of the nuclear destruction of New York and Beijing and Tokyo and Baghdad and Jerusalem and Moscow and Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro. They listened to claims of victory in different languages -- and then there was silence. The ships moved on through the interstellar night. Eventually they were so far separated from one another that they lost contact. Each ship moved on alone.
Our story takes place on a small green-blue planet, partly covered with clouds, which circles near the warmth of a medium-sized yellow star. There is a little human colony here, trying to establish a foothold for what may be the last members of the human race. The planet is somewhat like the earth which their ancestors left 1,000 years ago, an earth that they know about only from their computer library. This world has sparse vegetation and some fish in the seas, but very little animal life has been found on the land. The few humans are finding life hard. The ship was stocked with all the latest technology, but the voyage of centuries pushed its resources to their limit, and survival is a struggle.
They have few causes for celebration and no time for vacations or holidays. All the old religious and political holidays were left behind anyway. But, sometimes in the evening, they gather around the telescope and take turns looking at the star around which the radioactive earth circles:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
On one cool morning, two of the colonists are making their way through the mountains that stretch away from the little settlement. They don't have enough skilled people or working equipment to make a really good survey of the planet, so the exploration of the planet has to be done largely the old-fashioned way, on foot. The planet has very little good farmland and few mineral resources, and it's important to pinpoint just where those things might be. And there is always a thought in the back of some of the colonists' minds -- "Maybe we aren't really alone here."
So, John and Mary are making their way through the hills, taking soil samples and studying outcroppings of rock, and as they go, they talk.
"Maybe so," Mary said. "There might be more minerals here than we think, and perhaps we'll be able to find fuel and other resources that we need. But that still isn't any sign that things are going to work out for people here in the long run. We came here by accident and we could all get killed by accident. It would be comforting to think there's some overall force for good in the universe, but that doesn't mean there is one."
"Well," John said, "I can't believe that all of life is completely pointless. If the ships hadn't left earth when they did, the whole human race would have been wiped out. But we made it. We're here! Are you going to tell me that was just a coincidence?"
"Of course!" she said. "And if that coincidence hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here to talk about it. There's nothing mysterious about that. It was unlikely, and lucky for us, but that doesn't prove there's any higher power. There's no purpose to the universe, nothing arranging matters so that humanity survives and prospers. Or if there is, it isn't doing a very good job!"
"There's no way I can make you see it my way. I can't prove that there's some purpose to life. I just have a deep gut feeling that life is more than an accident or a bad joke. Our mothers and fathers wouldn't have had the courage to start the voyage if they hadn't felt that way."
"I suppose that's right," Mary said. "Our ancestors and people in a few other ships -- and those others are probably all dead now. Is that the purpose of life -- billions get killed so a few thousand can fly off into exile, and most of them are now dust floating between the stars? Sorry -- I just can't buy it."
During the conversation they were working their way up a ridge, through the thin grass and a few scraggly bushes. The ground was rocky and they had to watch their footing carefully. Sometimes they would stop to take soil samples and make notes, or swing the video camera around the landscape. They were getting tired as they approached the top of the ridge.
"If that's the way you feel," John asked, "why go on? Why keep on living, why push yourself out here, if you think that all of life is a pointless accident?"
"I don't know," she said. "I guess I just have to be as honest as I can. The universe is empty except for us, and soon we may be gone, too. But I like living better than being dead, so I keep going for as long as I can."
"Do you think there's no other intelligent life in the universe? That earth is the only planet where it evolved?"
"That's what it looks like."
"But there's life here -- and with life, intelligence would have to develop sooner or later."
"That doesn't follow. The fish here might never come out of the water -- and probably won't now that we've arrived. Even if life develops on a planet, maybe nothing will happen to make bigger brains an advantage for survival."
John started to reply as they neared the top of the ridge, but suddenly Mary silenced him in mid-sentence and pointed. Up in front of them rose a thin curl of smoke.
Very quietly, they came over the top and stopped, hiding behind a boulder and scanning the other side of the ridge with automatically stabilized binoculars. The smoke came from the shore of a little lake at the bottom of the ridge, about a mile away. Through the binoculars they could see a small fire burning. There was some wood there -- and there was a figure, humanoid, sitting on a rock next to the fire. As they watched, it reached out a stick and seemed to turn a couple of brown objects near the flames.
John slipped back down out of sight and pulled out the radio to check with the colony. A moment's conversation showed that all the colonists were accounted for. Nobody else should have been in the area. "Well," John said, "we've spotted something. An animal -- looks humanoid from this distance. It may be -- intelligent." The radio crackled with questions and sarcasm.
"Like it or not, it's there. No -- don't send the chopper out. It'd scare the thing off. I'll keep this channel open while we go down to check. Of course we'll be careful!"
"So much for being alone," he said to Mary as they got out their weapons and checked them. They'd never needed to use the old nine-millimeter automatics, but were glad they had them now.
"Okay -- maybe there are two intelligent races lost in the universe," she said nervously. They started down the slope as quietly as they could, separating to approach the figure from opposite sides. It still sat there quietly as they approached, looking at the fire.
Mary's brain raced as she came in quietly from one side. Too many things to think about -- what kind of gesture of peace to make, how to fire quickly if the thing attacked, and how to try to communicate if it was intelligent and didn't run away or kill them. The same kinds of thoughts raced through John's head as he approached from the other side. He knew that his heartbeat and his rapid, almost panicky, breathing could be heard over the radio link back at the colony. Sure he was afraid! What ever made him think he wanted to meet any other life form? It would be better to be alone and safe.
When they were about thirty meters away, the figure looked up and spotted Mary. It stood up and swung its head around and saw John, who had stopped dead. As it stood, they could see that it was indeed humanoid. In fact, it seemed to be a rather dark-complexioned young man. John and Mary both clicked off the safeties on their weapons.
Then, "Do you have any food?" it called. He was speaking their language! "Do you have anything to eat?" he called again. "If you do, bring it. We can share."
The radio was crackling at John's side but he didn't notice it. He and Mary both walked toward the young man by the fire, almost in a daze. He had removed what they could now see were a couple of round loaves from a rock beside the fire. Their weapons slipped back into their holsters almost automatically.
"Come and have breakfast," the young man said, and stretched out both hands to them with bread in each. His sleeves slipped back as he reached out to them, and they could see that his wrists bore fresh scars of what seemed to be some deep wound.
For thus says the Lord GOD: "I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness."
-- Ezekiel 34:11-12
Comment
The text from Ezekiel is the Old Testament reading for Christ The King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year for Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary. It is part of God's promise to the exiles in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem -- a situation that also evoked Psalm 137, which is quoted earlier in this story. Exiles from some future destruction of the earth would seem to be in an even more hopeless situation than were those Jews carried off a few hundred miles from their homeland.
It may seem fairly obvious that the appearance of Christ to John and Mary at the end of the story is based on John 21:9-14. This is, in fact, the case, but as the climax of this story the biblical account has been mediated through the conclusion of C. S. Lewis' The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" (New York: Collier, 1970), pp. 214-215. There the image from the Gospel of John is used in a somewhat different but related way.
