This past Monday’s newspaper was an extraordinary thing, a manifesto of weirdness so acute that I had to remind myself I was reading a newspaper rather than some dystopian novel. 

No, strike that. More than a dystopian novel, the newspaper was a postmodern retelling of that very first horror story – the one in Genesis, where the source of destruction hides in paradise and leverages self-interest and pride to unleash its toxic power. You know the story. The one with the snake.

Spot the similarities:

On the front page, a headline from Afghanistan, “Hungry Families Resort to Selling Children.” The caption appeared over a photo.  A smudge-faced little girl with huge eyes and bare feet stands in front of her mother in a dark, dirt-walled interior space. 

This particular family was contemplating selling this particular child, the report explained, to cover a debt of $500. (The creditor confirmed to the paper that he was willing to accept the 3-year-old child in lieu of payment, as a bride for his son, because he was “kind.”)

The story went on to detail how this family is actually typical in their desperation, that the U.N. World Food Program estimates 95% of Afghans don’t have enough to eat today. 

Ninety-five percent hungry. Daughters for dollars, typical.

Reflect on that for a moment.

Cover photo from the WSJ

Middle of the front section, an article about the group of missionaries kidnapped in Haiti. The U.S. government is negotiating directly with the kidnappers, because Haiti’s government is non-functional. 

A “non-functional” government – what does that mean, really? Well, chaos, for one thing: as much as two-thirds of the country is comprised of no-go zones, which are completely at the mercy of gangs – who are better armed than police. 

Two-thirds of the country.

Our sponsored child in Haiti is named Richnadine. She is twelve years old – JoJo’s age. She is tall, with a beautiful smile, like JoJo. She writes perky letters about her favorite subjects in school and her favorite Bible verses. But we have not heard from Richnadine since the pandemic started, because Haiti has suffered crisis after crisis (just recently, an earthquake and a hurricane); letters are a luxury for more settled times. 

At this moment, her country seems poised on a precipice – inching closer to universal anarchy and famine, daily. 

Where JoJo is looking forward to basketball season starting and getting contact lenses, Richnadine is hoping for enough food today, for safety to sleep tonight. 

Twelve-year-olds in the same hemisphere; twelve-year-olds in completely different worlds. 

Reflect on that for a moment.

Finally, the trifecta of newspaper weirdness, the quintessence of different worlds, the dystopian novel twist and the serpent revealed – all in one! 

On the front page of the business section: a spread devoted to describing the latest contribution to humanity by Facebook, the nascent “metaverse.”

This conceptual project will, its designers claim, one day constitute a completely online “realm” in which people will play games, shop, and interact in a “real-time, virtual setting.” A whole new world! Designed by Facebook! What more could anyone possibly want?!

Tens of thousands of software engineers in the European Union are being recruited to construct this digital cosmos. Extraordinary sums and extensive collective brain power are being harnessed. 

Let’s be crystal clear here: billions of dollars and brain cells will be channeled into creating the metaverse because constructing a vastly complex, sophisticated make-believe land for wealthy grown-ups to explore is someone’s idea of purpose.

While 95% of Afghanistan is hungry.

While Richnadine and her countrymen are completely vulnerable to the criminal thugs who control what’s left of their country.

Presumably, users of the metaverse will NOT be seeking to sell their children for food or to recruit gang members to kidnap missionaries… we can hope so, anyway… but we have to ask ourselves a question, regardless. 

And the question is: can we really claim that the alternative universe Facebook wants to create should have rights to vast resources while our fellow human beings are facing actual devastation in the actual world right now this minute?

The Metaverse, a mock-up

Scavenging for food in Afghanistan

Recall the question the snake in the original story posed to Eve: “Did God really say…?” 

Ask ourselves the same thing, now: “Did God really say that we were to love our neighbor – prioritize our neighbor – sacrifice our conveniences and comforts for our neighbor… when there was a metaverse to explore? Did God really say…?”

The weird of Monday wasn’t confined to the newspaper. 

I took Bonnie-the-beloved-canine out for her afternoon constitutional in the back garden, and noticed what looked like a length of plastic tubing. But it wasn’t a length of plastic tubing. It was a snake skin.

As you can see in the photo, the snake who had shed this skin in my back garden was about four feet long.

That’s the way with snakes, isn’t it? They hide in the garden – the primordial one, with Adam and Eve; the suburban one, with Bonnie-the-dog – and drop hints of themselves. They shed skin. They whisper innuendos. They blend so seamlessly into the background that we forget they are there, forget to be on our guard.

Friends, the first snake offered the first humans an alternative reality in which God’s words were negotiable and God’s powers available for poaching. 

The descendants of that evil ancestor are all around us, offering us the same thing. 

Sure, a metaverse is a souped-up, slicked-and-tricked-out version of apple-eating… but it’s the same old ruse, and the worm turns in the same old way.

We don’t even have to be afficionados of Facebook and the metaverse to bite – all we have to do is avert our eyes from the photo of the little girl being sold in Afghanistan, shrug off the desperation of our next-door-neighbors in Haiti, and focus on our comfortable, convenient, clubby little spheres of Me and Mine. 

The snake wins – the rotten fruit gets swallowed – every time we forget what’s REAL and what’s make-believe… every time we take the snake’s cue and comfort ourselves with some idea of “God” that is not God – some idea of “God” that affirms ourselves as gods, keeps us cozy right where and as we are, allows us to carry on as if the most important thing is self-amusement and self-gratification.

Which delights Satan more – the little girl being sold by her family, or the millions who will look at her picture and then look away?

Which offends God more – the gang members brutalizing the people of Haiti, or the fact that the rest of the world is only paying attention because a group of American missionaries got caught in the crossfire?

And where are we spending more of our lives, Friends? In God’s world, serving God’s people and seeking God’s glory? Or in the metaverse – on the web – in our curated digital echo chambers, entertaining the god of Me?

The newspaper Monday forced me to look at things that are happening “out there” – in this big world. But the snakeskin in my own back garden made it very clear to me that what’s happening “in here” – in my own conflicted, compromising heart – is the big story.

Eve took the bait. 

Adam took a bite. 

Let’s you and me take a different tack – let’s kill the snake.