Some Further Thoughts On Cuba

THURS., MAR. 7, 1991, 6:15 AM
FARM, STUDY

The Cuba experience is not quite past, yet the memory of it, and specific events, remains. It was part of your sermon Sunday, and it probably shall be at least part of your presentation tomorrow. Thus, you shall be interested in observations that I have about this small land and your involvement there. So, thus I shall speak to you, o son, as the sun rises.

At this time the Christian influence is not a great one in Cuba. Christ is important to the small groups who are in the churches, but they do not have great influence. Instead I must work through people in different, more diverse ways. I can work through the communist system, even as it rejects Me openly. It is a system based on sharing, and I can work well in any such system. As there is a diminished supply of luxuries and even of necessities the sharing system is in danger. When there is not enough, the struggle for what there is becomes competitive and sharing seems too idealistic. I must admit that selfishness is very contagious, even among those who have been conditioned away from it. In your country, Christian as it purports to be, true shortages would produce some ugly encounters.

One key component for the Cubans will be their youth. Most are not Christian. They regard the church as unimportant rather than as an enemy. Positive feelings for the United States are more because of consumer goods than because of its superior moral position. If the leaders among the youth can retain a sense of the integrity of their independence, even with shortages, they could remain as a poor but viable nation. But if they have not internalized love for neighbor and the spirit of sharing they may well succumb to selfish pressures. I cannot tell you how this shall work out.

The church must remain divided if it is to be healthy. A hand is most effective when the thumb can work in cooperative opposition to the other fingers. Hence, if the church were completely liberationist in its theology it could be closer to the revolutionary spirit, but would also be more shallow. Being a true disciple of the man Jesus, who always seemed to opt for the needy and the downtrodden is an adventure in idealism, but such disciples could not make a viable Church. Jesus actual disciples would not have founded a church that remained, for the memories of Me would have faded as they got old and died.

So I raised up Paul, who was born again into a new life, and it was eternal good news. Thus he became a natural, enthusiastic evangel. Changed lives are a powerful force, but this can be a force that does not stick with sharing and focus on the have-nots. Hence the church is strongest when it has these seemingly divisive elements. If they fight each other for dominance, the church is weakened. If they cooperate in their almost opposite orientations the church is strengthened.

Thus it also could be for Cuba. To maintain the communist system by directly suppressing opposition seems, on the surface, to be rational and necessary. But the truth is that a more mixed system, with adversaries cooperating in their opposition to one another, usually is a stronger more lasting one.

It seems unlikely, at this moment, that your country will try to “liberate” Cuba. Yet there are earnest, selfish Cubans in Florida who want to return to their homeland, just as the Palestinians do. So there is a struggle in perpetuity over how Cuba shall be.