A biomedical researcher, Jennifer Doudna, and her colleagues
at the University of California, Berkeley
were engaged in rather basic science and were just trying to figure out how
bacteria fight the flu. Then they made a discovery that caught them by
surprise. They observed that bacteria have special enzymes that can cut open
the DNA of an invading virus and make a change in the DNA at the site of the
cut — essentially killing the virus.
As Doudna was studying a group of these enzymes, it finally
dawned on her: the enzymes had what amounted to a short template inside that
could attach to a specific string of letters in the viral DNA. What if she
could change the template so that it could recognize any DNA sequence, not just
the sequences in viruses? She said, “I thought, wow, if this could work in
animal or plant cells, this could be a very, very useful and very powerful tool”
for human use.
This genetic tool is called CRISPR/Cas9. With it, you
not only can recognize a viral sequence, but you can add to it, change it, or
take it out. The Human Genome Project gave biomedical researchers what amounts
to the genetic book of life. But what do you do with that information? “You’ve
got the book,” says Doudna. “And you can see there’s a word that’s incorrect on
page 147, but how do I get there and erase that word and fix it?” [1]
This genetic tool holds the prospect of working inside
cells and making changes in specific genes far faster and for far less money than
ever before. Doudna admitted, “And honestly, more frequently and recently, as
I’ve got a bit older, I guess, you know, and you start to – I don’t know if
it’s middle-age crisis or what it is – but, you know, you start to think about,
what’s been the real impact of our work, right? Are we solving any problems in
society? Are we doing work that’s going to make people’s lives better?” [2]
The researchers were looking were looking at one thing (how
bacteria fight the flu) and found another (a genetic tool useful for man). In a
1754 letter to a friend, Horace Walpole coined a term for such scientific
discoveries: serendipity (a “fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise”).
He referenced a Persian fairy tale, The
Three Princes of Serendip and explained: the princes were “always making
discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest
of.” Serendipity for Jennifer Doudna now also means the prospect of making a
difference in the world.
• Providential serendipity in days of old
The fortunate occurrence and pleasant surprise has long been
true in the kind providence of God with his people. Proverbs 16:9 NLT reminds
us, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” And Ephesians
3:20-21 ESV holds forth of prospect of providential serendipity with this peon
of praise:
Now to him who is able to do far
more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work
within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all
generations, forever and ever. Amen.
In 2 Kings Chapter 7, four quarantined men (and, therefore,
outcasts from society) enjoyed an occurrence of providential serendipity. And the
four didn’t know it, but they had the opportunity to make a difference for
society at just the right time.
An enemy regional power, Syria
(also called Aram), had
placed a land blockade around Samaria, the
capital city of the northern kingdom
of Israel. The Israelites
had two choices: starve to death or surrender to a cruel enemy. At that time
the average wage of a working man was about a silver shekel a month. Things got
so bad in the city of Samaria
that a donkey’s head (hardly nutritious) sold for 80 silver shekels and for 5 silver
shekels you could buy a quart of dove’s dung (either pigeon’s manure or, based
on Akkadian evidence, perhaps a nickname for carob pods). (2 Kings 6:25) [3]
It got worse. The king of Israel was walking along on the
city’s protective wall when a woman cried out, “Help (literally “save me”), my
lord, O king!” He replied, “If God won’t help (save) you, how can I? Can I
allocate grain for you from the empty threshing floor or wine for you from the
empty winepress? But, let me ask, what’s your trouble?” She answered, “This
woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my
son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to
her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” In
revolting horror, the king ripped his clothes. Everybody around him could see
that, underneath, he was wearing sackcloth (2 Ki 6:26-30). This was a crucial moment for the
king: as he tore his clothes, would he engage in contrition and repentance from
sin – emblematic of the sackcloth? Or would be the ripping be a form of
bitterness and rage?
Sackcloth was coarse, rough, thick cloth made from black
goats’ hair and used for sacks as well as worn by people in mourning (Genesis
37:34; 2 Samuel 3:31; Psalm 30:11; 35:13). Even the king felt deep anguish over
these desperate conditions and secretly wore the uncomfortable cloth next to his
skin. Upon hearing this story of cannibalism (I believe), a thought something like this
must have flashed into the king’s mind, “A mother has committed almost an
unspeakable crime. And now she wants justice – justice by enforcing this
contract to commit further cannibalism. It’s all God’s fault. I know his law
threatened punishments like famine if we Israelites engaged in prolonged sin
[Lev 26:27-29; Deut 28:52-57]. But with the proper prayers, his prophet Elisha
could have gotten us out of these intolerable, wretched conditions.” In any case, the
king then ejaculated a curse, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of
Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today” (2 Ki 6:31).
The king dispatched an assassin to the house of Elisha, and
it so happened that the elders of Israel were sitting inside with
him. Elisha receives a vision and warns them, “An executioner is coming. Don’t
let him in. The king has to be right behind him.” The assassin does indeed come.
In the biblical text, who says what and where is not precisely told. Apparently,
the king himself blurted out, “All this misery is from the Lord! Why should I
wait any longer for help from the Lord?” (2 Ki 6:32-33).
Elisha replied, “Listen to this message from the Lord! By
this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria,
both six quarts of choice flour and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost
only one silver shekel.” The officer assisting the king retorted, “That
couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!” But Elisha the
prophet replied, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be
able to eat any of it!” (2 Ki 7:1-2).
The king and his entourage break off the murderous attack and return
to their quarters. Silently, night starts to fall silently over the city. Four Israelite men with
a horrible and contagious skin disease (generically called leprosy) were
outside the city gate, living apart from the general population. They were so hungry
that sleep was difficult. They finally asked themselves, “We’re at the point of
starvation. What can we do? Shall we try to go into the city? There’s no food in there and they
just might kill us. Shall we stay where we are? We’ll die for sure. Shall we go
over to the camp of the Syrians? Maybe they’ll kill us or just maybe they’ll
give us some food. Let’s go over there. That’s our one and only chance.” So at
twilight they start walking (2 Ki 7:3-5 NLT).
This little section (2 Ki 7:3-11) has a stair-step structure
[4]. We climb up, see what’s really happening, and then climb down:
Lepers outside the gate, v 3a
Decision, vv 3b-4
Action, v 5
Explanation, vv 6-7
Action, v 8
Decision, v 9
Lepers back to the gate, vv 10-11
The “explanation” allows
us to see and hear what the king and his minions are blind to:
For the
Lord had caused the Syrian army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and
the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king
of Israel
has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!” they cried to one another.
So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses,
donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.
Both the king and the
prophet acknowledge the infinite, absolute, personal unseen Presence. But the
king takes note only of harsh reality and asks, “Where is God?” He doubts or
ignores God’s Word. On the other hand, the prophet as the man of faith
remembers what God was for his people yesterday. And the prophet also affirms
that God is not only the God of the past and of the dead, but God is also the
God of the present and of the living. The Lord cannot be manipulated, but he
has the freedom to act both in ways that uphold the order of the universe and
in ways that surprise his people with blessings. The prophet both proclaims and
believes God’s Word.
After pausing at the top
of the literary stairs to take in a glimpse of who God really is, we start back
down. The lepers arrive at the Syrian army’s camp and no one is there. They go
in tent after tent and eat and drink. The hungry and thirsty are satisfied. At
the same time they carry off the spoils of war abandoned by the soldiers –
silver, gold, and clothing – and hide it as newfound wealth for themselves.
Then a fear of God comes over them and they say to each other, “This is not
right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we
wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s
go back and tell the people at the palace.” (2 Ki 7:8-9)
The lepers tell the gate
keepers, the gate keepers tell the palace officials, and the king is awakened in the
middle of the night for an emergency meeting with his military officers.
Fearing the worst, the king urges inaction, “I know what has happened. The Syrians
know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the
fields. They are expecting us to leave the city, and then they will take us
alive and capture the city.” Fortunately, one officer either has faith in the
word of the prophet or at least is less risk-adverse. He says, "We had better
send out scouts to check into this. Let them take five of the remaining horses.
If something happens to them, it will be no worse than if they stay here and
die with the rest of us.” (2 Ki 7:12-13)
The scouts find solid
evidence that the Syrian soldiers have fled in a mad rush somewhere beyond the Jordan River. The scouts return and tell the king, and
word spreads. The four men who had long been quarantined with a dreaded skin
disease got a welcome surprise after twilight and were privileged to tell some
good news which was badly needed. As a result, they were privileged to make a
difference in the world. What happened next? The Word of the Lord came true. “Then
the people of Samaria
rushed out and plundered the Syrian camp. So it was true that six quarts of
choice flour were sold that day for one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of
barley grain were sold for one piece of silver, just as the Lord had promised.
The king appointed his officer to control the traffic at the gate, but he was
knocked down and trampled to death as the people rushed out.” (2 Ki 7:14-17).
• Providential serendipity today
What about today? Is there still divine serendipity at work?
In the summer of 1997 a six-person team from the U.S planned
a short-term mission to work with a veteran missionary couple (Rick and
Melissa) in Russia.
[5] The team planned to fly 5000 miles to Moscow, spend the night, then fly
south another 1000 miles to the city of Elista, where they were to teach Bible
classes at a day camp for local children. A few days before they left the
States, the city officials forbad their teaching at the camp. So Rick – the
local missionary – came up with the idea of them doing street preaching in Moscow. As the team
arrived at the airport in Moscow, Moscow authorities informed Rick that the Americans would
only be allowed to spend 24 hours in Moscow.
Trying to come up with an alternative, Rick contacted Vera
(a young Christian woman) who lived in a village 50 miles north of Elista. Her
village was predominately Buddhist, and these Buddhist villagers were openly
hostile to Christians — so hostile that they had tried to murder Vera on two
separate occasions. However, when Vera contacted the local school principal, he
agreed to allow the team to teach English as a Second Language as long as there
was no talk about Jesus while the group was at the school.
One of the women on the team, Diane, reported:
After more than 30 hours
traveling, we finally arrived in Elista and learned about Plan C. After a short
and restless night’s sleep, we piled into a rusted van for the 50 mile trek
along a muddy, rut-filled road to a village that fit the cliché “in the middle
of nowhere” to a tee. It’s hard to describe how disoriented and discouraged the
team felt during that ride north as we were being jostled from side to side
while breathing exhaust fumes coming up through a hole in the van’s floor.
Other than myself, no one on the team had any experience teaching English (let
alone English as a Second Language), plus we didn’t have any materials written
in English with us other than our Bibles, which we were forbidden to us. In our
minds, the mission trip was shaping up as a huge disaster.
But God is not the God of the past and of the dead only. He
is also the God of the present and of the living. Diane and the team leader
along with Rick the missionary went to visit that young Christian woman in the
village, Vera. When Rick mentioned that Vera had attended Bible school in Moscow for a couple of
years, Diane (quoted above) remembered that her pastor from the States had
taught there. Diane asked Vera whether she had known her pastor and said his
name. Vera immediately yelled out in excitement the pastor’s name, “Jim, Jim,
Jim.” It turned out that Pastor Jim had given to his students a picture of his
own congregation back in the States. In the center of that photograph were none
other than Diane and her husband.
When Christians and Buddhists in the village heard the story
of the photograph, they had to admit that it was by more than chance that
the six-person team was there. Providential serendipity was at work. The team
taught English in the classroom, played soccer with the village kids in the
afternoon, and worshipped outdoors with the Christians at night. The Gospel was
not shared in the classes, just like the six-person team had agreed to. But an
openness to the Gospel was created in the villagers. Old hostilities had been
overcome and a new environment of trust had been built. Two weeks later,
missionary Rick took another team to that same village who were able to openly
share the Gospel. As a result, nearly every villager placed his or her faith in
Christ. The first team originally thought that their mission would be a
failure. They came back to America
understanding providential serendipity and having the privilege of making a
difference in the world.
[1] Joe Palca, “In Hopes of
Fixing Faulty Genes, One Scientist Starts With the Basics,” NPR Morning
Edition, October 13, 2014.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/13/354934248/in-hopes-of-fixing-faulty-genes-one-scientist-starts-with-the-basics
[2] Ibid., transcript.
[3] Dale Ralph Davis, 2 Kings (Christian Focus Publications,
Ltd.: Fearn, Ross-shire, 2005), p 118.
[4] Ibid. p 123.
[5] Diane Singer, “God’s
Serendipity,” Christian Worldview Journal,
January 7, 2013.
http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/changepoint/19046-gods-serendipity
Art work: (head) Sharon
Wagner, “Hang your hat; don’t turn your back” and (animals) Michael W. High,
“Fascination” part of the exhibit “CLAY . . . Not the Usual Suspects,” the
Gallery, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland, Ohio, September 25 to November
7, 2014.
