ECHO...echo...echo...

 The last few weeks have been different things at different times for me.  See if you can follow my ADD addled train of thought as I attempt to free associate myself through the thoughts and feelings, the fears and convictions that have at times fought with each other for dominance in my mind and heart. 

Back in November there was an election.  Anyone, no matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on knew it was not going to be a normal election, people on the right were pre-conditioned to believe it was rigged if their man lost.  People on the left were pre-conditioned to want to say ha ha ha we told you so if they won.  There was not much hope of any real change, of any real coming together, or of any hope of any type of Bipartisanship.  That ship sailed a long time ago.

December rolled around and while all that political mess was still happening we all were also trying to come to grips with the fact that what was supposed to be the beginning of the end of this whole Pandemic thing looked more like the continuation of a very dense piece of literature.  Years ago I had to write a paper in my college English Lit class.  I had just watched The Last of the Mohicans and thought it would be a good thing to write on as I enjoyed the movie.  Tucking into the book itself I realized something.  The story is amazing and it's all there and I enjoy the story but getting to the story in the book was mentally exhausting, even now as I pull it up and flip through the digital pages my mind swims at once pulled into the story and at the next moment working at keeping my mind on task to find a quote that can adequately convey the denseness of the prose.  I said all that to say this, December rolled around and with it all the things that the Holiday's bring with it along with the realization that it would not look like what most people are used to.  I was one of those people that was so wanting to return to a sense of what things were, and yet that did not happen. All the things that make Christmas, Christmas for most people, were just not there.  Gatherings and church services and family traditions all got mixed up, and through it all was this ribbon of discomfort with what was happening nationally and internationally regrading COVID and the elections and all of it.

Moving into January and things didn't seem to slow down in fact they ramped up.  Then came January 6th and all that went with it.  This whole thing is horrid, you have a bit more than half the country chomping at the bit for January 20th to get here and just under half still not ready to accept the results of what happened all the way back in November with some insisting that on January 20th the current president will be inaugurated.  

Through all of this the different sides of me scream at each other.  The activist side says one thing, the church side says another.  I walk this line regularly, and usually it's not that big of a deal.  It actually brings a bit of debate into my world and I enjoy it.  I always have liked having those kind of discussions that make the people involved think. It really doesn't matter what I'm debating...a good theological debate, a deep historical one, a shallow which star wars movie is better...or a rousing political fight all bring equal happiness, at least they did.  Not so much anymore.  I have just lost the stomach for most of it.  The tight rope that people in my position walk can be precarious and after a while it's easier to not walk it.  To do what I said on January 6th on my Facebook page.  Pray...Pray...Pray.  

The problem lately, as I see it, is the whole echo chamber that everyone seems to find themselves in. The thing about an echo chamber is it's fun at first.  When you call out hello....and a hello that sounds the same as you comes back to you it makes you smile.   We all have done it .."HELLO"...hello..."ECHO"...echo..."I'M AN IDIOT"...you're an idiot...you get the idea we all do. The problem is if the only person you ever have to talk to is yourself there is no real growth, no chance for change.  

Jesus came into the world and pushed people to leave their echo chambers, especially leaders.  How he did this is evident with most of what he would say and most of what he did, think about what he says:

Matthew 5:43–44 (HCSB) — 43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

This wasn't a one time thing with Jesus. 

John 8:5–7 (HCSB) — 5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?” 6 They asked this to trap Him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse Him. Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with His finger. 7 When they persisted in questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Jesus consistently pulls people, or tries to pull people out of the echo chambers that they found themselves in.  Wanting them to realize that a real relationship with God must by it's very nature transcend the way things always were.  Pulling and tugging us along into being more and more like Him.  Somehow in the last bunch of years Christ Followers have lost sight of that.  Where once we looked for common ground with other denominations, now we see walls, where once we would reach out to our community we now reach out to the parts that offer the best prospects for whatever our end goal is, and while we know what our end goal is supposed to be...

Matthew 28:18–20 (HCSB) — 18 Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

That's the goal, and yet the Church as a whole, and many times myself as an individual have forgotten that.  

If we really believe what we say we believe then this is what we should be about but also it's what we should cling too.  The last part of verse 20 offers us some pretty amazing hope.  "I AM WITH YOU ALLWAYS."  

Jesus pulls us out of our echo chambers, or tries to, so that we can actually do what he told us to do and to remind us that He's with us.  No matter what is going on.  No matter what the virus is doing, or who occupies the halls of government, or how many people we see sitting next to us or notice on the live stream.  He wants us to remember what matters...the fact that we have been rescued from the mess of sin in our lives and are called to throw out the rope of the Gospel to the world around us so that He can in turn rescue them from the mess of sin that is their life.  

2020 was a hard year...2021 seems to be starting off equally hard...or is it.  What if I choose to grip the hand of the son of a carpenter from Galilee and let him pull me from my own echo chamber into the world that he's talking about when he tells me to make disciples.  What if I start worrying more about that than I do about all the stuff that I'm "supposed" to worry about? 

See you next week...