Most people I know, myself included wouldn't let a child get away with that as an excuse for their poor behavior, in fact the ever present if so and so jumped off a bridge or a cliff would you do the same, is a time honored missive given to children everywhere.
We live in a world that worries about things being fair. This starts when we are kids and never really abates not matter how old we get. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we confuse justice with fairness, especially if we are Christ followers, the thing is God never promised us things would be fair, just sure but not fair.
Over the past few weeks and, unfortunately it continues. I've read a lot of posts from people that I love and from people that I don't even know that are saying the same thing over and over. But they did it so since they did it then it's okay for us to do it. It's funny and sad all at the same time. Funny because it's such a childish thing, sad because it's grown ups that are doing it, well supposed to be grown ups.
I've talked about the pendulum effect with people I know. This effect is evidenced in several places. The church has been dealing with the pendulum effect pretty much from it's inception. That place where we over correct or under correct. Music, study, sermons, ministries in the church, even the way the church is decorated seems to go in big swings.
This happens in politics all the time too. One party changes rules to get what they want done, when the pendulum swings and the other party is in charge they go further and say...but they did it, then as the pendulum swings back the other way the party that just changed the rules begs the other one to not do what they just did. It's been going on this way for more years than anyone cares to admit.
The thing is, it's different this time. I don't mean the pendulum part of it. Politics is politics, what's different and saddening to me is what I am seeing happen in the church. I haven't seen this much bitterness anger and strife in the church over who sits at the resolute desk before.
We as followers of Christ are not called to nationalism, we are called to sacrifice. We are not called to defend ourselves, we are called to defend those that can't defend themselves, letting God give us the words to speak and defend us. We are not called to be right, but to seek righteousness there's a big difference.
I heard someting today that was really interesting. If you as a Christ follower are being asked to hate, or condemn, or demean, or make fun of, or fill in the blank for all the words that denote hate your neighbor, no matter what flavor of Christian you are then you need to stop following, listening to and supporting the voice telling you to do so.
One of the things that has caused me no small amount of sadness is the amount of vitriol that has seeped into the Christian narrative. It is ugly, and that ugly is not reserved for any one side. When I read the words of Jesus, when I study what Paul says about interacting with each other and the world, when I dig into the difference between being a Christ follower and being a American Christian I want to pull my hair out, unfortunatly I have to settle for shaving cream and my razor but you get the idea. I will be honest, I had hoped that there would be a collective pause after January 20. I guess I nursed this delusion that things would shift and peole would calm down, that somehow there would be this turning, for Christians at least, to an understanding that what really matters is what we do with the truth that we know, the bottom line foundational understanding that Jesus is not a party affiliate. That our job as Christ followers is to be salt and light, to share the truth of the gospel, to pray for whoever is in leadership and to recognize this...
I don't know about you but lately it seems that American Christians have forgotten this, and that is sad. If we remembered this, if we leaned into this and the rest of what this particular chapter in Hebrews says, we would do things differently I think.
I guess what I'm realizing more and more is a sad fact. Christianity and American Christianity in particular needs to grow up. We have lost our way as we have substituted the enduring city to come with the temporal city of nation, party, denomination, ideology.
I keep having this thought. If the church universal, but more to the point if the church American began to focus on the truth of the gospel, on the importance of what it was told to do, of the ideals Jesus laid out in Matthew 23, the things he did that broke down the walls of religion in his day and focused on the truth of reaching, if we would be not a place of condemnation but a place of reconciliation all grounded in the truth of the gospel, the understanding that people will mess up, people will sin, and that sin of course has consequences but that our job is not to interpret those consequences for the masses but rather to show them that there is this person that has offered to walk with us through them, and that if we are going to claim to be followers of that person then we will walk through those consequences as well, supporting, praying for and encouraging. What would happen? Imagine if people could look at the basics of what Jesus said and when they cross referenced them with the actions of the person that claims to follow Jesus and say. Oh wow that lines up. Imagine what would happen. Imagine if we were grown ups. What could be accomplished?
We can do that. For whatever reason God chose to have humanity be an integral part of the plan of redemption, and if that is the case, then the one that designed us knows we are capable of so much. Isn't it time for us to work towards that more?
