Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his
disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore,
do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do
not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to
bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they
themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all
their deeds to be seen by others (Mathew 23:1-5a).
Walk humbly, speak slowly
Something remarkable occurs in Jesus’ perception. He
recognizes truth in the words of those who oppose him, something almost unheard
of in our current social and political environment.
Today, complex issues are reduced to binary formulas.
You are either with Black Lives Matter or you support the police. You are
either a Democrat or a Republican, a progressive or someone who deserves to be ‘cancelled.’
Sides form, opinions harden; one side (one’s own) is considered
is good, wise and just while the other gets dismissed as wrongheaded, self-serving
and evil.
Public discourse is reduced to sloganeering and
accusations, which means there is no discourse, no exchange at all.
Unfortunately, so many Christians and churches in our society
are little or no better. Their … make that our
… spiritual convictions and commitments get eclipsed by political and social ideologies,
conservative and liberal, which overwhelm the wisdom of our faith and the presence
of the love of Christ in our souls. Today, the attitudes, opinions and behaviors
of most American Christians are little more than a mirror of the political and social
divides in our society, and all because we fail to ask, what is the call of
Christ in our time and place?
The call of Christ, to walk as Jesus walked, can seldom,
if ever, be wholly identified with any ideology, political opinion or
association because these are all self-aggrandizing and demand the kind of total
loyalty no Christian can or should give anyone or anything, except Jesus the Christ.
And Jesus walks in the humility of knowing only God is
ultimate good, and the truth of God and how to walk with God appears in many
places and people, even in those who opposed, hated, rejected and reviled him.
Listen and do as they say, Jesus says about those teachers
who taught people to honor God, but do not do as they do, he added, for they
are all about themselves and have no compassion in their hearts.
If we are to follow Jesus, if we are to stand with him,
we must avoid the shouting and listen, humbly, for voices that speak compassion
and truth, which is always more subtle and nuanced than slogans and placards
allow.
We might start by listening to that voice within
ourselves.
Pr.
David L. Miller
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