Good Morning Friends,
Trying to change someone’s behavior against their will is typically an assault. But not always. Prophets in the Bible usually had the role of disturbing the status quo, whereas the priestly role was often more on the comforting spectrum. Regardless, both functions seem to be needed. Sad to say but prophets were often killed for what they had to say even if an intervention was warranted. The thing is that the goal in the Christian faith is not so much to change someone else’s behavior but our own in relationship to a problem that needs a solution. That is how we grow. Unfortunately, but for very practical reasons, growing healthy in today’s culture may not be a successful as it could be because sermons during difficult times are preached to comfort rather than convict the people in the pews. Now I may regret trying to tackle this, for as I am typing now, I am not sure I have an answer, for carrots and sticks still exist. But I ask anyway for I was raised to believe in miracles, and I think we all desire an answer to the challenge of preventing, not just responding to evil acts even as we live in the bitter realism of the lamentation that divides where we would like to be and where we are. And so, we ask in the hope of a mature understanding, in the hopes that God’s grace and judgement, love and justice might be a recipe for a solution. So, How Do We Stop The Spread Of Viruses And Racism While Still Spreading The Faith?
Scripture: Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:1-11 (NRSV)
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:7-15 (NRSV)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6 (NRSV)
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NRSV)
“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16 (NRSV)
Message: I guess the simple answer to today’s question is to seek the mind of Christ on the cross. God’s will is in charge not our own for the most part. For believing in Jesus’ sacrificing act gives us the best chance to minimize evil in the world and change it into what might be more to the glory of God. But there is more here to unpack. When we face evil, as Jesus did, and let’s face it Jews were prejudice against Gentiles, we begin to see that God really has insight into the nature of human emotional and social development, and so comes to us where we are in our development. In the stream of Holy History God has interacted with humans to help them behave in a healthy way through a reward and punishment mentality, marketplace exchange rituals and though social conformity, and even a law and order judicial system. But these all require little emotional or intellectual interaction on our part. The thinking is removed from the interaction. We just must obey without an internal moral compass even needed. But when we begin doing what is right because we love, or because we are responding to principles of how reality works or we begin to understand God as a friend and actively and intelligently participate in God’s work, our behavior can be trusted for it is not externally motivated but activated from within. All this requires emotional intelligence. It requires us to mature. And perhaps to see the law more as a teaching based on observations. The beauty of this is that in this growth God is as concerned with the redemption of individuals as well as the redemption of society. So too for us, having a social agenda without individual transformation is empty. Still we believe that God’s purpose for the world will ultimately prevail… that loneliness, pain, poverty, sickness, injustice, even death will no longer mar creation. Our understanding is to change our function in the world. We are to let God speak to us where we are in our development. And here in these teaching moments, and they are just moments for they pass so quickly, notice that there is a difference between believing and supporting justice and doing just acts. Friends, we do justice when we do the right thing whether it is in harmony with our interests or not and that requires us to think about what is moral from the point of view of the mind of Christ. Sometimes what is lawful is not moral. The Bible is filled with a history of physical slavery but also the more insidious slavery of sin. The amassed effects of personal sins since tribes enslaved other tribes in Africa have led to social structures of injustice and violence that makes us all accomplices in racism. When individuals, communities and even churches remain silent and fail to act when injustice is encountered, they share in a sin of omission. We need a genuine conversion of heart, a conversion that will compel change, and the reform of our institutions and society. But more importantly we all need a personal, ongoing conversion for our sense of exceptionalism has been exposed. And we need forgiveness as much as conviction.
And So, racism is a sin rarely confessed and like Covid-19 is spread though contact. Part of the solution for both is to trace the contact back to its source and not be focused so much on blame as to seek the cure of the cross of Christ for the behaviors we need to change moving forward. That is how the faith spreads in the truth spoken with love. For hope and despair walk hand in hand here. So, the foundation for doing justice is loving justice more than you love yourself. This takes courage. And the foundation for loving justice more than yourself is loving your neighbor and even one’s enemy as you love yourself. So, we cannot claim to seek justice for others when we do not act justly in all our relationships even if it means seeing the pain of others and being uncomfortable about it. For when we seek justice for ourselves and turn a blind eye to the injustice others face, we miss the mark of what God has in mind for us. Perhaps, if we will concentrate our hearts on doing justice in all our acts, we might be better able to seek justice for others. And if we focus on doing justice, we might not be so insistent on seeking justice for ourselves. Maybe this approach of actively seeking opportunities to serve moment by moment, like the life of Jesus, might minimize or even prevent some evil acts occurring in the first place. God gives us a gracious invitation to drink deep of the joy of life that is right here and right now so we might overcome the mysterious nature of the calamities that has overtaken us. So, I think we are to lament our state while still having an unconquerable trust of believing that Jesus is the solution. No one can destroy this idea for it lives on even if sometimes it seems only in our imagination.
Pray we be the dreamer and the dream of a better reality. Pray we have the courage and resolve to confront racism by addressing its causes and the injustice it produces in new and creative ways. Pray that with the grace of God, healing can occur. Pray we realize what is right to do and do it. Pray we fight the sins of omission. Pray
we actively seek to demonstrate God’s purpose here and now, until it is fully realized in God’s good time. Pray we are encouraged to keep reading the Bible. Pray we keep forgiving others. Pray we find a pathway of service that honors God. Pray we realize that God is the Supreme Being of the universe. Pray we are set right with God by doing the right things for the right reasons. Pray we trust God and have the mind of Christ and trust God’s lead. Pray we realize it is not so much about being declared right as actually being right. Pray still we not punish ourselves. Pray we, as the called-out assembly of God, rethink the way the world is functioning and how we are to function in it. Pray we discover a security that can be trusted. Pray we enter the fullness of God’s design. Pray we integrate our theology with scripture, science and experiences we have been given by God. Pray when God comes to us where we are, we are led to take the next step with God. Pray we realize that the marriage of God and humanity will not occur until we mature. Pray we walk in the way of the prophets humbly realizing the fundamental truth that we all are brothers and sisters equally made in the image of God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 