A Weblog Dedicated to the Discussion of the Christian Faith and 21st Century Life

A Weblog Dedicated to the Discussion of the Christian Faith and 21st Century Life
___
I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, –that unless I believed, I should not understand.-- St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Monday, November 26, 2018

There Will Come a Day a Hundred Years from Now: A Political Poetic Ponderment

There will come a day a hundred years from now when church historians will gather around a table and look at our time. They will sift through old newspapers and antiquated videos and make their judgment.


They will conclude that those who sought to be great brought the world down to a level below mediocrity-- indeed to a plane that could only be described as nefarious. It was a time when the most powerful nation in the world
allowed despots to get away with murder and gave dictators permission to do as they pleased, while launching tear gas against women and children, the "real threat" to the empire. Morality was for sale to the highest bidder because they bought their oil and increased the personal wealth of the emperor.
There will come a day a hundred years from now when church historians will wonder how people who proclaimed their faith in a God who loved the world enough to die for it, supported freely one whose life reflected so little of the Savior they claimed to follow. How was it they could
claim their empire was Christian and yet denied that faith in their actions, and even stated that Jesus never really informed their views on politics even though they called Jesus their Lord? They believed that Jesus' words, "Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter my kingdom," applied only to others, never comprehending the irony of it all.
There will come a day a hundred years from now when church historians will find themselves baffled by the people of the past who majored in the minors, who focused their outrage on the easy things requiring no commitment and neglected what Jesus referred to as "the weightier matters of the law-- justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Christians posting on social media revealing their backward priorities,
being more concerned with keeping Christmas Christian by insisting on "Merry Christmas," while embracing an insidious consumerism that makd a mockery of Christ's self-giving-- followers of Jesus pushing each other for the latest hot commodity. People insisting that Christ be kept in Christmas while failing to act like Christ-- feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the unwanted, loving enemies, and embracing the refugee.
There will come a day a hundred years from now when church historians will gather around a table and wonder how God's people so strayed from their mission, the orders given to it by its Lord to go out into the world and make disciples. How did its attention get so diverted from the reason for its existence to
believing that power, coercion, and violence were more effective in promoting God's kingdom willing to proclaim like the crowd on Good Friday, "We have no king but Caesar!" than simply being the suffering presence of Jesus in the world? Folks in the pews Sunday after Sunday proclaiming Jesus as Lord and then going about the rest of the week acting as though Caesar was Lord Monday through Saturday, denying their idolatry simply because they were sincere.
There was a day two thousand years ago when Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'"

Jesus words remind us that there will come a day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your wonderful message!......The United Methodist Church is and will be, my church home.....