Covid-19 cases are back on the rise. Unemployment is still too high. In the streets, chaos rages. Unsightly and profane graffiti defaces public
monuments, and statues of major historical figures are being removed, torn down
or destroyed. A political circus makes
mockery of responsible governance, and recent high court decisions bring the
possibility of severe curtailments of religious liberty. Add to these the hardships we all experience
during “normal” times, and the combination of these factors add up to a ponderous
burden in the soul to carry around.
We’re bewildered, confused, and at times just about paralyzed. We don’t know where the world is going or
what to do next. And since we were
already confined to our homes for a couple of months, the stress from our physical
lockdown amplifies the feeling of psychological lockdown that stalks us.
Viewing the rancor and chaos in our cities, I’m
reminded of the movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers. During an assault on his fortress by
thousands of evil beings, King Theoden cries out, “So much death. What can men do against such reckless
hate?” He is nearly paralyzed. His orderly world has been replaced by an
apocalyptic nightmare. Perhaps you have
felt an immobilizing heaviness of the soul in these dark days. It’s perfectly understandable.
It’s alright to retreat for awhile, to rest our
souls, seek some perspective, and face the fact that the world has
changed. It has changed many times,
however, and our forebears have come to terms with it and moved on. We must do the same. True, nothing quite like this has happened to
this generation before. We have little
experience in the world upending itself so drastically. But neither did most
who came before us. We must figure out
how to carry on living, and I think that our focus and attitude will play a key
role in this. For our own good, in the
words of the Serenity Prayer, we need acceptance of the things we cannot
change, courage to change what we can, and wisdom to know the difference.
I am reminded of a piece from my favorite poet,
Robert Frost, titled “The Lesson for Today.”
It’s a look at the comparative darkness of many generations of dark
times. He warns the reader that it is
not good to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by too many things beyond our
control. We cannot allow fear and
self-pity to form an excuse for making a difference in the areas we can influence. He writes:
We have today
and I could call their name
Who know exactly
what is out of joint
To make their
verse and excuses lame.
They’ve tried to
grasp with too much social fact
Too large a
situation.
You and I
Would be afraid
if we should comprehend
And get outside
of too much bad statistics.
Our muscles never
could again contract:
We never could
recover human shape,
But must live
lives out mentally agape,
Or die of
philosophical distention. (italics mine)
I trust you grasp what Frost was trying to
express, that we must narrow our focus.
If we try to come up with solutions for “too large a situation,” we will
blow our own fuses. The events that spike
the blood pressures of news addicts are far beyond their capacity to influence
in any way. That is what makes them fretful—that
gives them ulcers. In the great, sum
total of the world’s catastrophes, we become frozen in place. We are at a loss for anything meaningful to
do. We point to how badly the world is
“out of joint,” and lamely excuse ourselves from taking the action we can
take. As Frost says, we have today. But in the face of the colossal darkness of
our time, what can we do with our today? Can you or I bring light to the world?
To the world, no.
An individual can’t fix everything.
But to our little patch of it, we certainly can.
Take the awful, racial unrest in America, for
example. Injustice, we are told, is systemic,
transcending individual personalities and choices. And yet, though the evil
resides in an impersonal system that no individual can touch, the guilt
is imparted on the individual. It is
personal. As a white person, I am, by
definition, a racist. This has become
America’s “original sin.” A nation which
has abandoned God and the Gospel no longer acknowledges personal sin, but misappropriates
the term and makes it sociological[i]. It is applied to oppressive classes and
ethnicities, and there is no appeal. To object,
to speak at all, is to prove oneself the more inescapably guilty. To remain silent is to be complicit. Say something, or nothing, and you are proved
guilty of this sin. And for this sin,
there is no Christ, no atonement, no release. Only penance never-ending. The problem
is painted in colossal terms—what can one person do? The fuses blow. We stand unblinking, dazed by a crisis far
beyond remedy by an individual Christian.
But the Bible rejects the premise. First, read Ezekiel 18. It is too long to post here, but verse 20
sums it up nicely: “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will
not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the
child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the
wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” Society is trying with all its might to tell
a different story, but God holds us accountable for our own lives, our
own sinfulness and righteousness. To be accountable for my own actions,
thoughts and words is quite enough of a concern, thank you. On that basis alone, I am eternally condemned
apart from the cross. It is a tremendous
weight taken from my soul to know that, before the throne of God, the sins of
others will not be accounted in my ledger.
On the other hand, I must be all the more
vigilant to bring the things I can affect under the Lordship of
Christ. There certainly is a solemn obligation
there. But in Jesus I have an advocate,
interceding for me at the right hand of the Father (1 John 2:1-2). Even when I do fail my King or my neighbor, the blood of Christ washes me clean and
transforms me so that I can more consistently do justice, love mercy, and walk
humbly before my God (Micah 6:8). I can
never stop growing, but I can rest in the grace of Jesus until I stand before
Him, glorified. He supplies my lack.
The Gospel also rejects the premise of this age. Jesus
came to reconcile me to God, but He also came to reconcile me to my
neighbor. The hatreds and bigotries of
this sick old world have no cure in human ethics or politics. That is why injustice continues to this day;
we can march in the streets, smash buildings and destroy landmarks until the
last trumpet, but we will only make the damage worse. Only in the cross can the debt be paid and
the poison of resentment be expelled from our hearts. Paul beautifully expressed, in Ephesians 2:14-16
--
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one
and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility… His purpose was
to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in
one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to
death their hostility.”
This promise
does not deny the struggles of my neighbors who have been treated unjustly for
far too long. It does not give me leave
to assume that their experiences are just the same as mine, or that their
cultural distinctives are the same as mine.
It does not absolve me of speaking up and working for fair treatment
when I can. But it flatly denies that we
are doomed to live in these assigned roles of perpetrator and victim, bereft of
hope that we may ever live as one family, worshiping the same Father and
serving one another. At the cross of Jesus, we are all on the same footing—all
wretched sinners, for whom Christ paid
with His blood to wash us clean, to make us one with God and each other. As Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
Under
the Gospel narrative, am I locked into helpless guilt without remedy? No—Christ
paid the debt in full. Am I paralyzed in the face of a broken world, or is there anything I can do move the needle?
With Christ in me, quite a bit, as it turns out. Instead of standing immobilized and mute at
the profound darkness of this world, I can start right where I am. I can worship the Lord and befriend my
neighbor with an open and hospitable heart.
I can bridge the distance of difference and intentionally make friends
with those whose stories are different than mine. We can eat together, and I can listen to
their stories, their victories and struggles.
I can grow in my knowledge and love of them to the point that I begin to
understand how I can stand beside and serve them. I can refuse to live according to the
mentality of polarized camps of race and class; I can be a neighbor to everyone
God places into my life, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I refuse to be anyone’s enemy or oppressor; I
will gladly be their friend and servant. And the biggest part of my service is
that I point them to the cross, where their sin and bitterness can be washed
away—where they can become reconciled to God and with each other as brothers
and sisters. That, my friends, is
the spirit of the Gospel. That’s the
narrative I live by. I invite you to join
me.
Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of
doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day
he visits us. – 1 Peter 2:12.
With
Love,
Pastor
Scott.
[i] Bottum,
Joseph. An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America. New York: Image, 2014.
