The tongues is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire…With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. (James 3:6ff, NIV)
To say or write anything publicly in the times we live in may very well be met with suspicion. Because we are raw with the occurrences of the past few weeks in our nation’s capital. Whether you are a person of faith, or whether you are unchurched, chances are you have strong feelings about where we are as a nation. Regardless of where you or I stand, or how we feel, we are a nation in disagreement. Of that, we can all agree. What we do about it first involves what we say. Speech: Spoken, written — and, deserving special mention — what we send out via social media. Social media can serve an amazing purpose. We live in a time when we can connect with someone we haven’t seen in 50 years, we can look up recipes and learn how to do repair a dishwasher in the span of a few seconds. We can also receive and dish out whatever comes to mind without much thought to the damage it does. We live in a nation of free speech. It is one of our most highly regarded freedoms. Here is the actual text of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” What we also know is the practice of free speech does not merely mean we can say or do whatever we want, without consequence. In this newspaper a day or two ago was an article about a Waynesboro business owner who was in the nation’s capital on Jan. 6, and described were posts by the attendee and alleged posts by a Waynesboro Cultural Commission member who reacted to what the business owner wrote. Neither person had met the other. The comments were full of confrontation, vitriol, threats. There was no interest in engaging in constructive conversation. Their tongues were on fire. We could go on and on with examples where the ability to listen and speak, especially when we disagree, has broken down. A few years ago, I watched a movie from the 1930’s on TCM. It was a story of some young men in their early twenties. They were rivals who bitterly disagreed. I forget the situation that led to their rivalry, but the young men came to blows. What was curious though, was after their brief fight, they paused to light cigarettes and then began to talk about their disagreement, which was not a lighthearted one. Are we able to do this today? In this era of social media, where it is much easier to “let fly” on the Internet, as opposed to looking someone else directly in the eye and saying, “I disagree with you, tell me why you think this way, I don’t understand;” how can we disagree while diffusing the rising tensions of our time? This question is not only for Washington D.C., though I think both Democrat and Republican politicians need to answer this question. The question is for those of us living here in this area. There is always something to disagree about. There are serious disagreements about what the future of our nation looks like. Are we able to disagree and search for ways to move forward together? In the book of Acts the writer Luke speaks multiple times of how “there was no small debate” in the early church. The disagreements were about a centrally important covenant that God had made with the people of Israel. There were confrontations. But the text tells us that the speech — the tongues of those who disagreed — sought to work and find a way forward, through the Holy Spirit working in and amongst them. The wisdom of God in Holy Scripture does not shirk or try to find some easy way around important disagreements. Any jump into the story of Scripture reveals that God’s people rarely found completely unified agreement, and often found themselves in the midst of “no small debate.” But in the freedom we have in Christ that is declared openly and loudly in God’s Word, we hear the wisdom of James, noted above, and the apostle Paul, who in Ephesians writes, “speak the truth in love.” Putting those together (truth and love) can be difficult. And yet these are times for the faithful — whether you and I tend strongly politically one way or another or not — to heed the wisdom of God for living together. Last Sunday, the Church celebrated the Baptism of our Lord Jesus. Before the heavens opened, the Spirit of God descended on Jesus, and the voice of God came out of heaven declaring Jesus to be the Beloved Son, the gospel of Luke (Luke 3:1-22) describes the times the people are living in: a time of Emperor Tiberius, of governor Pontius Pilate, of other rulers like Herod and Philip. It’s in this time that the Word of God comes to John the Baptist in the wilderness. Where do the crowds head? To the capital city, or the governor’s palace or the places where other rulers have their say? Or to Facebook or Twitter or the news channel where they find people who think like they do? No, they head to where the Word of God is proclaimed to ask “what then shall we do?” The times we live in are no different.
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For almost 10 months now, the ways we have interacted with one another have changed.
Regardless of how you feel about masks, social distancing and Zoom, these are a few of the new practices (as well as words or phrases) that have become a part of our daily lives this year. For most places you and I go, you must have a mask to enter. When we make our way inside, we see countless signs on floors, walls and doors asking us to stay distant from one another. Maybe your church meets and you sit in pews marked so you are separate from one another. Maybe you are picking up orders of food from the grocery store or your favorite restaurant rather than shopping or dining in. Maybe your favorite restaurant has closed because their business couldn’t stay afloat with pick-up orders and limits to how many people could be together. You might be a person who has taken every precaution from the CDC seriously and haven’t seen friends, family, children and grandchildren in months now. You might be among the rebellious that have come to the point that you don’t care and you are going to get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other gatherings inside or out and nothing’s going to hold you back. Maybe you are trying to find the compromise, like my brother who lives in upper New York state who has bought a couple of restaurant-quality space heaters — the kind you use outside that are about six feet tall — so every couple of weeks he and his wife can see friends or family in winter temperatures on the back porch. Most of us now know what Zoom is. It allows us some measure of being together through a computer or smart phone. We can see one another, hear one another — oddly enough we let each other into our homes, we sit in our kitchen or TV room, or even bedroom! —but, as I’ve heard from people who though they appreciate Zoom or other technology that allows us to meet together distantly, it’s not the same. Again, regardless of whether you are towing the line, rebellious, or trying to find the fine line to stay safe but be together, we know that being “in person” has changed for us this year. We simply cannot be present the way we used to. There’s a claim made this time of year — and a word used — that you don’t often hear at other times of the year. Listen to these lines from favorite Christmas hymns: verse 2 of Hark the Herald Angels Sing says: “Christ by highest heav’n adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, veiled in flesh the godhead see, hail Incarnate deity.” Verse 4 of Oh Come All Ye Faithful goes like this: “Jesus to thee all Glory be giv’n. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.” The amazing message of this time of year is that God came down, God had to come in person — incarnate, in bodily form — to accomplish his purposes. God did not phone it in, God could not simply Zoom with us, God was not masked or veiled in some way, nor was God distanced from us. If there is a year to understand the power of God’s love and Grace in this world, 2020 has to be it! We know it from what we are missing. We are designed by God to be in-person people. We understand so much more about someone when we see them in person. We can “read” a person’s body language, see their eyes, their face, we can engage with them more effectively in person. It’s what we’ve missed this year! I have experienced enough of the dangers of the coronavirus first hand to know the care we need to show to others and ourselves by continuing to mask and distance and use common sense in these times. But in this “weary world” (verse 2, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear), we are also like the shepherds, who have heard the declaration of Good News: “Peace on earth, goodwill toward all people.” Jesus still comes among us. Emmanuel, God-with-us, is here today. Where are the new places we are being asked to look for God’s presence? What “Bethlehem” are we being shown to find Jesus? And if you are I are the Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:27), where is God asking us to show up, to be salt and light to a weary world (a weary Waynesboro!)? I have seen Jesus this year in two women who refused to see a feeding ministry close up in our area, and found and continue to find volunteers to make food and serve it to 40 or 50 people a day. Jesus is in person there. I have seen Jesus in the 90 year old who crafted Christmas symbols out of wood for every child in a congregation to help make sure that in this coronavirus time, the children were remembered, and receiving materials that taught them the story of God’s love in Jesus Christ. I have seen Jesus in person in a Zoom discussion group between White and Black Christians, who are really getting to know one another and what it means to follow Jesus, letting go of preconceived notions and prejudices of the way people are, and offering the power of forgiveness to allow relationships to move forward with love and purpose for the sake of community. I have seen Jesus in person living in and through the decisions a local official makes in his daily work in government. All of this during a pandemic. “Jesus, now in flesh appearing.” We look forward to the time when we can be in person once again. But maybe the opportunities to be in person with each other — through Jesus Christ, God-with-us — have been there all along. What will ultimately allow us to move forward? As a nation, as a community, as families, as individuals? What’s the key? What’s the way? What’s the truth?
We all know the answers that have been presented to us in our lives. Nationally, you know what we’ve been hearing for months, even years. It’s all about power. We cloth it in righteous language, justice language, prosperity language, equality language, but in the end it’s about who is in control. And we are afraid of what might happen if the other side is in control. And so we want to make sure that there are enough Supreme Court justices that are on our side, or that we can turn the tide and gain control of the House or Senate, or that the White House is “ours.” Or locally, if we can be sure who controls the tax rate, or the right people are on Council to focus on the goals of the community that we want. All will be well if the “right side” can win. For others, the answer is discipline, and law. Whether we’re talking about the gym, or your weight, or learning a trade or a sport; or what your neighbor can do on her property, or what you do on yours; or law and order, or law and justice, even equality and our rights; it’s all about if/then; if you do this, then this will happen, if we have this law, then that will happen, or won’t happen. If you don’t do this or that, then there is a consequence. It’s important to set conditions, limits, and with the right laws and discipline, all will be well. You certainly can find the exercise of power and the importance of law and discipline in the Bible. Take a look at the story of the rise of King Solomon, for example, in I Kings 1-2. It is an exercise in a blood bath battle for power. Or a look at the book of Deuteronomy seems, at first glance, to be a textbook of Law – if you do this, then God will be with you. If not, there will be consequences. You shall, you shall not. I love the Bible, God’s Word, because it is so honest, and reveals so much about ourselves, and about God. And yet in all the stories of the Bible, in all the ways God is revealed in the Bible, power and law and discipline are never the starting points, or the end point, of God’s story. How is God most frequently described in the Old Testament? “Gracious, Merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in Steadfast Love.” There’s actually two “love words” in this description, because Grace is “undeserved love.” Love given whether we earn it or not. And the Hebrew Word “steadfast love” means a love that is loyal and will never go away, not matter what. In the New Testament, many of us know “the gospel in a nutshell,” John 3:16: “for God so loved the world…” and the important following verse that God sent his Son Jesus not to condemn, but to save the world. John’s letters go further. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” God is love. So, if God created this world, sent his Son into the world to save it, and now guides this world in the power of the Holy Spirit, Love is key to the way forward in our world. It is the truth of where our hope is for our future, of this world, of our nation, our community and our families and selves. Is this true? Not if we think of love as “some weak and sentimental response…” instead of “the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality,” to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Love that is practiced where we live for others and ourselves, for the sake of everyone. So often, our hopes and dreams for this world, for the community, even for our families or your life and mine are tied up with fear: what we do not know, what might happen, what we cannot control, who we have been taught to mistrust or be afraid of. Us and them. God’s Word teaches us something profound about love; that its opposite is not necessarily hate; its opposite is fear. “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in him…There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear,” John’s first letter tells us. If you think of some of the most important times in the story of God, or perhaps more importantly, in the stories of our world, the way forward becomes clear after the words, “Do not be afraid” are spoken. Because when we are able to move past what we are afraid of, the love of God, the love that IS God, enables things to happen that cannot otherwise happen. But this requires an understanding of love far beyond that described on a top 40 hit on the radio, or the love we describe when there is mutual benefit to make us feel good, or those who are easy to love. This is the love for enemies (Matthew 5:43-45), the love that results in goodwill for all people – remember the angels’ song? The love that – so many times in God’s Word and real life – puts us places, and with people who we might otherwise avoid, because of fear. And instead, we find life that we would not otherwise experience, because love has gotten us there. Yes, globally, nationally, as well as in our community, our churches and in our own families. If Jesus is Lord of all of life, what other way forward could there be? |
AuthorPastor Paul came to Grace to serve as our Pastor in October 2012. After a first career in product and graphic design, he was ordained in 1993, and has served as a parish pastor in Virginia and South Carolina. He is married to Jill and they have two daughters, one at Roanoke College and one at James Madison University. Archives
December 2021
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