With two different prominent interviews happening today, one in Canada and one in America, and British politicians voting again today on the swirling flush that is Brexit.
With the vote yesterday the United Methodists aren't united at all. (Seems either you "Don't follow scripture" or you "Don't love people.")
Seems that the world is a much sadder place this week and it looks as though the church is following right along, step by step in its behaviour.
My internal struggle the past two weeks has been with the injustices, and with the quickness to judgement evidenced out there. I am told more and more by the world and the broader church, just how I should behave and act, what I should believe and renounce, how I need to choose right now who my friends should and shouldn't be, and on and on.
So I've just about had it with people who have world views from other parts of the world and who expect me to have the same world view as they do. I've nearly heard enough from people who say these people are right and those people are wrong and on which side are you?
And yes, had enough of contextless opinions some share at me thinking that in their volume they will convince me of the rightness of their thinking or worse yet, their feeling on a matter.
Deep sigh.
So this morning I went where I need to go, and I came across the right medicine for my broken spirit.
Psalm 12
For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by an eight-stringed instrument.
Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
The faithful have vanished from the earth!
Neighbors lie to each other,
speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.
May the Lord cut off their flattering lips
and silence their boastful tongues.
They say, “We will lie to our hearts’ content.
Our lips are our own—who can stop us?”
The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless,
and I have heard the groans of the poor.
Now I will rise up to rescue them,
as they have longed for me to do.”
The Lord’s promises are pure,
like silver refined in a furnace,
purified seven times over.
Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed,
preserving them forever from this lying generation,
even though the wicked strut about,
and evil is praised throughout the land.
God's got this. It doesn't surprise him, doesn't catch him unaware.
He knows about it all.
This is my prayer
This is His answer.
So today I will follow His promises and not the news reports.
I will pray and study and go to meet with people who are needing a bit of encouragement themselves.
And I will remember pastor Pauls challenge:
"...one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." Philippians 4:8
Good morning.
"Seems that the world is a much sadder place this week and it looks as though the church is following right along, step by step in its behaviour."
ReplyDeleteThe church is people. Broken, failing people. In line with the title of your previous post, I'd like to think it was different from the world around them, but that doesn'r often seem to be the case.
They know it. They know we know it, and they're not really fooling anyone.
I wonder if, partly, that's why everyone is expected to toe the line - you're either right with me or you're a part of the problem. We like peer groups, we like to feel justified and we'll battle against anyone outside of our tribe. Works in the jungles of New Guinea and the jungle of New York.
I vaguely recall something about standing after you've finished doing everything else. More than a little adrift from the original context, but better than 'illegitimi non carborundum'. ;)
Wishing you a very good morning. :-)
p.s. Brexit - what a joy that is. :-p
Hi Toni
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Broken people who perhaps should stand a bit differently than the world. But it doesn't seem to be the case. And maybe what's more concerning to me these days is the sheer volume of those peer groups identifying themselves and moving off into their various corners of the world.
That doesn't bode well for a future where we get along with the other groups. That part makes me nervous, conflict wise.
If it's any encouragement, this has been going on *in the church* since the first century - in fact I recall the chap you quoted discussing factions, divisions, dissent and love for the benefit the very people he'd helped lead to Jesus originally. It may *look* like a tram-smash, but it's probably just a bump in the road of church history. At least no-one is burning at the stake. :-)
ReplyDeleteNo comfort when you're going over the bump of course, but 'this too shall pass'.
Peace to you and yours my friend.
:) I'll take it this day.
ReplyDeleteThanks Toni, and do something fun this weekend eh?