A force for Good

“To teach men that they possess the ability to turn from sin when they choose to do so is to hide the true extent of their need.”

                               Iain H. Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones - 1899-1981

 

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It is the morning after

and honestly I am a little sad

 

not because of the uncertainty that still exists

but because I thought better of my fellow Americans

 

I truly believed that they would choose the way of

Honesty

Kindness

Generosity

Compassion

Inclusions

 

The way of Love

 

Instead far too many, more than I could have imagined

Voted for

Dishonest

Cruelty

Greed

Cold apathy

Exclusion

 

There was a part of me that truly believe that we would listen

to our better angels

 

It appears that we cannot help ourselves

Calvin called this “total depravity”

He believe that we all have some degree of inward distortion

That every human action is mixed with evil

 

This morning I am inclined to agree

 

Which is why there was another part of me, that hoped that if we would not

save ourselves, God would save us from ourselves

 

I have good news and bad news

 

The bad news is that God is not going to coming in like the blood spattered Jesus of Revelation and set things straight.

"God is in control" is a misleading statement, because God lets us make mistakes and lets us suffer the consequences.

 

God lets us choose hate

God lets us choose greed

God lets us abuse our natural gifts and talents

God lets us act cruelly toward others

 

God lets us give in to the tempter

And seek to do the right things in totally the wrong way

 

I actually believe that Jesus could have listened to the voice of the

tempter, and could have become “King of the World”

by using spectacle

by going the way of greed and domination

 

His ministry would have looked much like a Trump rally

but it would have worked

and he would have been crowned rather than crucified

 

He chose wisely

He chose servanthood and sacrifice

And in the end

Even though he “lost”, he won

 

Jesus made himself nothing

He became a servant

He humbled himself

He died on a cross

 

But in the in end

 

“God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”

                     (Philippians 2)

 

But the choice was his

And the choice is ours

And all too often that is “bad news

 

But while we have this think call freewill, and a tendency, perhaps

To choose poorly

 

There is in fact some good news

 

The good news is that Sacred, the divine, is woven into the fabric of every one of us. 

As Paul once put it, the "secret is this, Christ in us".

And we can let go of our ego, our self (die to the self),

 

and let that Sacred part rise, and grow.  That is in fact our goal, spiritually, to let the Sacred that is present in us become more and more active, more and more dominant.

 

As Dallas Willard suggests,  “Jesus does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.”

 

The way God changes our families, our communities, our world, is by changing us.  Making us over into the likeness of Jesus. 

If enough of us let God move us, and shape us (so that we are not molded by the world), then we will in fact make the world a better place.  We will be those who usher in the Kingdom of God.

 

We will not do it with laws, coercion, domination, power, money, and SCOTUS appointments.

 

Rather, as those shaped by God, transformed from the inside out, we will create that change through love.  By being people of compassion, generosity, grace, forgiveness, kindness.

 

We will do it by living in such a way that the Sacred in us touches the Sacred in others, wakes in them that loving presence, so that they too become a part of the movement.

That is the good news

 

And we can live that way

We can be those people

No matter who sits in the White House

No matter who has the earthly power

 

I am still sad that so many people

voted for greed and power

and for people who have proven they cannot be trusted

 

No matter who ultimately wins,

this election was an indictment of America (in my opinion)

 

but I will not lose hope

and I will not grow weary in doing good

 

So this morning I sit, and I pray

and I seek to open myself more and more to God’s presence

 

and even as I struggle with the prevalence of hate

and selfishness

and greed

and all the rest

 

even as my soul hurts, I rejoice

“knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

and hope does not put us to shame,

because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit

who has been given to us.”  (Romans 5)

 

I will not let hate win

I will let Christ live in my heart,

I will give the Spirit as much room as I humanly can (remember that total depravity thing), and allow it to transform me

 

From the inside out

So I can be a force for good in this world

Those who choose love, will ultimately reap the harvest

If we do not give up