It's About Time

I recently posted a “thing” on my Facebook wall in which I lamented the lack of people writing posts…but rather they just post photos and memes.  One of the respondents, my friend and distant relative Melanie, said that she didn’t post much out of a fear of being attacked by others or turning the post into something political.

At the end of Melanie’s response to my post, she said something that bore through me to the core.  “I guess we can act like Christ said we should next year…or the year after that…or maybe just whenever it is convenient.”

Whoa!!  “Whenever it is convenient?”  Did she really say that?  Yes, she did, and she is absolutely correct.  Far too many of us who call ourselves Christians act like Christ only when we feel like it, when we want to do it, when it is politically advantageous, or when it will benefit us.  All the rest of the time, with a cavalier attitude, we belittle, begrudge, besmirch, malign, impugn, smack down, take down, put down, bully, and generally grind anyone who may disagree with us or have another idea or opinion into the dust.  It’s done all the time at the highest levels of government as well as between friends, relatives, and neighbors.

People are “unfriended” on social media, or are the ones doing the “unfriending.”  Relatives cease to communicate with each other.  Married couples divorce or separate.  Co-workers avoid one-another and don’t even recognize the existence of others with whom they disagree.  Sometimes, this is all taken farther along by a few zealots, and people are physically attacked, beaten, and murdered…all in the name of asserting that I am right and you are so, so wrong.

And then, when it’s convenient, some of these same people attend church, sing in the church choir, serve on a church board, teach a Sunday school class, take of the Eucharist, and proclaim their allegiance to Jesus Christ.

Do you think that God might be getting just a little tired of the charade?  Do you think that God just might be considering some kind of justice and retribution?

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.  Away with the noise of your songs!  I will not listen to the music of your harps.  .  (They) cry out to me, ‘Our God, we acknowledge you!’  But (they) have rejected what is good.

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

So, when will those of us who are Christians who are doing the maligning, putting down, and bullying going to begin to live like Christians?  Next week?  Next year?  In a couple of years?  Whenever it is convenient?  Or are we going to wait until God finally has had His fill and says, “ENOUGH!!”  Then we look around at the carnage of our lives, and wonder why things have worked out for us like they have and why God seems to be absent from our lives.

It doesn’t matter that the quotes of the Bible I have above are from the Old Testament.  God never changes.  If he was tired of the charade then, he’s also tired of the charade now.  It’s time we all took an unbiased look at how we interact with others, both on social media and in person.  It’s time we repented and started acting like the Christians we claim to be.  It’s time we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.