Spreading the Message

 Good morning, and welcome.

 Over the past several decades, the rise of the twenty-four hour news cycle, the advent of the Internet and social media, the demise of  the Fairness Doctrine, and the natural propensity of humans to want to take sides has made what was always present in our society even more pronounced.  The political and social divide has become the news of the day…all day…every day.  It seems we can’t get away from it, even if we wanted to do so.  It’s everywhere.

 Marriages break up.  Families become estranged.  Long-time friends are friends no longer.  Neighbors won’t speak to each other.  Sometimes the divide becomes violent.  Most of the time, it just festers, sitting there like the proverbial elephant in the room, waiting for someone to poke it and inflame it even more.

 Into this societal ill has come a number of ideas on how to not only deal with the divide, but to heal it.  Non profit organizations have begun to stress kindness and civility even more than they did in the past.  Politicians have begun to speak up to their constituents asking them to listen more and talk less.  Pockets of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” have sprung up in neighborhoods and in families all across the nation.

 And perhaps most importantly for people of faith, the church has stepped up more, I think, to recognize its responsibility to not only teach, but to practice loving God and loving one’s neighbor.  One can see many examples of that being carried out in projects large and small.  Some church families cooperate with many others to work with large-scale projects.  Others work in more individualized ways.

 But the basis for any church work in this area is the individual member.  Each person…each member of the church family needs to recognize that his or her God-given talents and abilities are there to be used.  That God expects each one of his children to use their gifts to redeem their part of the creation…especially as they are going about their daily lives and living.

 I was reminded of this by a post I saw a few days ago where a church in North Carolina has been buying medical debt for pennies on the dollar…then forgiving that debt.  The comments of the minister who is coordinating this effort is appropriate and telling:  “If every church would just sort of take responsibility for the square mile around it,” he said, “What a changed world we would live in.”

 Sometimes we are led to believe that there isn’t much we as Christians can do until we somehow have been able to “straighten out,” so to speak, our political differences, or until a certain brand of political ideology comes into power.  So, we pour all of our resources and abilities into that goal.  When we do that, we tend to lose sight of the fact that God has work for each of us to do, regardless of the political winds of the day.

 N T Wright made this comment about that very thing in a post he recorded a couple of years ago.  He said, “You don't have to live in a modern, liberal democracy to discern God's will (for you). Wherever we are, we are all living in fragile, and in a measure broken or fallen or corrupted societies. We don't first have to put the society right, then discern what God might want us to do. It may be that doing the little things that God wants us to do will accumulate, and will help our wider society make wise decisions.

 I think both Professor Wright and the North Carolina minister have something here…something that each of us needs to listen to and consider.  We may often think that the things we COULD BE doing using our abilities and talents doesn’t change anything or mean anything in the larger picture.  But I think that’s the wrong way to see this.  Bringing about God’s redemption to the creation begins with one act of kindness and love by one individual.  As my friend Jennifer White has said, “I can’t do everything, but I CAN do something.”

 We all can do something…as long as we have breath and life, we can do something in God’s kingdom to redeem the creation…ONE  ACT  OF  KINDNESS  AND  LOVE  AT  A  TIME.  And we don’t first need the perfect democracy or the perfect political ideology to do that.  Jesus and the apostles turned the world upside down in the midst of one of the most powerful and (in our modern minds) cruel governments that has ever existed.  If they could do that, certainly we can begin to spread the message of sacrificial love and redemption in our era.

Blessings.