I'm taking a leap of faith here on this special day and writing about the challenges we are facing currently. These thoughts are going to leap all over the place, since it's leap day.
We need to pray for our country in a big way. For many reasons. We have forgotten our responsibilities as good neighbors, recognizing we all have different stories and experiences which we are rightfully entitled to. We need to restore our valuing the neutrality of the law. It must be applied across the board to be fair, there cannot be some who are under the law and some who can escape the application of the law.
We need to make telling the truth important. It may not be convenient, but truth stands the test of what really is. We cannot make up our version of reality and call it truth. Our scripture tells us that truth will set us free, and we need to count on it being right. Law and Justice are how we take our love of neighbor and doing the right thing and apply it to people we don't know. No matter who you are, you should be entitled to fair and right applications of the law.
I wish we knew what President John F. Kennedy said when he wrote the book about all being immigrants. Even Native Americans came across the land bridge from Russia to Alaska or along the Bering Straight, thousands of years ago. Some have come to our country because of family who were already here. Some came because of faith, they could not practice and live with their understanding in the country they left. Some came because of fear, they were persecuted or violated and had to seek a safer place to live. Some are here in pursuit of freedom, they want to participate in a nation that values differences and will allow those who wish to work hard, to do so.
I wish in this day and age of such divisions that a third party should have the same access to participation in elections as the two established parties. There has to be room for compromise and working in the middle, respecting the extreme ends, but also recognizing their positive contributions. Primaries ought to be able to include other candidates running for office, rather than wait until the general election, and there should not be an exorbitant price applied to the candidates who don't belong to the two parties to be able to be included. We need to find a way to seek a middle way to be able to bring people together, otherwise we will fight each other until the whole house burns down.
I am sorry that divisions occur in the churches as well. I would hope that the power of the Holy Spirit and recognition of the role the Spirit plays in the life of the church, would help us accept each other. There are so many different levels of faith and experiences of God, that to demand we all be in the same place spiritually seems to deny the very essence of the Body of Christ is many different parts and we need each other's parts to be a healthy body of Christ.
I've told my congregations how hard it is to preach to a group of 35 different places in spiritual life. We have 4 or 5 or 6 generations (silent, boomer, gen-x, y, z, millennials) within the church. We have more than 5 church backgrounds gathered for worship (liturgical, free style, contemporary, charismatic, traditional, new age to name a few). We have a variety of musical heart languages, (Jazz, New Age, Country, Classical, Rap, Folk, Soul, to name just a few. Look at all the Sirius Station possibilities) We have people who learn better reading, or listening, or experiencing, or touching in order to comprehend. We have people who are left brained, or right brained as their dominant sphere for learning. We have people who are young, or old, married or divorced or always single. We have folks who are not yet followers of Jesus, newly baptized or committed followers of Jesus, we have folks who turned their whole life over to Jesus as Lord, not just Savior. We have people who are stalled in their spiritual progress and are wondering what comes next. Many of the folks in a church when they can't find out what they need, claim they are not being fed and try to wander off, or drift out, and really missing what God may have to offer them. I would love for people to have more acceptance and value the differences and work with that.
We are all just children of the same God. Can we re-emphasize that and learn to live together. We will accomplish so much more.
Pastor Jeff
February 29, 2024
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