It Is a Serious Thing

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers, welcome and thank you for your interest. We have had a good week, that after our recent travels, quickly returned to a welcome rhythm of routine. While it was a week of little to report on a personal level, it was also a week that saw a theme emerge in my reading, which I hope is always worth sharing, as a reminder of who we are called to be.

While it is not a new phenomenon, the intensity of the vitriolic rhetoric we hear daily in political, social, economic, and even spiritual arenas, can be wearying, discouraging, and a cause for loss of hope that things can get better with those around us. And sadly, it is only amplified by our constant access to feeds on social media and streaming services. So when I came across three related passages that speak to our shared responsibility in the Kingdom of God and the human family, I wanted to pass them along.

First, I always appreciate when I come back across C.S. Lewis’ take on how we are to view our fellow travelers on this earth when he writes:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors…

I am sobered and at the same encouraged when I read these words of Lewis because I think, especially in a time of degraded social and political dialogue, we need to have a greater appreciation of the value God created in humankind when crafting us all in His image. We are to recognize that everyone is worthy of more respect than may be typically offered.

While I find Lewis’ words inspiring, I also appreciate, as you would probably already expect, Frederick Buechner’s, maybe more down-to-earth, take on the same issue when he writes:

Matthew the tax-collector and Thomas the doubter. Peter the Rock and Judas the traitor. Mary Magdalene and Lazarus’s sister Martha. And the popcorn-eating old woman. And the fat man in the pick-up. They are all our family, and you and I are their family and each other’s family, because that is what Jesus has called us as the Church to be.

Our happiness is all mixed up with each other’s happiness and our peace with each other’s peace. Our own happiness, our own peace, can never be complete until we find some way of sharing it with people who the way things are now have no happiness and know no peace.

Jesus calls us to show this truth forth, live this truth forth. Be the light of the world, he says. Where there are dark places, be the light especially there. Be the salt of the earth. Bring out the true flavor of what it is to be alive truly. Be truly alive. Be life-givers to others.

That is what Jesus tells the disciples to be. That is what Jesus tells his Church, tells us, to be and do. Love each other.

The coalescing of these themes all began for me when, in our daily Bible reading this week, we came across Paul’s words to the Romans, chapter 12, verses 9-21, which in The Message, read this way:

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.

Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.

Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame.

Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant.

Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder.

Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath.

Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down.

Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up.

Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.

If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody.

Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink.

Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good!

All of the thoughts shared above definitely fall into the, “easier said than done,” category. None of this comes easy, sometimes even in our closest relationships, let alone with those we consider “other.” But personally, it is helpful for me just to be reminded and to recognize in my own striving, that I have little success, that it is only by the grace of God working in me, in us, that we can hope to, “Love others, as ourselves, and as Christ loved us."