Union Church family, the last 3 months of world history has been stunning. We are witnessing a global pandemic, economic turmoil, riots, protests, and an incredible amount of tension in our society.
How are we to live well in the midst of it all?
Our chief concern as Christians is following, honoring, and representing Jesus in every aspect of our lives. Our savior Himself has said, that if we love Him, we will keep his commandments. The two great commandments given are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
To love God and neighbor today, we need to enter into the brokenness, lament the injustice that we are witnessing, repent when and where it’s necessary, and be agents of hope in a world of despair.
A primary danger of our culture today is to take issues concerning people into mere politics. It’s become common place to take any issue or occurrence and quickly draw a line between the so called left and right. This leads to polarization and fragmentation, rather than unity and movement in love. Let’s resist this urge.
As Christians we see a central core of the biblical faith is recognizing that every person is made in the image of God and has inherent dignity, value and worth regardless of race, creed, orientation, or socio-economic status.
To walk in the way of Jesus today means to lament and call for justice when the image of God is ignored, and injustice is perpetuated. This includes the history and affects of continued systemic racism. This includes the tragic and unnecessary deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and many others.
As Dr King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
My hope and prayer for us, is that we can be a “both and” people in an “either or” world.
We can uphold truth and embody grace.
We can work for justice in social spheres and maintain the centrality of the gospel.
We can proclaim loudly that black lives matter, while appreciating, and honoring the men and women that serve as law enforcement officers.
We can be a “both and” people in an “either or” world
This is not a luke-warm middle ground but embracing and holding truth and grace in the midst of the tension. We can let go of judging, critiquing, and name calling, and pursue empathy, understanding, listening, and ask questions for greater clarity.
We are called in this season to more closely align with the Kingdom of God. This means we must repent of our apathy, indifference, and ways we’ve contributed to dividing rather than uniting around Jesus and his way.
Latasha Morrision rightly says “In the love of the family of God, we must become color brave, color caring, color honoring, and not color blind. We have to recognize the image of God in one another. We have to love despite, and even because of, our differences. Jesus can make beauty from ashes, but the family of God must first see and acknowledge the ashes.”
To do that, we need the help of the Holy Spirit. But with God’s help we can be a people of peace in a world of chaos. We can pursue justice in a world of injustice. We can uphold love in the face of fear, and light in the midst of darkness.
Union Church, our calling is to show the radical love of Jesus, not the position of our political preferences. His love is costly and crosses lines, breaks down barriers, and serves everyone with love, especially His enemies.
Let us be a people who are tethered to the real Jesus, united in him, looking to show His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control to the world that so desperately needs it.
Let’s pray and lament together
(We prayed this at our gathering on 6/7/2020)
Our Father in heaven, As we look at this world, we shutter with the amount of brokenness we see and confess that we don’t know where to start. How long oh Lord will this continue? How long will you tarry? When will you break through and bring healing and hope? Help us to lament in these fractured times.
Forgive us for what we have done and left undone. Give us humility to learn where we need to grow. Convict us of our apathy and indifference. Grant us courage to walk in repentance. Please open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our hearts to understand what it looks like to follow you today. Unite us in your love to share and show Jesus well. May your kingdom come, and will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.