Missing The Point

Today in worship, I helped by running the “jib camera” in both services.

Such service makes it a little difficult to enter the praise part of worship because I am focused on operating a camera so that others can enjoy the streaming of the service. During these times of service, I am reminded the mind can focus on only one subject. People who believe they are able to “multi-task” are generally referring to the ability to do something from rote, while thinking of something else. My wife Anna is a great example of that skill. She can sit on the couch, fold clothes and watch TV with me. Actually, we can only successfully focus on one thing.

However, after the praise part of worship is over, I get to sit down and listen to the message and I am blessed to get to hear it twice. Our lead pastor(read Senior Pastor) Keith Ferguson is preaching through the book of Revelation. It has been a powerful series. Today, we looked at the letters to Sardis and Philadelphia. What the Spirit hammered into me was the message that believers can become cold and indifferent to the movement of the Spirit in our midst.

I was convicted.

I have struggled with a lifetime of trying to establish a consistent reading of Scripture and ongoing prayer time. The deficiency has been in that all important area of “discipline.” Every believer struggles with that important discipline of spending time alone with the Word of God and with God. I learned a valuable lesson from my pastor who had a study apart from his office where he retreated to pray, study, read and prepare his messages. I was able to do that in three of the four churches I served. Moving into another realm of ministry made the discipline more difficult. Today, I was convicted of the lack of progress in my own life and the impact that has had on my overall spiritual well being.

I also got a deep, profound insight into the plight of the white evangelical religious right in America.

Let me try to put into words what I took away from the pastor's message today. Two words actually: coldness and indifference toward what God's heart rests upon.

Pharisees have always intrigued me because in the “study” of the law, they were flawless, without fault. In fact, it was not unusual for a Pharisee to have memorized significant portions of the law of God, the prophets, the history, and the wisdom literature. Some could even tell you how many times an alphabetic character appeared in something like the book of Isaiah. Yet, for all that wisdom, knowledge, and obedience, they missed the point of all they learned, memorized, and studied.

That is the plight of the American evangelical church.

We have missed the point. The crowds gather, the preachers preach, and still our hearts are not in sync with the heart of God. I felt the weight of that today.

That insight weighed heavy on my heart as this message burned in me. We are not really on board with Christ in the way He looked at people for whom He died. Our compassion has been constricted to our success and safety within our borders and some notion that compassion and justice somehow diminishes us.

Then I began to think(always dangerous territory for me). Would the Christ who gave his life as a ransom for the many really be pleased with allowing children and parents fleeing from danger to be separated from their parents and while putting both in cages? I can't help but think of my grand girls and their parents. How would I feel about a flight to safety that ends in a cruel imprisonment in cages separated from their parents? Where was the outrage from believers in America? Would the God who loved the world enough to send His only son into the world to save sinners, approve of our closing our borders to those fleeing oppression and violence? Where was the outrage from believers who understand the need for safety and the safety of our children? Would the Gospel of Christ leveling all men and women at the foot of the cross be pleased with an informal but powerful caste system in America where some are more valuable than others? Does Jesus really approve of marking Black men and women as targets of concern and over and over again stopping them for no apparent reason than they are black? I have been stopped by law enforcement only five times in my adult life. Each time was about speeding. Three times resulted in warnings, two in tickets. Nothing more. There was no disrespect, no searches of the automobile, no intrusions or disrespect.

Would Jesus approve of our cavalier approach to our treatment of those suffering serious mental illnesses finding themselves in prison primarily because they are mentally ill? Would the God who called on His people to “love justice and do mercy,” (Micah 6:8) really be pleased with the disparity in the prison population between Black offenders and white offenders, and sadly in our criminal justice system where influence and money is everything and poverty and mental illness is punished?

Would Jesus be pleased that an unusual number of black persons shot and killed by law enforcement whose only crimes at the end seemed to be “being Black.”

Sadly for many of the evangelical religious right, it is all about protecting our privilege, our possessions, our status than it is about justice for all!

As I grow older, I am more and more convinced the one debt our Founding Fathers owe is that the promise of freedom for all, equal treatment under the law, and the inalienable rights for all.

It still remains an unfulfilled dream.

However, the debt has come due. It is time, believers push this issue until all are treated as each, where color is no limitation, when origin is no barrier, and where all can believe and receive equal treatment by law enforcement and the justice system.

Wash your hands, wear your mask for others, mind the gap and be kind.