Category: Love

Gifts in a Time of Pandemic: The Freedom of Love

Consider two different responses to the pandemic:

  1. A group of people protests in front of a state capital building, some carrying assault weapons providing an image of threat and intimidation. They are protesting the infringement on their “freedom.” Social distancing orders have deeply affected their lives, their freedom of movement, and, for many, their employment. They have framed their losses as bondage.
  2. An elderly man is given a ventilator by people who love him, in a nation where there are not enough ventilators for all who need them. A band of people has found a way to pay for and obtain a ventilator for this man they love. It is a gift to him. He receives it and then gives it away to a young man who also needs a ventilator. He then succumbs to the COVID-19 virus.

Which of these two responses to the pandemic is an expression of freedom? Is freedom found in my ability to do what I want (do my thing) even when it infringes upon the lives of others, disregards their ability to live? Or, is freedom found in the ability to freely give up my life for the life of another?

Freedom is often expressed in terms of our ability to do what we want. But, as theologian Karl Rahner expressed in one of his essays, there are spheres of freedom. When it comes to our freedom of choice, one person’s sphere of choice is larger or smaller than another. Our spheres of freedom impinge on or affect the freedom of others. One person’s sphere of freedom can diminish another’s. Historically, the “privileges” given to white people by racism have limited the choices available to black people (choices regarding schools, vocations, health care, freedom from violence, etc.). The present economic disparities in our nation depict different spheres of freedom to make various choices. Those who are wealthy have many more choices for escaping the effects of the coronavirus than those who are poor.

The only thing that truly begins to address the disparities and injustices is the freedom that is love. Martin Luther King, Jr, understood this with great clarity: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” This is true because love enters into the sphere of the other, even when that may mean diminishing one’s own sphere of choices. The elderly man, in giving up his ventilator, narrowed his choices. Again, Martin Luther King: “Love is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.”

Love may have us narrowing our choices, but it also may have us expanding them. Love calls people beyond the limitations placed on them by others. It has us pressing forward, expanding our sphere in order to live out our calling in the compassionate use of our gifts in relation to others.

Whether our choices narrow or expand, love freely gives itself. It is the reality that cannot be coerced. We cannot make another person love us and we cannot keep another person from loving us. Even our evil actions against another cannot undo love, for love forgives. (Jesus from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”) Love, compassion, mercy, justice (making right what is wrong), bring true life-giving change and liberation.

The pandemic that we are enduring calls out for compassion and love. The disparities, along with leadership that ignores the poor and props up Wall Street, cry out for radical acts of love. When we see people answering this call, we see them freely giving themselves for the sake of others. Their actions heal and restore, do justice and liberate. We see genuine human freedom in these acts.

Regarding the two responses to the pandemic that I began with, each has a different feel to it. The first feels like the bondage of self-absorption. It does not feel like freedom to show up with weapons to demand that you get your way even at the cost of others’ well-being. The second feels like freedom, the freedom of giving oneself, one’s life, for another.

The opportunities to love are always there. But, in this time of a pandemic and the new situations it has created, it may be that the call to love—to the freedom that is love—is more easily distinguished from other voices. A gift is being offered to us: the call to love. Therefore, paraphrasing Jesus, “Let those who have ears to hear, let them hear and obey the call.”

Filed under: Grace, Love, SpiritualityTagged with: , , ,

A Pandemic Reminder: The World Is One

If we have ignored this reality, the present pandemic is a reminder: the world is one. A virus that began in Wuhan, China, is now global. It will increasingly effect every part of our global community. We are all in this together. What has been moving rapidly across the northern hemisphere will do the same in the southern hemisphere. What we have shared with those to the south will come back to the north from the south. It will move in every direction finding many various ways to spread.

Of course, this virus that knows no boundaries does not make us interconnected; it makes it harder to ignore our interconnection. We are one world, no matter how many boundaries or barriers we erect: physical, social, national, ethnic, class, etc. We affect one another across boundaries and by means of the barriers we erect: the wealthy here, the poor over there.

Those who are poorest among us, having the fewest resources, will experience greater devastation from this virus—the result of the inequality we have built within our nations and the global community. The poor do not simply choose to be poor. Poverty is produced by greed, racism, nationalism, fear; by the loss of love and compassion. As Augustine said, “The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor.” We cause the divisions and breakdown of our one world. And yet the reality of the one human race is primary. We are one world. The coronavirus is a reminder. It touches us all.

This virus is expected to grow much more rapidly among poorer communities across the world. Consequently, it will be kept alive and pervasive longer because of the barriers we have erected and the oneness we have ignored. We are one world and one human family, but we have acted like we were adversaries in a quest to carve up this globe into kingdoms of wealth and power. Never mind the losers.

It is clear that if we, as a global community, were to address the needs of the hungry and poor among us, especially by addressing the systemic ways of operating that have produced inequities, we would break down barriers to the one world that we inescapably are. It may be that the reality of this pandemic forces us to make changes. After all, we are all helped when the necessities for healthy communities are available to all. The deeper change, however, comes with a change of heart, a movement toward love and compassion.

On this Maundy Thursday, Christians remember and reenact the last meal Jesus had with his followers. We share in a meal at which Jesus is the host. Jesus gathers us from every corner of the global community. The barriers of class, race, nation, and gender are removed. As Paul writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Followers of Jesus are to be witnesses to this reality—witnesses to the true humanity to which all are called, a humanity made in the image of the God who is love.

Filed under: Justice, Love, Poverty, WitnessTagged with: , , ,

Anxiety and the Coronavirus

It is hard to tell ourselves or others not to worry. Our lives are being upended by a virus. The whole of our society and the global community is in combat mode directed to this invisible attack. Growing numbers are contracting this virus. Health workers do not have all the equipment they need; there is fear that the health system will be overwhelmed. Businesses are shut down, many are out of work, schools are closed, travel is halted, and we are being directed to distance ourselves from one another. And we do not know how long this “new normal” will last. So very much is out of our control. Of course, each of us can take steps to help in this situation, but we are also dependent on the steps others take—including our leaders. Anxiety is a natural and even necessary response. Fear gets us responding to situations that need quick action. It got our attention to the realities of the present crisis so that we would act. And yet anxiety can undo us. Fear can overcome and immobilize us. So, how can we tell ourselves not to worry?

For followers of Jesus and others who are open, that is exactly what Jesus tells us: “Do not worry.” With these words, Jesus calls us from fear to faith and assumes that it is possible to trust rather than be taken over by, and act from, anxiety. With this directive to not worry, Jesus expresses the possibility of our taking steps away from anxiety. Here is the passage: Matthew 6:25-34. Here are the first two verses of that passage:

I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

The reality that makes possible the movement away from anxiety is that God cares for us. When Jesus says to us, “Do not worry,” he is calling us away from the anxiety that would direct our lives, to a trust in God in whom “we live and move and have our being.” He assumes that the empowering Spirit of God will help us to turn from being driven by anxiety, to the care and direction of God.

Jesus also describes the alternative to anxiety: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Make the focus of your life, God’s reign, God’s ways of governing, and God’s will. Anxiety, when it directs what we do (rather than merely telling us to act fast), will have us losing our humanity and purpose. Anxiety tempts us to believe it is all up to us. It will make us feel that everything is urgent all at once, and it will have us getting frantic and acting rash. Trusting in the One who holds our lives together frees us for action—for compassionate, life-giving action.

The movement from anxiety to liberated action happens in the relinquishing of our lives to God and God’s purposes for this time in which we live. God calls each of us with our gifts and ways of serving, for the time we yet have, to love one another. The message, “Do not worry,” is the same as “Trust God.” Our heavenly Father knows what we need, knows what we need right now in this time, and cares for us. We are simply to go after God’s reign and purpose, and trust that God will provide what we need to do what God calls us to do.

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Followers of Jesus and War

With the assassination of a leader in another nation, the United States has expanded its warring ways in the Middle East and increased the possibilities of all-out war with Iran. In the face of this reality, the follower of Jesus does not look to see where his or her political party affiliation is on this issue. The follower does not look to a particular ideology or philosophy or the “realistic” response within the framework of global politics. Nor does the follower check with his or her feelings about kin and country, people and nation.

The follower of Jesus listens to the one he or she follows:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43-45)

Jesus, who proclaims that the “reign of God” is near, lets us know that God’s love is near. God’s love is not limited to the love of neighbor and kin. After all, God loves a humanity that has run from God. Paul, in his letter to the congregation in Rome, reminds us that “while we were enemies” (to God), God reconciled us. This love of God, the love that loves enemies, is near and we can open ourselves to it, surrender our lives to it, so that we pray for those who persecute us. So that we do what Proverbs 25 encourages us to do: “If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.”

This love is counter-cultural and counters the operation of worldly politics. It is to this love that the followers of Jesus must witness. God has a radically different way for us to operate than that of the power-politics of the nations of the world. Within the framework of national sovereignty, security, and national interests, coercive power plays a dominant role. And this love of God that loves enemies, makes no sense and has no place. But that must not keep the follower of Jesus from witnessing to that love. We witness to God’s reign and ways of governing. We call a world back to the source of all creation. It is a call from death to life—to Life Itself.

The seeming futility of such a witness must not keep us from witnessing. It is a matter of faithful obedience to the one we follow—to the living Christ. We must witness in word and action. In the early centuries of the church of Christ, there was a common recognition that following Jesus excluded soldiering. (Second century, Tertullian: “The Lord in disarming Peter henceforth disarms every soldier.”) The “just war theory” came later as Christianity became entangled with the state.

Follower of Jesus, witness to God’s love that reveals itself most powerfully in the love of enemies and acts by making peace where there is discord. Encourage the community of faith of which you are a member to operate in solidarity as a witness. Join with others to call this nation away from war and warring ways. Call it to the ways of peace. The security of this nation will never be in its power over others globally or in its expanding and maintaining its “interests.” It will be in doing justice and its care for the needs of others. Its oppressive and unjust actions in the world pave the way for its destruction. We must witness to those oppressive ways, for our nation and its leaders are in denial and operate blind to this nation’s own forms of terror unleashed upon others.

As witnesses, we are called to prayer and action. In a world that gravitates to war, we are to do those things that make for peace: Do justice, love mercy and live faithfully. Jesus says to us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Filed under: Discipleship, Justice, Love, Peace, War, WitnessTagged with: , ,

The “Gospel” That Supports Trump

Pastor Robert Jeffress, an evangelical supporter of Trump, was interviewed for an opinion essay in the Washington Post. He provided us with his (and many Evangelicals) main reason for supporting Trump. He tells us “that regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., that the general trajectory of evangelicalism is going to be downward until Christ returns.” He explains that, as he understands Scripture, things “get worse and more hostile as the culture does.” Things get less and less “evangelical-friendly or Christian-friendly.” He sees “the election of Donald Trump as maybe a respite, a pause in that. Perhaps to give Christians the ability and freedom more to share the gospel of Christ with people before the ultimate end occurs and the Lord returns.”

This is an amazing statement from someone who purports to be a Christian leader. Why is he focused on a downward trajectory for evangelicalism rather than a downward trajectory for the world (given the state of the world)? At the heart of Christian good news is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Jesus says that he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to liberate it, and he trains his followers for the work of deliverance and healing.

And Jesus does not look for respite from the emperor or provincial leaders. When he is told that King Herod is out to kill him, he says, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” In effect, Jesus is saying that he does not have time to pay attention to King Herod, much less cozy up to him. He has a God-given mission that concludes, as it often does for prophets, in being killed. His focus is on the world, on hurting and broken lives. He is about healing and deliverance directed outward to others. He tells his followers it has to be the same way for them: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the good news, will save it.”

Jesus does not entertain a “Christian-friendly” environment. Rather, Jesus tells his followers to expect persecution and that, therefore, they must “deny themselves, take up their cross (their suffering and death) and follow him daily.” They are not to seek to secure their lives (their Father in heaven will do that); they are to lose their lives for the sake of others receiving the good news. When they get anxious, they are reminded that their Father in heaven cares for them, and they are directed to seek first God’s reign and purpose and leave to God the kinds of things that they tend to get anxious about. They are set free to focus outward to the needs of others, even unto death.

Pastor Jeffress gives an alternate vision in which Christians, astonishingly, have to count on someone like Donald Trump to give them a respite, while Trump’s actions and that of our government, cause great hurt and death to others. This view eliminates the true mission and witness of Jesus’s followers. And an alternate “gospel of Christ” gets promulgated.

So, what is this alternate gospel? What kind of gospel seeks a “respite” for ourselves while putting up with degrading, demeaning language directed to others, often to the most vulnerable among us? What kind of gospel provides personal respite while allowing children to be separated from their parents at the border? What kind of gospel makes room for the consistent demeaning of people fleeing from great danger to seek asylum? What kind of gospel has nothing to say to the racist actions of a president who sets a tone for the country? What kind of gospel provides respite for white followers of Jesus while making room for demeaning, dangerous language directed to black and brown people? What kind of gospel has us so absorbed with our own condition that we minimize the impact of the rhetoric and actions of this president on others, or simply do not care enough to pay attention to the effects of his actions on others? What kind of gospel does not call us to confront the lies and deceit and injustices?

A “gospel” that puts up with so much pain and hurt at the expense of others while providing “respite” for Christians, has hidden idolatries that “accepting Christ” apparently does little to disclose. This “gospel,” rather than calling for repentance, carves out a place for the idolatry of nation and race, as well as other idols our culture worships such as our comfort, pleasure, possessions, and power. It allows for a form of “Christianity” whose message, in many aspects, is nationalist and often implicitly white nationalist. It is idolatrous. Oblivious to the idols that enslave us, we enjoy our worship and our thoughts about God’s grace toward ourselves while maintaining all manner of self-righteous and destructive attitudes toward others. We may even disregard repentance altogether. This “gospel” may leave us “unaware that the kindness of God would lead [us] to repentance.”(St. Paul) We may go around saying, “I accept Christ. I accept Christ,” as if that were the end of the matter.

The truly good news that Jesus proclaims is that the reign of God is near and is a gift and is available to all. Therefore, Jesus tells us to turn (repent) from our idols (our allegiances that are false to our true selves) and enter into God’s reign. Under God’s reign, we receive the freedom of the children of God—the kind of freedom we see in Jesus, the child of God. In Jesus, we see freedom from being directed by fears, including the fear of others; we see freedom to show mercy, to do justice, to love others. When we begin to experience God’s reign, we discover a very different kind of governing from that of the nations of the world, and we become witnesses in word and action to God’s ways of governing. We are witnesses by our compassion and mercy toward others, our welcome of those different from us, our work for justice, and our being instruments of God’s healing in the world.

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What To Do About the Caravan

Five to seven thousand men, women, and children, in what has been called a “caravan,” are moving slowly from Central America to the Mexican-U.S. border with hope for help and asylum. Their movement has become a political stratagem in the rhetoric of the president of the nation of which I am a citizen. As we move toward midterm elections, the idea of this caravan is used as a hook into fear. In order to enhance the fear effect, our president throws middle-easterners and gang members into the caravan fantasy he is producing. Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times reminds us that “more than 1.4 million foreigners immigrate to the United States each year. If, say, half the caravan reaches the border, and half of those people actually enter the U.S., they would represent less than one-tenth of 1 percent of this year’s immigrants.” It seems there are other much larger problems facing the American people.

In any case, I am interested in looking at this issue as a follower of Jesus. I am able to set aside the geopolitical arguments of various political persuasions because they are not mine. And Donald Trump’s hooks are not hooks for me. What I have to say concerning those who come to the border of my nation is quite simple and straightforward: Love them. Welcome them. Respond concretely to their needs. They are reaching out for help, therefore, help them. Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you. “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” (Jesus)

Know that when you respond to their needs, you are responding to Jesus and the One who sent him: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When did we do this? “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:33-40)

Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. This love of enemies is the love that is from God, who while we were enemies to God, God reconciled us. (Romans 5:10) The kind of love that can love enemies is a love that changes all our relationships. It enables us to see (past our fears) the needs of others and respond. Jesus keeps it simple: Love people. But, of course, simple is not necessarily easy. This love requires action. Often, in the face of fear and hate, it demands our time, energy, and resources. Love is the hard, narrow road that leads to life. Jesus says that it requires us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him in a world that does not understand this love. This kind of love requires that it be poured into our hearts by the Spirit of God. (Romans 5:5)

Do I expect my nation or the nations of the world to operate this way? Not without a great deal of repentance, that is, change. Our relationships within and outside our nation would have to become just. We would have to stop building, maintaining, and selling arms globally. The reality is that all administrations have supported war, including war to simply maintain our hegemony. Recent administrations—whatever the party—have sold arms to Saudi Arabia and supported its war in Yemen, which has brought about massive atrocities, hunger, starvation, and refugees. It is hard to imagine the change of heart and mind that would be necessary to stop killing and to truly embrace needy people at our border and within our nation. But, as Jesus says, what is impossible for human beings is possible for God.

Followers of Jesus are called to be witnesses to God’s love and God’s ways in a world hostile to those ways. I am speaking here of those who follow. There is clearly a difference between going by the name “Christian” and following the one who is being named. We are to be salt, light, and yeast in the world—change agents. I am grateful for the witness of churches offering sanctuary for undocumented persons and for the various immigration and refugee services of churches. And the witness of other peoples of faith and their communities. And people who do not see themselves as people of faith but embrace humanity. If we truly welcome our humanity and that of others, a humanity made in the image of God, we cannot be far from God.

Filed under: Fear, Justice, Love, Mercy, WitnessTagged with: , , , ,

A Drive-by Shooting and Other Senseless Acts

There was a shooting on my block this week. A drive-by shooting. Three young adults were shot. A nineteen-year-old young man died of a gunshot wound to the head, an eighteen-year-old young woman was shot in the leg and another woman of the same age received a graze wound.

It is suspected that this shooting was related to a conflict between two gangs in my neighborhood. The victims, however, had no gang affiliation; two were not from this area but were visiting the third. One of them was a student at the community college at which my son teaches. Two had been spending the afternoon doing homework at a Starbucks.

There have been other shootings on this block and in this neighborhood. And my immediate feelings, in each case, are the same: grief and helplessness. I find myself praying for the victims and their families and the perpetrator; for the young couple across the street with the small child; for my neighbors, my neighborhood, and society.

I feel the senselessness of the act. I blurted out to my wife, “What is the point?” Of course, there is no point, no purpose to evil, no reason not to love. And there is always a reason to love. There is always a purpose to love. The unconditional love of God “poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” gives us life and purpose and binds us together. Without love, our lives fall apart.

But “not loving” takes many forms. It is not only the act of a lost, confused youth with a gun. Not loving shows itself in:

Not listening to the cries and hurts of others.
Not turning from our prejudices, fears, and resentments to truly see the other.
Not turning from our inordinate focus on our comfort and pleasure.
Not doing justice and being merciful.
Not working for change in ourselves and our society.
Not being salt, light, and yeast in our society.

I ask myself what I am called to do. One thing, of which I am clear, is that if I work for justice, I will be addressing the issue of violence. It does not matter the focus of the justice work, for justice is simply making right what is wrong. There are numerous ways to do justice: Work for fairness in education—public schools in poor neighborhoods having the same level of resources as those in rich neighborhoods. Work for criminal justice reform, voter reform, economic justice. Address the easy flow of guns into the hands of lost youth. Reach out to these youth. All these actions address the issue of violence.

Christians, in particular, are to proclaim God’s governance, in which the first are last and the last first, and those who exalt themselves are humbled and the humble exalted. We are to call others back to God, the Source of life and love. We are to turn to the Source for ourselves.

Not loving takes many forms. Taking no action in the face of hurt and need is not loving. A phrase, in a confession of sins, used in many churches is: “I confess that I have sinned by what I have done and by what I have left undone.” It is what we do not do that most manifests our not loving. Love acts! Love acts for the sake of victim and perpetrator. Love acts to bring about change in our society toward support of families, support that encourages, educates, and provides just incomes. Love acts for the healing of mental and emotional illnesses and the uplift of the “least” among us. Love does not ignore the wounded but treats the wounds and addresses that which inflicts the wounds.

Filed under: Grief, Justice, LoveTagged with: , , ,

Witnessing to a Love without Borders

“More Love, More Justice” (Sign at “Families Belong Together” March in Chicago protesting an immigration policy that separates children from families and detains families.)

“Love has no borders” (Protest March in Chicago)

“Love never ends.” (St. Paul)

“Welcome one another with the welcome of Christ.” (St. Paul)

“Humanity Before Law” (Protest March in Chicago)

“The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” (Jesus)

Jesus came proclaiming God’s reign, God’s governance. He proclaimed that it was not far away, but near. Jesus called people, therefore, to turn (repent) and enter into God’s reign and become witnesses to God’s governance. Those who follow Jesus would, like him, be a sign that contradicts the world’s ways of operating. They would witness to a form of governance that is radically (at its roots) a critique of the governments of the world.

The witness to God’s reign, as we experience it in the letting go of our lives to God and as its reality increasingly becomes ours, exposes false allegiances and false dependencies and the distance from reality that the world and its various national governments manifest. We who are witnesses to God’s way of governing cannot get caught up in any notions concerning the exceptionalism of our nation. I believe it was Soren Kierkegaard who made the observation that democracy exchanges the tyranny of kings for the tyranny of the people. The tyranny of what Christians confess as the “bondage to sin,” remains. Democracy is a step forward because it puts the responsibility on “we the people,” but the problem of sin and selfishness does not go away simply because “we the people” are deciding how to govern ourselves.

The human condition, in its alienation from God, from the source of its life and reality, establishes ways of governing that move far from the reign of God, which is a reign of love. We establish within our “democracies” all manner of injustice and oppression. We find ways to suppress the votes of those we want to exclude; we construct a racist criminal justice system; we ban people whose religion we fear, but do not understand; we snatch children from their parents at our borders to cause fear to others who may want to cross over; we go to war and kill soldiers and civilians alike in order to maintain our power over others (for our “security”); we sell arms and support wars that destroy whole societies, causing starvation and untold suffering. And then “we the people” sing, “God bless America,” remaining in denial about God’s judgment.

It is into this environment, this world as it exists, that the followers of Jesus are sent to be witnesses, not to our nation’s pride of place or our nation’s security or prosperity or its constitution, but to God’s reign. Jesus says we are to be salt, light, and yeast in the world by witnessing to God’s governance.

So we witness: Under God’s governance there are no borders. “Love has no borders.” There is one human family. All are welcome into God’s reign. Yes, we understand that because of the condition of sin, nations will have borders, but we are not sent to witness to our bondage but to God’s liberation. With God, “love never ends.” As it is with salt, light, and yeast, so our witness is to effect change in our world.

We do not have an ideology that can, if adopted, make everything right and just and borders no longer felt to be necessary. Our call is not to an imagined ideal society mapped out in rational terms. Rather our call, as followers of Jesus, is to witness to the Source of our lives and our liberation and transformation. We are to witness to what is on the heart of our Liberator God as we are coming to know it and live it. There may be some who undergo a conversion at the center of their lives because of our witness. Others may, at the least, be moved to see the plight of others and to ease their disregard for other people’s humanity.

I write these words with the church in mind. The church is losing its way. And “the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God.” (1 Peter) We are called to repent from all idolatry of race and nation and “our religion.” We are called to turn back to the center, to the One in whom we live and have our being, having no other gods before the one true and living God.

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