Monday, June 8, 2020
708 - Express Lane
Spirituality Column #708
June 9, 2020
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Express Lane
By Bob Walters
“Don’t have anything to do with foolish or stupid
arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel,
instead he must be kind to everyone.” – Apostle Paul, 2 Timothy 2:23-24
“It has been a great tragedy of our time that people were
taught to read and not taught to reason.” – G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
Heard anybody express a quarrelsome opinion lately?
Yeah, me too. No
shortage of that. I have a couple
myself.
When we start thinking – hopefully we think first – and then
go on to talking and/or sharing/broadcasting
whatever expression, observation, opinion, criticism, witticism, sarcasm, or
mental spasm may emanate from either the shallows or depths of our conscious
being, we are expressing God’s greatest gift to us: our humanity.
Consider: the “life” God’s spirit
breathed into our created beings and souls at the beginning and into each our
individual lives one at a time and uniquely ever since. That breath expressed God’s intention
to bring into his creation a sentient being in His own sentient image: humanity. That is who and what we are – thinking, creative,
expressive humanity.
Quite often we make a hash of it, the God-thinking part. I’d say this historical moment is one of
those times. In fact, we may well be experiencing
humanity’s closest brush yet with the apex of human argumentativeness. Why? In
this unique era, we are all in the conversation and all seem to be outraged at
something, shattered in disagreement, steeped in our own narratives. Truth avoidance is a condition deeply
unhelpful to humanity’s Godly expression of itself.
Humans have always debated and fought about both serious and
frivolous stuff. What’s different at
this moment is 360-degree internet and broadcast mass communication; we are all
members of the news media. Our expressed
ideas and actions are immediately known and evaluated by the aggregate
“everybody.” Walter Cronkite only
occasionally had to consider what his audience thought of his newscasts; few of
them could “get” to him.
Today … we all can; we just reflexively put it out
there. That’s not an example of
humanity’s highest expression of God’s highest gift. What gift? His bestowal upon us of sentient creativity,
and then the revelation through Christ’s obedience of God’s truth, goodness,
love, charity, mercy, and that great, troublesome elephant in the room: God’s
righteousness. We are righteous only in
Christ, and then only because He covers our sins.
We mistake our human, sentient capabilities for
self-authorized moral righteousness, tacitly arguing against the real thing – God’s
immutable moral righteousness. God’s is
the only righteousness that ultimately counts; Jesus is the only truth that ultimately
matters.
In 2 Timothy 2:23-24 cited above, Paul is using his “pastor”
hat to explain specifically to ministers of the Gospel of Christ – or really to
any servant of Jesus – that the best way to express our most sincere,
closest-to-God humanity is with kindness.
Maybe in this moment we will all learn – especially those expressing the
Gospel to others – that condemnation is no substitute for kindness, love, and
responsibility. Kindness is what sells
the message.
Maybe in one of those crazy ways that God does things – as
only God can - this whole Covid-19, racism, protest, riot, civil-authority-dysfunction
climate of fear, distrust, and condemnation will serve – somehow – as a wake-up
call to an improved expression of our humanity.
Our best human expression will reveal the truth of God’s image inside of
us. We are off course en masse, speeding
down the passing lane carrying anger, fear, and hurt.
The fast lane to expressing peace – our best humanity – is
expressing Christ.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) once wrote: Isn’t it funny that when a person does something really good, they’re a humanitarian; but does really something bad, they’re “only human.”
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