Tag Archives: Protest

Chapter-a-Day

“Those People”

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“Those People” (CaD Acts 22) – Wayfarer

The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
Acts 22:22 (NIV)

I gave a message to our local gathering of Jesus’ followers yesterday. We’re in an interesting and challenging series of messages in which we’re exploring how we react and respond when our lives get interrupted. This can take the form of life itself interrupting with challenges, struggles, trials, and tragedies. It can also be what happens when Jesus interrupts as He did multiple times to multiple people after the resurrection in John chapters 20 and 21.

In today’s chapter, Paul is being escorted by Roman soldiers to the Roman barracks for his own safety. The riotous crowd of his fellow Jews were following, screaming death threats, and threatening to stone Paul. In a courageous act, Paul asks the Roman soldiers to let him address the crowd.

Paul starts by providing his religious resume. Paul was raised and educated in Jerusalem and was a student of a man considered the greatest teacher of the time. He was a card-carrying member of the most powerful theological sect and had been the most zealous hunter and prosecutor of Jesus’ followers.

Then Jesus interrupted his trip to Damascus.

What’s interesting about this version of Paul’s story is that he gives us an additional detail that Luke failed to mention when he reports the story back in Chapter 9. After his conversion, Paul went back to Jerusalem. He went back to the Temple to pray. We don’t know where this event was on the timeline of Paul’s life. While praying, Paul fell into a trance and God told him to leave Jerusalem because the Jews there wouldn’t accept his story. Instead, God tells him, “I will send you far away to the (non-Jewish) Gentiles.”

With this statement, the crowd immediately erupts back into their murderous rage.

The good religious Jews of this time were prejudiced against those who were not Jewish. Keep in mind that the Law of Moses specifically commanded them to love foreigners living among them as they love themselves (Lev 19:34). Like good lawyers, they found ways to twist the Law to justify doing the opposite. Even the Jews who had become disciples of Jesus struggled with accepting Gentiles as equals.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my own prejudices. Yes, I have them. I suspect we all do to one degree or another. I once gave a message and asked my listeners to close their eyes. I then asked them who came to mind when I said the words “those people.” I had more than one person tell me that day that they had to confess their own prejudices after that.

It’s easy for me to point the finger at the Jews of Jerusalem whose racism against anyone not Jewish is glaring in the story. As a disciple of Jesus, I’m commanded to actually obey the command to love others as I love myself without loopholes, addendums, or exemptions. I can’t honestly Confess “Jesus is Lord” unless I honestly confess and repent of my own prejudices against those who pop to mind when I consider “those people.”

When Jesus interrupted Paul’s life, he was required to learn to love and embrace the very people he’d been systemically taught to ignore and even despise. Jesus asks the same of me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus’ Way

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Jesus' Way (CaD Lk 10) – Wayfarer

[Jesus] replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Luke 10:18-20 (NIV)

Not long ago, I mentioned in a post that Jesus’ teaching was directed, not at nations or human institutions, but to individuals. It was directed to me. This is just one example of God’s message through Isaiah when He says, “Your ways are not my ways.”

Human institutions from Government to businesses to universities to churches operate on a system of top-down power structure. For human beings, this can work relatively well depending on the level of corruption, pride, and greed that exists in the upper levels of the system. The messiah that those of Jesus’ day were expecting was simply another version of this top-down paradigm. They expected the messiah to show up, wipe out evil through domination, put the Hebrews in charge, and exert salvation via righteous tyranny.

But, “your ways are not my ways” God had already proclaimed.

In today’s chapter, Jesus exemplifies the paradigm of His ways both via example and via parable.

Jesus appoints 72 more disciples and sends them out by two-by-two as as advance teams to the towns where He would be visiting. Their charge is to humbly stay with whoever will put them up and eat whatever they are given. No extra clothing. No purse full of money for emergencies. They are simply to do what Jesus did. Heal the sick, drive out demons, and proclaim the same teaching they’d heard from Jesus. If they were not welcomed, they simply wiped the dust off their feet and went to the next town. No demands. No force. No threats. Act humbly, live simply, and love mercifully.

Then a teacher of the law approaches Jesus. He is part of a human religious institution that operates like all human institutions. The elite and privileged at the top institutional food chain demand submission from the masses below. They drive obedience by threat of expulsion. They squash dissension and threats to the system (especially threats to the power and authority of the elites at the top of the system) with swift retribution, violence is used if needed.

The institutional lawyer asks Jesus what the law demands. Jesus quotes the two commandments that Jesus tells the crowds sum up God’s law: 1) Love God. 2) Love your neighbor. The institutional lawyer then asks Jesus to define “neighbor.” This prompts Jesus to launch into the famous story of the Good Samaritan.

What is lost on most casual readers is that Jesus deliberately describes those who pass by the robbed, bleeding, and injured man on the road as elite members of the very religious institution the lawyer represents. They are part of the human system which had, in top-down power fashion, exempted themselves from basic human compassion by dictating and justifying who was worthy of their precious time, energy, and resources both emotional and financial. In passing by the victim of assault and robbery lying on the road, these powerful figures of the religious institution were acting as they’d been taught and conditioned to behave by that system.

Jesus then chooses to describe the man who has compassion for the needy and helpless victim as a Samaritan. Samaritans were the enemy. Samaritans were excluded from the institutional religious system. The lawyer had been taught by the system to ignore, avoid, and treat Samaritans with prejudice, judgment, and contempt.

The Good Samaritan highlights Jesus’ ways, God’s ways. An individual acts with simply humility, compassion, mercy, and extravagant generosity towards another human being in need – even a stranger. This act is a bottom-up, subversive, human religious system disruptor, and it’s how Jesus intends His followers to change the world one humble act of charity at a time.

This bottom-up disruptor paradigm of God’s kingdom versus the world’s top-down power paradigm is highlighted once more by Jesus in today’s chapter. When the 36 advance teams return to Jesus, they report that they cast out demons and exercised power and authority over the powers of hell. Jesus quickly warns them not to let it go to their heads and infect their hearts. Rather, He tells them to humbly find joy that they have received love, mercy, and grace from God to be simple citizens and participants in God’s Kingdom.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself endeavoring to be a disruptor in this world. I don’t want to be a disruptor through power, politics, and protest. I want to be a disruptor Jesus’ way. I want to disrupt through bottom-up acts of love, humility, mercy, and generosity one needy person at a time.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Words that Bite

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Words that Bite (CaD Am 4) – Wayfarer

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,
    you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy
    and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”
Amos 4:1 (NIV)

As we began this chapter-a-day trek through Amos, I likened the working man’s prophet with Oliver Anthony, an Appalachian singer-songwriter who recently went from anonymity to having the most popular song on the planet overnight. His song, Rich Men North of Richmond is classic protest song in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, the likes of which we have not heard since Bob Dylan’s Masters of War in the early 1960s. Both of these songs stand out, not just because they are well-crafted songs, but because the are the raw cries of broken and angry souls. (For any who aren’t familiar with one, or both, I will post links to both at the bottom of this post and I encourage you to search for the lyrics online and take a few minutes to listen.)

Rich Men North of Richmond is a fascinating song to have resonated so deeply with so many at this moment in time. It is a scathing rebuke of American government (Washington D.C. is roughly 100 miles north of Richmond, Virginia) and policies that has left people feeling that our leaders have marginalized the many in pandering to the few. The lyrics don’t mince words. They bite. They bite hard amidst a culture that throws around terms such as micro-aggressions, trigger warnings, and the violence of words in order to duck-and-cover under the desks of their victim status.

This is why I come back to this song after meditating on today’s chapter. Amos’ prophecy stands up along side these modern songs of angry, soul-aching protest. Amos begins by calling the elite, wealthy women of Israel “cows of Bashan,” which in that day were prime exclusive, pampered livestock that would have been the choice meats enjoyed by the lucky few of their day.

Amos immediately moves from this image to that of conquered peoples being led by a hook through the nose. This was a common practice in ancient times. A ring or hook through the nose, attached to a rope, was how victors humiliated their defeated foes as they led them off into slavery. Of course, metaphors are layered with meaning. A ring through the nose is also how cattle and livestock were controlled and led. The elitist, wealthy, pampered women of Israel, the “cows of Bashan,” will become humiliated, human livestock.

Amos then immediately pivots to dripping sarcasm telling his elitist audience to “go to Bethel and Gilgal” to make sacrifices, offerings, and tithes. Lost on modern readers, these two worship centers were set up as a nod to Yaweh and the God of their ancestors, but they mixed their people’s religion with those of other pagan gods. The northern Kingdom of Israel gave their people an “alternative” to going to Jerusalem and worshipping Yahweh at Solomon’s temple. Thus, the worship of God was not the worship of God at all, but a watered-down, pagan version of it that the elites of Israel practiced religiously. A system of regular sacrifices, offerings, and tithes. The worship of Bethel and Gilgal were a shadow of the real worship God designed for His people.

What did God demand of his people in the Law of Moses? He demanded that the choicest of meat be used for sacrifice. What was the choicest beef in Israel? The pampered cows of Bashan. In just a few verses, Amos has called the rich, elitist women of Israel cows, intimated that they will humiliated like common livestock, and further insinuated that in profaning the true worship of the Holy God, they have made themselves the sacrifice of choice to a foreign power who will come with judgement.

These are words that bite.

In the quiet this morning, I ponder the culture I see around me. I think back to the first time I listened to Bob Dylan’s Masters of War in the 1970s on my Walkman as I walked home from school. I was young, but still remember the anger over the Vietnam war and over Watergate. I grew up being taught that freedom of speech means that we have the right to speak words that bite, that we sometimes have to hear words that bite (even if we don’t want to hear them), and that sometimes we need words that bite. We need words that bite to wake us from the fog of our complacency, to reveal our need of personal, moral, political, and cultural change, and to drive us to our knees in repentance. That’s why God raised up prophets like Amos. That’s why we still need modern-day prophets like Bob Dylan and Oliver Anthony.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Violent Times

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Violent Times (CaD Jud 19) – Wayfarer

In those days Israel had no king.
Judges 19:1 (NIV)

I observe of late that I live in violent times. Violent crime is on the rise in cities along with snatch-and-grab gang robberies. Political extremists on both sides call for violence against their enemies on social media, and political protests on both sides have turned violent. We are all aware of the latest in a long string of mass school shootings that occurred just a few weeks ago. A few months ago, in Green Bay Wisconsin of all places, a woman high on meth strangled her lover during sex, then dismembered the man and hid the pieces throughout his mother’s basement, leaving his head in a bucket. The murderer appears to have found pleasure in the act. She asked the police officers who took her into custody if they “knew what it was like to love something so much that you kill it.” The first time I read about it, I found the details so disturbing that it was hard to stomach.

That gruesome event was brought to mind as I read today’s chapter. This chapter is another one of the more difficult ones to stomach in all of the Great Story. An unnamed Levite finds himself and his concubine the guests of a fellow Hebrew in the town of Gibeah. In an act that is a direct parallel to what happened to Lot in the city of Sodom in Genesis 19, a bunch of men of the town beat on the door of the host and demand that the Levite be sent out to take part in their ancient version of a rave. The Levite sends his concubine out to appease them. After being gang-raped through the night, he finds her dead on the threshold of the host’s door the next morning. Appalled by what has happened, he cuts her body into twelve pieces and disperses the parts to the twelve Hebrew tribes to shock the nation and explain what had happened.

So, why is this even in the Great Story, and what am I supposed to glean from this? Meditating on this question, I came to a couple of conclusions in the quiet this morning.

First, the author includes this horrific story for a reason and he gives me the clue in the first line of the story: “In those days Israel had no king.” This is a line the author has repeated in each of the last two chapters. This is the theme of his book’s epilogue. He is sharing with his readers the social breakdown that occurred when there was no strong civic or religious authority.

Second, the entire story is about hospitality in the ancient Near East, which was a social expectation of such magnitude in that culture that we can’t really relate to it today. The Levites’ father-in-law in the first half of the chapter exemplifies “go the extra mile” hospitality to his guest. This stands out in stark contrast to his host in Gibeah in the gruesome second half of the chapter who should have protected his guest and not allowed the concubine’s rape to happen.

Finally, the bloody act of the Levite in dismembering his concubine’s body and sending it to the tribes was a call to action. It was meant to shock the nation into doing something about what was happening in their society.

This brings me back to my own times, in which I don’t have to look very hard to find acts of violence not that much different than the ones in today’s chapter. And, in the Levite’s call to action, I hear echoes of what our society is proclaiming right now: “We have to do something!”

So what do I take away from this?

Personally, I’m reminded of the human need for authority in both my social and spiritual life. Being a follower of Jesus means that Jesus and His teachings are my spiritual compass. As I submit to doing my best to follow His example and His teaching, I find myself with spiritual and moral guardrails on my thoughts, words, relationships, and actions. This even includes honoring, and being subject to, my civic authorities. Without those moral guardrails, I can only imagine how my life might cycle out of control.

But also, as a citizen of this representative republic, I play a part in this society and I need to do my part to participate in the civic and social process by speaking out, letting my voice be heard, and voting for strong leaders who will lead by action and example.

By the way, I voted yesterday.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Mob Justice

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Mob Justice (CaD Matt 27) – Wayfarer

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
Matthew 27:20 (NIV)

Wendy and I are creatures of habit. We typically begin each day perusing the news on our iPads as we drink our blueberry spinach smoothies (mine sweet, hers sour) and drink coffee. Quite often we remind one another of a truth that one of her favorite professors at Central College branded into her brain: “You only see what the camera wants you to see.”

News media loves to cover crowds of protestors and mobs rioting, especially if there’s destruction or violence. “If it bleeds it leads” as they say. However, even mobs and protestors can be created for visual, social, and political effects.

Most of us never think about it, but it is no secret that mobs can be bought. The BBC did a story about man in Pakistan who does it for a living. “Gathering a mob – what’s so difficult about that?” he says. “One phone call and a hundred people will come, they can throw stones till nothing is left and if that doesn’t work, it costs very little to buy 10 litres of petrol and set things on fire.” And according to the L.A. Times there’s even a firm in Beverly Hills which will organize a protest for you, though I’m guessing it might cost you a little more than in Pakistan. We’re talking Beverly Hills, after all. There’s also an interesting article in Cracked providing a first-person account of a professional protestor.

For me, one of the most intriguing aspects of the final week of Jesus’ life is the contrast of the crowd shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” on Sunday, and the crowd shouting “Crucify him!” on Friday morning. The longer I’ve studied the text, the more convinced I am that the mob shouting for Jesus’ execution was no accident.

The chief priests and elders had already broken a number of their own laws by the early morning hours that they brought Jesus to the Roman Governor, Pilate. Hebrew jurisprudence held that you couldn’t arrest anyone in the dark of night, nor could you have a trial at night. The verdict was already decided by the time they held the third session of their kangaroo court as dawn was breaking because it was required that you could only sentence someone to death in the light of day.

The religious power brokers were in a hurry to get the deed done. Friday at dusk was not only the beginning of their precious weekly Sabbath, but it was also Passover week. The rushed, clandestine mockery of justice was necessary to have Jesus hanging on a cross as quickly as possible and to ensure it was a done deal before the Passover crowds who’d been singing Jesus’ praises had finished their breakfast and made their way to the Temple. These were powerful, wealthy, and politically connected men who were running the Temple racket. They would have left nothing to chance. They’d already drummed up false witnesses in the middle of the night to testify against. Jesus. It’s likely they knew how to make a small investment of shekels to hire a mob to ensure Pilate perceived that executing Jesus was the politically shrewd call.

In the quiet this morning, I think about our daily breakfast conversations and perusal of the news. One of the things I’ve observed since the dawn of the internet is how quickly things can trend before any facts are known. Not only do we “see only what the camera wants us to see” but increasingly I realize that algorithms ensure “I only see what I want to see.” People are accused, tried, convicted, and executed in the internet court of public opinion in no time at all. Never have I found Jesus’ instruction to His disciples so apt when He sent them out into the world by themselves: “Be shrewd as a serpent, gentle as a dove.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Questions of Justice

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Questions of Justice (CaD Ps 82) – Wayfarer

Defend the weak and the fatherless;
    uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Psalm 82:3 (NIV)

Earlier this year, as the world grappled with the inescapable footage of George Floyd dying under the knee of a police officer, Wendy called a family Zoom meeting. Each person shared their thoughts and emotions. Each person discussed what he/she felt personally led to do in the wake of the event. During that same time, Wendy and I had similar conversations among different circles of our close friends.

I haven’t forgotten those conversations. I’m not sure I ever will. As I approach the end of this tumultuous year and reflect on all that I’ve experienced, I’m mindful of those conversations about my responsibility, both as a follower of Jesus and as a responsible human being, for acting on my faith to make a difference in the lives of the poor, defenseless, and oppressed.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 82, is another liturgical song that was written to be sung when all of the Hebrew people gathered for worship. It’s fascinating for the fact that Asaph draws on a common religious metaphor found in the cultures of the Near East at that time; It’s the image of a divine assembly in a heavenly hall of justice. God is sitting in judgment of the assembled “gods.” In those days, rulers of both religion and society could be considered “gods” or “sons of god” because they were considered divine agents of their society and religion.

The voice of Asaph’s lyrics is that of a temple prophet. It’s the ancient Hebrew version of a protest song. He calls society’s leaders out for caring about the poor, needy, and oppressed. He reminds them that God, the ultimate, righteous judge, will render verdict on these societal “gods” for what they did for lowest members of society. He ends his short song of protest asking God to rise up and mete out justice.

Asaph’s lyrics make me think about Jesus. I think about Jesus’ teaching and example as He spent most of the time bringing love, healing, and grace to the fringes of society living on the outskirts of His country far away from the halls of societal power and justice. The civic and religious “gods” of Jesus’ day would eventually kill Him for it.

The words of Asaph’s song leave me sitting in the quiet this morning thinking about those conversations with family and friends from earlier this year. I’m pondering some of the things that I have consciously done as a result, as well as those things that I have left undone. My thoughts shift to the road ahead as the New Year approaches. I ask myself, “Do my actions make me more like Jesus, or do they make me more like the “gods” of Asaph’s metaphorical trial?”

I’m uncomfortable with the answer.

Chapter-a-Day

The Wisdom of Silence

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But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply….
2 Kings 18:36 (NIV)

Wendy’s and my morning routine begins each day meeting in our dining room for breakfast. Our dining room looks east over our back yard and the field of prairie grass behind it. If the sun isn’t too bright we get to watch the sun rise up over the tree line as we drink our respective tea and coffee and catch up on the news of the morning.

Of late Wendy and I have been reading a lot about the outbursts that are happening all over the States from college campuses to the streets and parks of various cities. As most of us know, it spills over into social media where it seems one cannot share a reasoned, personal opinion without getting pummeled, insulted and threatened by strangers or people you barely know. Just a few weeks ago my friend Dr. Bob shared with me a brief glance at the vitriolic string of threatening comments and emails he’d received after his editorial appeared in the New York Times. We are living in reactive times.

During our quiet morning conversations Wendy and I have mulled over a couple of thoughts about this entire trend. First, at least in some cases the screams and conflict are meant to create a reaction and the press coverage that goes along with it. National attention is exactly what some groups desire to recruit like minded individuals and financial support. Second, we live in an unprecedented age of 24/7 news coverage from endless outlets competing for ratings and advertising dollars. These news outlets have a need for news they can report and keep audience attention. I wonder, at times, how complicit the media is in creating or sustaining the conflicts with their coverage to the point that it gets blown out of proportion compared to the reality of the situation. Finally, it has come to light that another country had agents trolling American social media during our election year stirring up reactive anger between those of opposing political views. They believed that the conflict would be destabilizing. Mission accomplished. Welcome to a new era of cyber warfare: stimulating your enemies to destroy themselves from within.

This came to mind this morning as I read today’s chapter about a very ancient conflict. The Assyrian empire was blitzing its way through the region. They destroyed Israel and were now at the gates of the walled city of Jerusalem. The strategy for thousands of years of siege warfare was for the raiding army to send its best communicator to have a parley with the besieged city’s leaders. The city officials would stand on the wall and the besieging army’s mouthpiece would stand below and yell up at them. The goal was to threaten, cajole, and intimidate those in the city into giving up.

The Assyrian commander comes to wall of Jerusalem and does his best to smack talk the people of Judah into fear. He tells them not to listen to their king, not to trust their God, and to look at how things ended up for their other enemies. For added effect he throws in that a long siege would result in them being so starved for food and drink that they’d eat and drink their own excrement.

But then the scribes record that the people said nothing. They didn’t react in anger. They didn’t talk smack back. They didn’t take the bait. They remained silent.

This morning I’m reminded that the teacher of Ecclesiastes wisely reminds us “there is a time to speak, and a time to be silent.” I’m reminded that when brought before the kangaroo court of His accusers bent on state-sanctioned homicide, Jesus remained silent. There is a time for discussion and reasoned debate. There are times to raise our voices in protest. But there are also times like the people of Judah before the Assyrian parley when we need the wisdom to be silent and ignore the taunts of others.

God, grant me the wisdom to know when to speak, when to be silent, and the discernment to know the difference.

[Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a breakfast date with Wendy down in the dining room.] Have a great week everyone.]

Chapter-a-Day

The Crowd

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But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
Matthew 27:20 (NIV)

I have read the story of Jesus’ trial and execution countless times along my journey. It is packed with so many fascinating and meaningful moments that it’s hard to focus on one thing for a blog post like this. As I read a chapter each day I try simply to have my heart and mind open to what resonates most deeply with me in this moment, and this morning what resonated with me was the crowd.

Perhaps it’s because of the preponderance of media that gets focused on crowd events and all that we’ve witnessed in recent months and years. I’m thinking of all the marches, riots, demonstrations, and protests I’ve seen reported on the news and in social media recently. Whenever a crowd gathers it gets attention. We seem to have a lot of crowds.

There is a entire branch of sociology and psychology dedicated to understanding crowd (or mob) mentality. Interestingly enough, consensus among scholars is as hard to come by. I was intrigued, however, by the theory of Gustave Le Bon who boiled it down to three things:

  • Submergence: In the anonymity of the crowd individuals lose their sense of individual self and personal responsibility.
  • Contagion: Having lost their sense of self, individuals unquestioningly follow the predominant ideas and emotions of the crowd.
  • Suggestion: Ideas and emotions of the crowd are primarily drawn from a shared racial unconscious, uncivilized in nature, and limited by the moral and cognitive abilities of its least capable members.

Three things came to mind as I thought about the crowd shouting for Jesus’ execution.

First is the fact that five days earlier the crowd was shouting “Hosanna” as praising Jesus as “king” as He entered Jerusalem. Now the crowd has been persuaded to shout for Jesus’ blood. Wow. That’s a major drop in approval rating in just five days. It’s amazing how fickle crowds can be.

Which leads me to remembering a passage from John’s biography of Jesus. In the second chapter we find that the crowd of people believing in Jesus and following Him was growing rapidly. Jesus was trending in all the major outlets. The crowds were growing and His popularity was skyrocketing, but John records that Jesus “would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all people.”

Which is why, perhaps, Jesus continued to remain silent as He stood by Pilate and witnessed the crowd that had turned on Him. Wednesday’s post about silence and spiritual authority comes back to mind. What a contrast we see in this picture. The lone figure of Jesus standing silent, bloodied, yet resolute in His mission against the submergence and contagion of the crowd whipped into a frenzy at the suggestion of Jesus’ enemies.

This morning I’m reminded of my desire to follow Jesus’ wisdom as it relates to crowds. I need to avoid entrusting my self to any crowd. This applies even to seemingly good crowds, for I’ve witnessed and been prey to crowd mentality even in nice neighborhoods, churches, social groups and communities.

I want my life, my beliefs, and my daily decisions to be guided by something more solid than the ever shifting mentality and emotion of a crowd. I want to be wise and discerning as I watch the crowd mentality emerge and “trend” in my social groups and in the media (including Facebook, Twitter, and all the other social media outlets). I want my life to be focused on my mission, my role, and my responsibilities. That’s hard to do if I am unwittingly submerging my thoughts, emotions and actions to the crowd around me.

 

Chapter-a-Day

Public Fear; Personal Assurance

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It has been fascinating for me to watch the post-election panic and fearful protests on the streets of many American cities since the election. Fear leads us to behave in interesting ways, as it has throughout human history. People are people, and the fearful residents of Jerusalem c. 701 B.C. are also displaying their fear in public ways.

Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets;
    the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
The highways are deserted,
    no travelers are on the roads.
The treaty is broken,
    its witnesses are despised,
    no one is respected.
Isaiah 33:7-8 (NIV)

The fear in Jerusalem is well justified. The dreaded army of the regional superpower, Assyria, has swept through the north and is now moving on Jerusalem. It is a large army well-trained, well-equipped, and battle hardened. It is an army unlike anything the people of Jerusalem have ever faced. The Assyrian army’s reputation for destruction, violence, and brutality has preceded them.  It is no wonder that order is giving way to fearful chaos on the streets of Jerusalem.

It is always darkest before the day dawns, it has been often said. That is the overarching theme of Isaiah’s message in today’s chapter. In darkness we tend to grasp for light. If the power goes out we seek flashlights and candles, when things get spiritually dark we reach for God. The ancient seer describes the fear of Assyria leading the people to repent and call on God for deliverance, and he then promises that deliverance.

Jerusalem will not fall to Assyria, Isaiah proclaims, though it will not be delivered by human effort:

Your rigging hangs loose:
    The mast is not held secure,
    the sail is not spread.
Then an abundance of spoils will be divided
    and even the lame will carry off plunder.

A wealth of plunder and spoils, but not from anything the people of Judah have traded for. The word picture is of a trade ship that has sailed no where. So where will the all the spoil and plunder come from? God is going to deliver it personally. God will deliver the people of Judah from the Assyrians.

This morning I am thinking about how Isaiah’s message was received by his family, friends and neighbors who were shaking in fear. I have a hard time believing that it was accepted heartily. I doubt that it provided many with comfort and assurance. Rampant fear is not so easily assuaged, as current events bear witness.

Nevertheless, I look back on my life’s journey and recall many times of corporate fear. As a child I learned to duck and cover from a Soviet nuclear strike, and as an adult I watched friends and family stockpile gold, guns and supplies for the apocalypse that was feared with the new millennium and the Y2K virus.

I understand that some threats are real and some fears are justified. Still, if I am truly a follower of Jesus, then my heart tells me that Jesus’ personal teaching should always trump public fear:

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6:33 (MSG)

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Ezra 4

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Angry Mandy!
Image by eVo photo via Flickr

So these people started beating down the morale of the people of Judah, harassing them as they built. They even hired propagandists to sap their resolve. They kept this up for about fifteen years, throughout the lifetime of Cyrus king of Persia and on into the reign of Darius king of Persia. Ezra 4:4-5 (MSG)

Through much of this life’s journey, I have found myself in different positions of leadership. From safety patrol captain in the 6th grade to student government and on to various minor positions of church, business, and civic leadership. With a natural bent to being a people pleaser, one of the most difficult and crucial lessons I’ve had to learn is that any worthwhile project you undertake will be criticized. For almost every opinion and proposal that you submit there will emerge a voice of criticism.

Aesop taught us in his fable of the tortoise and the hare that the race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep running. God’s Message tells us time and time again to keep pressing on. I can only imagine what is must have been like for Zerubbabel and the folks as, for 15 years, they daily went about the work of rebuilding the temple to the incessant criticism, taunts and threats of their critics and the thugs they hired for backup.

Today, I think about the projects on which I am engaged and the obstacles I face internally, spiritually, and publicly. Over time I like to think that I have gained some wisdom to discern which criticisms I should heed and which criticisms I should completely ignore. What I do know is that the criticism of others will always be there and if I let it paralyze me then I will accomplish nothing. All I can do is to  be faithful to keep pressing on through this new day that is dawning and apply myself diligently to that which I am called to accomplish.

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