Triple C News - January 8, 2021
Hey, everyone,
The other day my iphone told me “you have a memory”.
It was reminding me through a picture Tina and I took while on a trip with Mary, Ben and the kids to Washington DC in March 2017.
We drove into the city after dark so we threw our stuff in the hotel and walked out onto the National Mall for a breath-taking evening stroll. We went all the way to the Lincoln Memorial and walked up the stairs and turned around for the unforgettable sight of the Washington Monument and the illuminated Capitol beyond. We turned back and looked up into the intense face of our 16th President and I glanced to my right to see on the north wall the engraving of his 2nd inaugural address, his best and maybe the greatest speech ever given in our history.
The war was almost at the end and the President was sharing his deeply personal reflections on the mysterious ways of God in permitting the unanticipated ferocity of the previous four years of conflict.
The conclusion that had settled into his heart was that it was very possible that the Civil War was the judgment of God on our nation for the horrors of slavery and racism.
“…the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil”…
Race-based slavery ended in America in 1865.
Racism didn’t.
A couple of days later, Tina and I were walking around the other end of the Mall on a blustery, drizzly afternoon. We wandered past the bronze memorial to U. S. Grant and stood amazed in front of the majestic Capitol building. There was a worker on scaffolding out front.
“Is this where the Presidents stand when they give their inaugural addresses?”
“Sure is!”
I thought of the 6’ 4” 16th President, worn and old-too-soon from four weary years, standing in that spot as the sun broke through the clouds, they say, as with his clear high voice he began to read…
“Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office…”
My eyes were filled with tears and my heart raced as I looked at that spot and thought of that moment.
They were filled with tears and my heart broke Wednesday as I looked at that same spot in front of the Capitol.
As I first watched the images on the news, trying to understand what was happening, I thought, "How could it be that those people are tramping and trampling so disrespectfully on the very place where Lincoln stood to bring healing? How could it be that they are swarming like that all over that precious marble?"
And then it got worse.
How could it be that it has come to this?
Besides the obvious: unrepentant hearts, unrestrained tongues and tweets, unrebuked racism and racial hate…
often I’ve wondered in recent years…
“How could it be that people now talk to and about each other the way they do?”
The antagonism…the enmity…the distain.
And how could it be that those who say they are followers of the Prince of Peace…
Who proclaimed blessed the peace-makers…
are right in the middle of all of it, “letting it fly” in their words and tweets with the best of them?
Or better, ”with the worst of them”.
Tons of people have been sharing their opinions about how our society has descended to these hateful lows but I decided to ask an expert.
One of the most authoritative voices on the conflict we are seeing in our time was at one time an enemy of the ways of Jesus. He had been for many years.
Until he encountered the Risen Jesus himself.
James was Jesus’ half-brother.
In his letter, James would say that the problem is with the wisdom of our leaders and the millions who follow them.
Not the lack of wisdom but the wrong kind of it.
James says (James 3:13-18) there are two kinds of wisdom, “wisdom from above” and another kind.
There is a “wisdom” that has “bitter zeal and self-ambition” (James 3:14)
The Greek word for “zeal” is “fervency, passion”
The Greek word for “bitter” means “bitter, acrid, cutting, piercing, hurtful”
The word for “self-ambition” means “a spirit of rivalry, partisanship, factious, a party-spirit”
So, when there is a way of thinking, communicating and interacting that is passionately mean, bitter, slanderous, hurtful, hateful…
and when between the leaders among us who disagree there is the constant sentiment,
“WE are right and THEY are wrong, evil, stupid, and our enemies…”
that “wisdom”…
the kind that has been so evident these recent years…
is not from above.
In fact, James says (3:15) that way of thinking, being and talking…
that kind of wisdom…
is “earthly”…
and “fleshly”…
and…
“demonic”
“What did you call it??”
I didn’t. James did.
And it is.
But James proclaims the hope and possibility of another wisdom
The wisdom from above…
the wisdom of God…
the wisdom our nation needs…
in leadership…
and in homes…
and in churches…
is …
“first of all…
pure”…(clean and holy)
and...
“peacable”…(peace-loving, peace-making, peace-promoting)
“gentle”…(kind, meek, humble)
“submissive”…(”easily persuadable”, willing to listen to the other guy)
“full of mercy”
“the fruit of righteousness sown in peace by makers of peace” (3:17-18)
What if the past four years among our leaders and among ourselves had been a season of…
peace-making…
kindness…
humility…
listening…
mercy…
purity…
love…
wisdom?
What if more of those who say they believe in Jesus cherished and showed and devoted themselves to…
peace-making…
kindness…
humility…
listening…
mercy…
purity…
love…
wisdom?
(Sigh)
At the bottom of the northern wall of the Lincoln Memorial we read his closing words…
“With malice toward none, with charity (love) for all…let us strive on to…bind up the nation's wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
There’s no room left but it would have been nice if there were enough space to chisel in…
“Amen”