Friday, March 8, 2019
One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ Mark12:28-30(NLT)
Circular
arguments tend to close-off everything else outside the circle. And that gets really weird when the stated purpose
of the circle is to proclaim inclusiveness.
It’s like this statement: We are for total tolerance; we will not
tolerate any intolerance. Huh…what?
American
culture today demands total inclusiveness, everybody equally welcome at the
table. Now that sounds wonderful, except
for the fact that, while God created everyone equal, we
didn’t stay that way. Created equally,
we devolved into baser, harsher, nearly bestial beings, capable of not merely
intolerance, but capable of eradicating all traces of the image in which we
were created. Examples abound like Stalin,
Hitler, and Cain, to name a few.
The so-called
evolved, civilized, and tolerant society which we claim today, highly-touted
and politically-correct, is but an illusion.
We are just as unprincipled, undisciplined, power-hungry, and celebratory
of those who are successful in having achieved notoriety and position by such
means, as are the pages of history, effusive in praise over the building of
bigger and better towers at Babel.
Popular
thought today celebrates diversity as wonderful, yet demands that no lines be drawn
to point out differences. We prefer to
live in a blender culture, having a homogenized idea of our existence amid the
diverse parts. As with a kitchen
blender, throw us all in at the top, push the button, and whatever mush is created
will be the new norm. We will only be
defined by our median, that common value which separates the higher half from
the lower half. But we will never admit
to what characteristics bring the median up or down, because that might not be
kind, or politically-advantageous.
Now, save
the cards, letters and tweets…I’m not advocating a new circle to keep anybody
on the outside of anything. I am simply pointing
to the truth of that complexity with which we have muddied the looking
glass. By trying to accommodate every
thought in the 7.7 billion minds upon this planet as equally-valid (a feat
certainly only possible by God…who would probably laugh at the prospect, or the
results), we have arrived at the kind of impasse in human social possibilities
that pleases no one, and that makes more than a few mad!
So, what
do you do when you have reached a dead end, and all you have is a circular road
map that tells you to keep circling?
Common sense says turn around; go back to the place of
beginning and start over…begin with the basics…keeping the purpose of the
journey in focus!
That’s
what Jesus was telling the Pharisee, whose colleagues had made faith so complex
it was unrecognizable (to God). He told
his questioner the most important message we ever got from God was to love God
with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength…and love our neighbors with the
same kind of respect we’d like to have.
To me, that means tell the truth, listen more than you speak, and believe
God rather than every new whim of social science engineering claiming to have
the next, best-ever idea!
For You Today
So, let diversity flourish; away
with the boredom of one-size-fits-all.
There’s a difference between common purpose which promotes unity, and demanding
uniformity of thought. Stand-out in this
blended world; stand up for God’s way.
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