How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting. Psalm 133:1-3
Harmony is…the
quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole.[1]
Almost 40
years ago music icons Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s music video lit up the
charts in a plea for humanity to find a way to exist in harmony:
Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why
don't we?[2]
Both of
those artists helped define the distinctives of the Baby Boomer generation,
those who came along after World War II.
In typical arrogance, fueled by youthful naiveté, the Boomers imagined
we were the first to really get it right about how to have
a perfect world. The concept of harmony,
just getting along with each other, learning to love each other, worked well in
theory; in practice we didn’t do so well.
To wit: 2020.
If the dictionary is right about harmony being a pleasing, consistent
whole (of divergent, cacophonous parts), we’re about as much in tune with each
other in 2020 as sounds of a catfight in the middle of the night.
It’s hard
for me to point a finger at the current generation for the way they’re
proclaiming how to get it right in racial harmony, especially
when my generation tried the same, worn-out garment of protest, public blaming,
exclusion, infighting, and general unrest.
Fighting fire with fire makes for a catchy soundbite,
but it’s a horrible methodology for bringing people to a point of respect, and
even love, much less the promised land of harmony.
In the same way that light and the absence of light cannot exist in the same space, so harmony will never occupy the same space with anger. Several weeks ago I preached a sermon on the text of Genesis 33[3] where estranged brothers Jacob and Esau reconciled after a 20-year feud. The reconciliation only happened because they both decided that the anger that fueled the rift was just not working.
If you choose reconciliation you must LEAVE the anger behind. If you choose to remain angry you will NEVER
reconcile with anyone. You just can’t
walk through two doors at the same time!
For You Today
Let’s go back to before
this day’s generation, or my generation…back before Black Lives Matter, or Ku
Klux Klan, or anything in recent memory…let’s let wisdom from Solomon be our
last word.
A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare. Proverbs 15:1
Title image Pixabay.com ∞
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
No comments:
Post a Comment