like a pilgrim sits beside the way
Now this journey appears before my candle
As a song that's growing fainter, the harder I play
That I fear before I end, will fade away
I guess I'll get there, but I wouldn't say for sure
from Song for Adam
Jackson Browne
I dusted off a very old CD, Jackson Browne's debut album from 1972 called Saturate Before Using which contains a number of "soulful" songs from my youth. Listening to tunes such as "Song for Adam", "Doctor My Eyes", and "Looking Into You" during my commute into work, brought back memories from many decades ago. Some of those songs also function as a counterpoint to my journey of faith and the general state of "religion" in the world around me.
I struggle with some of the undercurrents I see in Christianity as it's currently expressed. I follow a number of Christian Pastors and other believers on twitter and even among professional clergy, the narrow focus of the faith I find is alarming. It seems like "the end times" is just consuming Christianity, fixing the gaze and attention of the faithful forward into a future when Jesus will come, faithful Christians will be raptured, and everything will be hunky dory. Here's a couple of examples:
They laughed at Noah #Tworship #endtimes
Then they will deliver u 2 tribulation, & will kill u, & u will b hated by all nations because of My name. Matt 24:9 #Tworship #endtimes
Oh people, look around youWhat are we doing? Either we ignore the needs of people in the present and focus on the future, or we continually defend our right to bad mouth people we disagree with while defending our right to do so. More than that, when people complain to us about our casual attitude toward others, we accuse them of being mean spirited.
The signs are everywhere
You've left it for somebody other than you
To be the one to care
You're lost inside your houses
There's no time to find you now
Your walls are burning and your towers are turning
I'm going to leave you here
and try to get down to the sea somehow
from Rock Me On the Water
Jackson Browne
When did the community of faith become so distorted?
To answer my own question, I think we always have been. God's people have a long history of struggling to find our focus and then being able to keep it. Exodus 32 chronicles the "sin of the Golden Calf", which we read about and studied last week, but that's only one small sample of how those of us who have answered God's call to faithfulness allow our humanity to get in the way of His Holiness.
Where is the joy we are to have in serving God and loving our neighbor? Where is the pleasure we find in the pages of the Bible? Why aren't we listening to those who are wise?
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn" -Shab. 31aWhen was the last time you considered Hillel's words before blasting out a blog post or comment? Do we ever seek God and His will anymore, or do we just pander to our own desires and impulses? How does this make us any different than the world around us? Why should anyone care about our "witness" when we're no different than people who have no faith?
Well I looked into the sky for my anthemIf we can't find beauty in our own walk of faith, how can we expect anyone else to?
And the words and the music came through
But words and music can never touch the beauty that I've seen
Looking into you
and that's true
from Looking Into You
Jackson Browne
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. -Aesop
The road is long and often, we travel in the dark. The wind is coming up and threatening to put out the candle.
4 comments:
matthew 24:9—a prophecy of events like the Holocaust and Spanish Inquisition?
Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. -Matthew 24:9
Arguably, that one verse could be applied to many, many different events that occurred over the past 2000 years, but they don't help us "hone in" on the "end times". While we're waiting for the train to pull into the station, so to speak, what are we doing with our time...and our faith?
We all vary on according to faith, something we will never be able to gauge personally and certainly never in comparison to others.
As for things we do with our time...our group has started searching for ways to help the widows of the community on Sundays (since most of us no longer attend a church). Simple ways of helping everyday people. Last fall we helped a widow with 4 kids chop and stack wood for the winter. With 7 men we finished in about 3 hours a job that she realistically never could have done. It's actually quite easy to find things to do in the community for people needing help. Ironically most of the little jobs we pick up are from networking through churches. Some of the people in our group will notice in church bulletins that someone needs help doing something, sadly most of those things are never taken care of by church members. We're slowly becoming a group that churches contact to help take care of jobs like mentioned above.
So what we should be doing until the train pulls in is taking care of mankind and lending a helping hand when we can. We can't sit in blogs all day and discuss doctrine.
Excellent work, benicho. I agree with what you're doing wholeheartedly.
Post a Comment