Staying Alert and Staying True!
Last weekend, our extended family had a fun outing with our kids and grandkids as we decided to go and check out what happens at the Johnson Farms in Belton Mo. It is a place for moms and dads to go and hang out with their kids. Of course, we as grandparents tagged along. I liked it. There were pumpkins everywhere and kids pulling their parents in multiple directions all at the same time. We’re talking hayrack rides, pig races, a corn pit, a maze, large jumping trampolines and the sound from pumpkins being shot across the pond. I liked the pumpkin donuts and hot apple cider and just hanging out with my family J. It was a day to be present with the kids and not have to shoulder all the worries of the world. It reminded me of a time when life was less complex. As I thought on these things, the song “Home on the Range” popped into my head. You probably know the lyrics…
Oh, give me a home
Where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
This is the official state song of Kansas popularized by Roy Rogers. In some way, I think it expresses what we all feel nowadays. Wouldn’t it be nice if we can all move to this “Home on the Range,” where there seldom is heard a discouraging word? I mean, really, you can have the buffalo, deer, and antelope, just give me that place where there are no discouraging words.
I turn on the TV and you have this anchorman or woman tell you all the bad things that are happening in our world with a straight face. I wonder who came up with the title “anchor,” because I surely don’t feel anchored as they serve me these bite-size, very discouraging, tragedies with a smile on their face. Those who share the news remind me of the 2004 movie, “The Stepford Wives;” a horror movie in which the wives are poisoned and turned into zombie-like robots. Thankfully the main actor in this movie caught on that something was terribly wrong. I wonder who is going to stay alert? Have we become zombies? How would we know if we have? How do we stay objective to the possibility that we are being unwittingly influenced by propaganda?
I sense that discouragement and moral stress have descended upon our land and everyone is facing emotional burnout and a desire to tune out everything. At least that’s what is happening at our house. We change the channels to sports or home and cooking shows, or we go to Netflix. And yet, even as we enjoy the distractions of the Chiefs with a 7-1 record, there is a lingering uneasiness about our world. I am afraid that it is at this very juncture, where we are tempted to tune-out, that we are most vulnerable. When we capitulate and have someone else think for us, we are getting dangerously close to becoming zombie-like robots.
When I was 18, as part of compulsory military service in South Africa, I fought in a gorilla war on the borders of Namibia and Angola. My greatest fear was landmines. Now I live in a world where war is fought right in front of me on my laptop through the powerful medium of the Internet. What I fear now is the way fear is used to mobilize people to depersonalize and label other human beings. This happening even in the pulpits of our land. Good old racism, sexism, and nationalism are worn out tools, but they are the go-to tools to fight a perceived enemy.
It is in times like these that we need a “watchman on the wall” – someone who can alert us to the dangerous times we find ourselves in. I think the watchman is asleep at the wall. The Christian voice has lost credibility because she has forgotten her primary voice of love. She has forgotten that she is to be a bridge to a broken world and pray for her enemy. She is marching forward as if the general has commanded her to take up the sword instead of a cross. In doing so, she has forgotten that Jesus who comes riding on a white horse in the final battle has the sword in his mouth, not on his side. She has forgotten or possibly never understood that Jesus fights with His word, not with a physical sword. The only blood he spills is his own blood.
Jesus who comes riding on a white horse in the final battle has the sword in his mouth, not on his side. He fights with His word, not with a physical sword. The only blood he spills is his own blood.
I believe that the real anchors in our world, the watchmen who are awake, are those who know that Christ Kingdom is a present reality. It is those who see Christ’s Kingdom not just as something private in the heart, but also as an alternative society to the empires of this world. It is those who know that their real commanding general, the real king, is a slaughtered Lamb who has absorbed within himself the violence of this world on a Roman cross. The real anchors are those who know that the Christian voice is a voice that cannot be reduced to be the expression of any political party. The Christian voice belongs to Christ’s Kingdom that consists of most nations of this world and over 2000 language groups.
This coming Thursday (November 1st) in our gathering for Pub Theology, we’ll have conversations on these matters. These are pressing issues in our society and we, as Christians, need to be prepared to have this conversation in the marketplace. For me, this is a conversation not so much about whom we are voting for in the mid-term elections, but a conversation over what it means to be a Christ follower in Christ’s present Kingdom. What does it mean for Christians when we swop the cross for the sword? What does it mean when we confess the lamb on Good Friday but embrace a warrior like Lion in the final battle?
Circling back to that “Home on the Range” … I think that home is the Kingdom of Christ who has come to make a home for Himself here on earth, not somewhere in the sky. When we camp out around this home, I am convinced, “There seldom is heard a discouraging word!”