Thursday, April 29, 2010

A prayer for you

God of life,
there are days when the burdens we carry
are heavy on our shoulders and weigh us down,
when the road seems dreary and endless,
the skies gray and threatening,
when our lives have no music in them,
and our hearts are lonely,
and our souls have lost their courage.
Flood the path with light,
turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise;
tune our hearts to brave music;
give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age;
and so quicken our spirits
that we may be able to encourage
the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life,
to your honor and glory. Amen.

(Attributed to Augustine of Hippo)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

...but I still haven't found what I'm lookin' for...

I came to the "conservative versus liberal" contest late in the game. It was not until I was several years into seminary before I begun to truly understand the differences. In college, I remember a conversation over the lunch table where I confessed to a friend that I didn't know "what" I was. She asked me several "yes-or-no" questions about various hot button issues (i.e., "Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Do you believe in capital punishment?") and, as if I was filling out a teen magazine quiz, she informed me of my results. Even then, allegiance to once side or the other didn't seem all that important. I wanted to be on Jesus' side and I'm pretty sure he's not Democratic or Republican.

But today, you cannot identify yourself without the expectation of eventually being pigeonholed into one camp or the other. It's how we know how to deal with each other; how comfortable we'll be around you. It doesn't matter what sphere of life: political, theological, economic, you WILL be one or the other in their eyes. Otherwise, it is concluded you do not have the courage or backbone to have convictions.

Both sides seem to take delight in vilifying the other. Take healthcare, for example: Conservatives label liberals as touchy-feely sentimentalists who care nothing for God, right stewardship or historic liberty. Liberals label conservatives as simple-minded racist-bigots who care nothing for God, or the poor and are more interested in preserving their bank account than helping others. I've got friends on both "sides" and they seem to have the temerity not to fit into their respective caricatures; the caricatures media pundits keep insisting are true.

Having received the honor of being commissioner to General Assembly this July (meaning I will be one of six voting representatives from our area in the bi-annual national meeting of the highest governing body in the Presbyterian Church), I'm more than a little concerned about the partisanship. Church media is not much different than political: each camp lobbing theological bombs at faceless editorial writers.

Sometimes you hear pleasant accounts of folks reaching across the aisle to practice the godly principle of friendship and overcome differences. But these rare instances seem unlikely to happen elsewhere in a room crowded with champions for each cause, righteously fighting for the truth that the other side is so wildly obtuse to not see.

It's hard to know where to stand. I don't trust the rhetoric of "let's just all get along" or "celebrate diversity." I've heard it to much to think it does any good. I want to get along. I appreciate diversity. But I'm tired of the games, the parry and thrust of endless circular debate, the vilifying and the caricatures. I'm looking for some sincere unity, some sweaty, hard-fought prayers, and to-the-marrow salvation in Christ's Body that scripture has called us to all along. Not a contrived mission statement or empty handshakes and smiles.

But I'm pretty certain that requires relationship: the one thing the Lord persistently has been striving to get out his people from the beginning of time. And relationship is much harder; much more messy, much more sacrificial than self-righteous certainty. It sounds an awful lot like work. I'm too busy as it is. I can't even muster sincerity, prayer and redemption in my own life some days.

I'm still not that fussed about which side anyone thinks I'm on (on a good day, anyway). I'm most interested in being on Jesus' side. But I don't see him standing on either side of the aisle. And when he's turning over tables in the temple, or chewing out the Pharisees (conservatives of the day) or Sadducees (liberals of the day), I don't seem him in the middle either.