Thankfully the corona virus is no longer the all-consuming
24-hour a day news item. Now it has been
replaced by protests all across the country, but the focus is on the widespread
looting, vandalism, and violence, because, frankly, it makes for better cell
phone videos.
It seemed tone deaf for me to just talk about the Bible when
so much is going in the world around us, something like that image of an
elephant in the room.
There is a lot that can be said about all this, and there is
a lot that the Bible talks about that relates to all this.
So where do we begin?
Well, let’s start with racism. That
seems to be the single underlying cause of everything that is wrong in our
country.
At the very bottom, I see two separate issues, one more
basic than the other. If we can get that
one right, we can fix the other. If we
don’t get the first one right, we will never fix the other.
The single most basic issue in racism is simply about liking
people. People keep hollering about
ending racism, but how you propose to do that?
The government cannot make you like people. They can move them into your neighborhood. Some people will make friends with them, and
others will just move out. They’ve been
trying that for 50 years, and they admit.
It hasn’t made any difference.
They call that segregation.
I don’t. A segregated school is
not a school that is all black or all white.
It’s only segregated when people of other colors aren’t allowed to
attend there. That’s what makes
segregation.
But this is a Bible study.
Matthew 22:35
35 . . .a lawyer, asked (Jesus) a question, . . . 36
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him,
“ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR
SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ 40 “On
these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Christians talk a lot about knowing God’s will. Well, here are the two most important things
to do. Don’t worry about the other stuff
until you get this right.
We don’t often think of love as something that you can be
commanded to do. But the word ‘love’ is
used in a number of different ways. I
love ice cream. Now you can’t make a
person love it or not love it. And no
government, no law, and no amount of protests is going to make anybody love or
even like anyone else.
Now when it comes to people, there are basically two
different dynamics at work here. One is
when we generally talk about liking someone.
They please us. Their looks,
their personality, we share a common interest, we enjoy being together. God can’t command that, and He doesn’t.
But Bible love is where you see the value in other people
that God does. They are created in God’s
image. They are higher beings than the
angels. God commands us to value people
as He does. People that He loved enough
to die for them.
Now a secular society or a government cannot tell people to
love each other. They try, with their
slogans, we are one, or, we are all in this together. But a secular country cannot tell you that
people are created in the image of God and are of infinite worth. They talk about ending racism, but how can
you do that without actually loving the people involved. And you’re not going to be able to do that
without God and the Bible. The best they
can do is to tolerate everybody, which can mean nothing more than just ignoring
them.
The second issue here is what is called systemic
racism. The system is racist. We have riots protesting for justice and
ending racism.
The riots will do very little to change anything. Why?
Because nobody has defined exactly what problems to fix and how to fix
them. Justice for the victim? All four men involved have been arrested and
charged with serious crimes.
But fixing society will be a bit harder.
Now I’m going to say some things that I’m guessing some
people are not going to like. I’m
sorry. As a Bible teacher, you teach
what’s there. And we already chose our
passage.
This lesson has been on my mind for days, and I didn’t know
what I was going to say in this last part.
And now I know.
Some of you may disagree with this, and I only have a few
minutes to present some thoughts. I
believe I can make the case fully if you give me an hour.
I’m from the Chicago area, so I won’t pretend to speak for
other towns. I tried to match zip codes
here, but one chart showed zip codes, the other neighborhood names. And I don’t even know if the names match the
zip codes.
But let me present this to you. Am I oversimplifying things here? I really don’t think so. I think maybe we are overcomplicating things.
At least in the Chicago area, it seems that the poorest
areas are also the highest crime areas. I
am sure that most modern sociologists will say that the high crime rate is due
to the level of poverty.
I’m going to suggest to you that the level of poverty is due
to the high crime rate.
Crime is ultimately an offense against people, where God
says to love them is the second most important thing you can do. You cannot justify stealing and shooting
people because you’re having a rough time.
If you disagree, tell it to God, because one day you’ll have to.
And the most important thing you can do is to love God, and
He will just tell you, if you say you love me, then keep my commandments, and
the second most important one is to love your neighbor.
You may make a list of all the reasons why an area is in
poverty. And that list will seem to have
nothing to do with God. I am expecting
that in a lot of these lessons that we will be doing here, that you will be
seeing that very thing, that God does work on nations and groups of people, and
He often will use things that look perfectly natural, random, or is due to the
decisions of other people.
Someone will ask me, what about these people over here? And
I will tell you, I don’t know. I can
only tell you what the Bible says, and if you put all the relevant passages
together, you will have a very long list.
I am not expecting any long-lasting changes from these riots
and protests that will change the lives of the people affected here without the
changes that I am recommending.
We may not have solved all the world’s problems here, but I
think we made a good start.
No comments:
Post a Comment