A City on a Smoggy Hill

Since we become slaves of whatever we yield ourselves to, what are the “baals” (or masters) in your life? In what ways might you be serving them instead of God? What promises do these masters make to lure you to their service? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1244).

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:26 NIV).

When Jesus ministered to mankind some 2000 years ago, his ministry had a dual thrust. It was positive and encouraging to some and negative and critical of others. To some he reached out with healing and compassion, to others he skewered with harsh judgment. I think this approach is needed today.

The title of yesterday’s blog was “Embarrassing and Humiliating.” Jesus held no punches in embarrassing and humiliating the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees. Predictably, they counterattacked with cunning and eventually murder itself for their god made unlimited demands that they avoid the embarrassing and humiliating at all cost, rather they were bound by lust to seek the status and regard of men. In the United States today we have those who lust after status and the regard of men. A peculiar thing is evident here; money is seen as the ultimate cleanser, indeed the very salvation of men. Get lots and lots of money (by whatever means) and the power of that money will carry the day and ensure status, regard, and power. Thus today, we have merchants of death supremely isolated from the misery they bring to millions of individuals and to the larger society. Wealthy, respectable thugs routinely buy political influence; without conscience or shame sacrificing the public good to selfish interests. I pray daily that God will rise up someone to embarrass and humiliate these wolves in sheep’s clothing—to strip off their pretensions and lay bare their cruelty, greed, and abject selfishness.

Unfortunately government itself has fed the lust for wealth as a source of salvation. Unbelievably, it has taken upon itself the role of casino (lotto being the most obvious form) pandering to the desires of citizens for easy money. Thus government has come in these dark days to endorse and validate the lurid ethic of greed. We have submerged beneath a dense haze of pollution the vision of a City on a Hill.

Susan Boyle - Britains Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 - Saturday 11th April | HD High Quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

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Embarrassing and Humiliating

Were that all children were the same—eternally quite, respectful, obedient, humble in spirit and respectful of authority. In the high school I attended the Principal's Office was known to have a "Paddle on the Wall". Whether it was ever used, I do not know. But all of us knew—no matter how rebellious and disrespectful of authority we might wish to be—that the utmost level of embarrassment and humiliation was always possible. The visual that we all knew our peers would see (no matter how arrogant and cool we wished to be) was us bent over before the pinnacle of authority in a subservient position getting hit on the butt. Let's get one thing abundantly clear. The pain in such paddling has nothing to do with a momentarily stinging butt, but with the snapshot of us in total subjection before authority. We, despite our fondest wish and ugliest behavior, are not demigods in the driver's seat able to run roughshod over authority, our fellows, or the facts.

In America we have obsessed over the momentary sting of a paddling and completely ignored the awesome necessity of communicating in unsubtle ways that no individual represents the totality of the universe. It is a very serious matter that Johnny knows that he can report that his dad paddled him and thus outrank his father in power and authority. This is a governance situation that has gotten totally out of hand and is destructive of the family.

When we decide that ideology and flimsy idealism are stronger and more obdurate than human nature we make a serious error. Once we fancy ourselves gods and not animals disaster results. Again, we must not be subtle—we must have a visual that makes it abundantly clear who's in charge. I'm sorry, time-outs do not provide powerful visuals. A spanking on the butt bent over in a subservient position offers a visual that says it all with utmost power and clarity.

Here, I must reprimand what I think is our lust for “sophistication.” We lust to be considered “liberal”, “open minded”, and “cool” not only in regards to discipline, but everything else. This yearning for what is at base a lust for license and anarchy is going to bite us on the butt. It is getting so bad in America that it seems our Constitution does not contain a Bill of Rights, but a Bill of License. We should remember "when liberty becomes license dictatorship is near". I pray daily for strong transformational leadership that will remove the scales from our eyes before it is too late.

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Getting Desperate

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I have a true friend of many years (Baba) who was arrested recently for a reefer offense (to be incarcerated till August). He is 33 years old and lives in a challenged neighborhood of Saint Petersburg. My disgust with the current state of affairs I hope is evident in the letter I wrote him today.

Dear Baba,

I want to apologize to you for a crazy, mixed up system whereby millionaire thugs legally ruin the lives of millions with alcohol and tobacco and go scot-free—not only selling to adults but enticing even little children in every convenience store with cute containers of addiction and death. It is at times like these that I think we are not only on a slippery slope to hell but perhaps in many ways are already there. (I had to install a security system last week, and a friend at work told me yesterday of angry and hostile drunks on the beach this weekend.)

Just remember: Don't Give Up!!!! (I'm including a message from Kunte.) This is the second pivotal time I feel our system has failed you: one when you felt unwelcome at our church and now during this appalling miscarriage of justice. I want you to know without qualification I know you are a good and decent man and in my book many others deservedly should take your place behind bars. I fear the clock is ticking on our society and the time is short for us to give up this rank escapism, deceit, falsehood, and delusion and turn to God.

I stand by you 1000% and pledge unqualified loyalty to you forever. When you get out I absolutely want you to promise me that we can go out and celebrate with a pizza and once more overlook the beautiful bay and dream of what life could be if all were whole and spiritually free. I would also be pleased if you would give our church a second try. Believe me, the person who objected to your presence is in the small minority and we now have a Godly pastor with backbone.

Ramon sends his love and heartfelt regrets.

Love ya,

[Below is Kunte's favorite admonition to me.]

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Mysteries and Wonders

Yesterday at church and in the streets I found all my friends healthy and well. Praise God! One sour note, I found out a dear friend who assisted at my wife’s funeral is in jail till August on a reefer charge. It is beyond me to understand how this is so since at any convenience store even a child cannot navigate the aisles without running into enticing little containers of fruit-flavored high-content alcohol and cancer causing tobacco is stacked up to the ceiling behind the counter (I guess tobacco is more destructive to our society than alcohol.) This is indeed a world filled with mysteries and wonders.

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Ferocious Wolves

Powerful words to consider: “hypocrites”; “child of hell”; “blind guides”; “fools”; “whited sepulchres”; “full of… iniquity”; “serpents”; “generation of vipers”; “murderers” "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”--pretty strong words to come from Jesus—the sometimes described meek and mild. I have borrowed from Jesus the idea of “ferocious wolves” to describe people of our day. Another term that is often used is “shark”. Generally we are speaking of people who, like the Pharisees, put on a surface show of righteousness, even cordiality, kindness, and caring, which turns out in fact to be deceitfulness replete with self-righteousness and a sometimes meticulously concealed hyper ferocity of hatred and rapacity. We are living in a time of “muddy rainy weather.” God grant us discernment.

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A Facade of Caring

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22 NIV).

The world is evil. (Peter, a neighborhood friend).

This Bible passage certainly indicates that we are to have a generous and forgiving spirit. I must admit I sometimes have difficulty with forgiveness especially when the offending action is not something in the distant past, but is ongoing and relief of abuse requires urgency. In our Good Shepard Sunday school class are members who live in an institutional setting. One of our members is rather young and is especially feisty. Often, I have seen him come to class so highly medicated and sedated as to barely be able to keep his head up. It is rather common for institutions (assisted living facilities, mental hospitals) to solve their problems with over-medication to remain in absolute control of their wards and keep them in utter subjection. Many “caring facades” have this hidden cruelty. In circular fashion, the resident's resultant stupor serves as self-evident proof that the mental functioning of the ward is impaired. In my own view, this is a serious matter and deserves inquiry. When abuse is underway, I find it especially difficult to forgive.

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Bureaucratic Arrogance

There are many, many exceptions. But has it ever entered your notice that as one distances oneself from “real work” and escalates in the organizational hierarchy from day to day front-line operations the greater the temptation there is to become a wolf? Today I asked the owner/operator of a small convenience store would he be the same person “in the head” if during the next year his business dramatically grew. Additions to the staff were made, and instead of often standing behind the counter making pressed Cuban sandwiches (his specialty), he now rather had a full array of “slaves” to handle all the work and he rather set back in an enclosed, plush office complete with an obsequious secretary sitting guard outside his door. What is it that can gain a foothold the further withdrawn from real work and direct customer service we get? I would love to ask this of my wise, humble, experienced, and knowledgeable friend Marvin Sweat who was a Methodist minister but also a beloved Methodist district superintendent in the Florida Conference. Whether this phenomenon represents the emergence of something new or the fuller revelation of what was already nascent would be my primary inquiry.

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