09-15-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
September 15, 2024
President Harry Truman is known to have said, “I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them.” He went on to suggest that this work of persuasion is about the extent of the president’s real power. Yet if these are things people ought to have sense enough to do, why don’t they do them?

In the movie, The American President, the character Lewis Rothschild (played by Michael J. Fox) says to the president (played by Michael Douglas),

“People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”

In response, the president says, 

“Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”

I don’t want Truman or the fictional president to be correct in their observations, but I am amazed at how we seem to go against common sense, toss out any sort of compassion, ignore the complexity of a situation, seem uninterested in showing curiosity, and will follow people who seem only interested in telling us what we want them to tell us. And though I used politics as an example in this Etching, I am not really talking about politics. I believe this to be very true in life, but even more troubling is how it seems to be true in Christianity. 

In a lot of Christian circles, truth is understood as something held by a few “special” people who dispense the truth to the masses. I’m not suggesting we ignore some really smart or amazingly insightful people, but Jesus called forth a community, empowered by the Holy Spirit, believing that the Good News is revealed, discovered, and lived through the collective work of the community.

We need to be all in, bringing all of who we are to the work of the Gospel—sharing God’s unconditional and limitless love with all the world. This work requires us to act on what we have learned through study and prayerful research, through listening to others with empathy, and to always seek to grow in our capacity to Put Love First In All Things. We need to know the difference between drinking sand and drinking the life-giving waters of divine grace.

​Holy God, Gracious Teacher, I seek to know all I can know for the good work of putting forth your dream that was displayed in the life of Jesus. Perfection will never be my end game, but this day, I pray for new insight that gives rise to greater faithful living. I make this request in the name of Jesus. Amen.