immorality

From The Epistle of James, what I consider to be the New Testament Prophet:


"What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you?  Is it not your passions that are at war in your members?  You desire and do not have; so you kill.  And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war.  You do not have, because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions... 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'  Submit yourselves therefore to God... Humble yourselves before the Lord and God will exalt you."  James 4:1-10


We want things.  We want cheap goods (clothing, shoes, food), and we want them to be the very best.  We want cheap fuel.  We want the best of everything.  We even think that we have an inherent right to have the arbitrarily contrived "American way of life" and "standard of living".  And we will stop at nothing to get it for our selves.

We destroy the creation in order to get the precious stones, lumber, natural gas and oil in order to maintain our "American way of life".  We exploit people in other lands to get cheap labor and to use up their resources, pollute their air, ground and water, so that we can have good, cheap luxuries.  We even put our own people out of work (lower-middle class and working poor laborers) while we are doing it, so that SOME of us can have more of "it", and have it less expensively.

We even go to war over it.  We wage battles and dominate the world through our military might, economic leverage and conniving activities abroad.  We dominate world markets and the world banks and organizations that are meant to keep it fair in the world.

We whine when some other nation gets a piece of the action, as if we are entitled to it, because that has been our belief for a LONG TIME.  We wail when oil prices go up and use whatever means at our disposal (political, military, economic) to get cheaper prices for ourselves, other than develop alternative lifestyles or fuels, that is.

What we are doing goes against God's Will for the world and all people in it.

We are in trouble.  We are in trouble because of our arrogance.  We are in trouble because we believe we are entitled to "it", regardless of what that means for most of our own citizens and for others across the world.  We are in trouble because we will stop at nothing to get what we want.  We are becoming, not the most free and democratic nation in the world, but the most ruthless, underhanded, mean-spirited and self-indulgent nation in the world.

We see it in our own government, that now hurts the middle class and poor for the sake of the wealthy and powerful.  We see it in our own citizenry, that buys whatever we can get cheaply, without considering how others are used and abused in order for us to have it.  We see it in our churches and church leaders that preach our destiny as one of personal prosperity and being highly favored over others, while ignoring the message of the Prophets and Jesus, who warned us about such arrogance.  We see it, and we don't see it because we are blinded by a powerful sense of entitlement.

Our only hope is in finding the Agape Love that Jesus taught us to live.  Our hope is in finding compassion, as Jesus exemplified in feeding the 5,000, that will give us a heart to take care of those in need among us and stop exploiting people in our own nation and abroad for our own personal passions and desires.  Instead, we need to make our passion the justice and equity taught by Jesus, so that others will have what they need.  Our hope is that we will find that loving neighbor as self means that we no more want to see the "other" go without than we want to see our selves go without, no more want to see "them" hurt than we want to be hurt our selves.  Our hope is in a shift of priorities that reflects that Agape Love and leaves us satisfied with having enough, valuing the truly important things in life other than "having more", and keeps us committed to the wellbeing of others around us and across the globe.  Our hope is in finding humility in Agape Love.

Until we do that, it will mean more injustice and inequity.  It will mean fewer have and more go without.  It will mean demonstrating and marching, and I pray not rioting, in our streets.  It will mean law makers doing what they do to benefit the wealthy and powerful on the backs of the poor in our own land and across the world.  It will mean that others hold us in disdain, not because they "hate freedom", but because they hate the injustice and inequity they see from us.  It will mean that we continue to fall apart and sink deeper into the quicksand of unsustainable greed and self-indulgence that now threaten to undo us.

I pray that we will find that humility in Agape Love.  I pray that we will find it before it is too late.

Pastor Jamie