Because the Community Has Spoken

Scripture Verse that Caught my attention today: Galatians 5:2 Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

Observation: Paul’s point was that if people were going to rely on their own actions, they were essentially trying to tell Christ that he wasn’t needed, that they could do it on their own.

Application: I’m not sure why we as humans want to take so much credit for our actions on the one hand and want to blame others for our various predicaments on the other. Take voting. If we vote for a losing candidate, it’s quite easy to delude ourselves into thinking that any problems that subsequently arise are not our fault. “We did our part” we think to ourselves and “therefore it is the winning majority that has the problem.” But with such perspectives we cut ourselves off from our common humanity and position ourselves as over and against the rest, thus dividing one community in two. Rather than embrace the fact that the one community has made a decision, we declare instead that the “other” community got the best of us this time, but we’ll strive to get them back the next time around. Such thinking can hardly lead to any kind of real health and wholeness for either oneself or a nation as a whole.

Paul believed that Christ was of no benefit to a person who insisted on justifying him or herself by actions. In a similar vein, it could be said that a nation is of no benefit to a person who refuses to see him or herself in community with the said nation. But I’m not sure that I completely buy either argument. It seems to me that Christ is beneficial to us whether we are willing to admit it or not. Likewise, a nation can be beneficial to us even if we persist in lambasting our fellow citizens and/or elected leaders as if we had nothing in common with them whatsoever. Both are forms of grace if we can find the grace to see it.

Prayer: Lord, I pray for all elected leaders of whatever party and for those who ran for elected office but didn’t prevail. Differences aside, the community as a whole has spoken for this particular time in history. Let us now find ways to support the voice of the community as a whole and also respect the dissenting community as a part. There will be plenty of regular opportunities for the community as a whole to speak again. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(Readings today included: Job 31-32 and Galatians 5-6)