A Healing Balm in a World of Toxicity

You think you’d get a break when you’re reading the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ words on money and greed ‘plow a little too close to the corn,’ as my grandfather used to say. Then, before you even have time to recover, Jesus moves from money to relationships! How do the people of God, in our relationships with one another and with our neighbors, provide a healing place in a world that is absolutely toxic in our speech and manners to one another.The age of civility in our discourse and among people is long gone. The Internet, and especially social media, have made the world a toxic place. I find this so ironic. On the one hand, we are told by those around us in the culture that we are not to tell anyone they are wrong or to admonish anyone that a certain behavior is sin. In theory, this should make us all just one big lovey-dovey community—right? Wrong! Because on the other hand, the very people that tell us we may never judge or criticize a lifestyle, behavior, or sin, will in cyberspace say the most horrific, toxic, scathing things you can imagine. It is like verbal napalm! Is this okay? Is Jesus pleased with this? (I told you this one would be rough!)Jesus imagines that in his kingdom, these things ought not be named among the people of God. In this text, he talks about patterns of behavior that should not be part of the people of God, and he also talks, in what is commonly referred to as “The Golden Rule,” about how we should replace a critical spirit and an insensitive spirit with a cross-shaped spirit. And let me tell you, in between he lets us know that only those who are drinking deeply of the gospel have a chance of being a healing balm to this toxic world.Don’t we want to be that? Don’t we want to be the people who see the image of God in others and, because we know God has already taken our judgement, be the people who show a little grace? Well, this is Jesus talking, not me. So out of the frying pan into the fire! Yet, the text says God only gives us bread and fish. So, join us Sunday and we will talk about what a healing community looks like.Blessings,Jim