The first church I was privileged to pastor was a small, rural church. We had dairy farmers and factory workers in that church. One of our favorite things to do was to gather at one of the farms and have a fellowship day. It usually involved the men shooting skeet until their arms were to sore to fire any more (or dusk, whichever came first), while the women prepared lots of food, sometimes fireworks, but we always ended the day with a camp fire.
Early on, I had to be taught something about camp fires. I tried to build one and it just smoked something awful. I couldn't get a good fire going and it just smoldered. No one has a good time when the entire area is engulfed with smoke. I was lamenting this to one of those dairy farmers and he laughed as he said, "Your fire is starving. It needs more wood." So the next time, when the fire started smoldering and smoking, I threw another couple of logs on the fire. They were well-seasoned and they burst into flame. And as the fire got hotter, the amount of smoke declined. A good, hot fire will not put out a lot of smoke. It will consume it's fuel and die down to just some glowing embers rather quickly. Those embers will last for quite a while. And if you throw more well-seasoned logs on those embers, you will quickly have another fire.
As the sun goes down, and the fire dies down to embers, you begin to notice how some are burning hotter than others. When a breeze blows, the embers will glow brighter and then die back down. There are swirls of color and very little smoke. It's my favorite part of having a fire. As my energy is drawing down for the day, the dying embers help me to relax.
Right now, in the history of our country, you could say we are usually glowing embers. But, every now and then, someone throws a log or two on the fire and we burst into flame. I am not here to argue about whose life matters more. We are, everyone last one of us, created in the image of God and worthy of dignity, respect, and justice. That is not what this post is about.
My focus today is on people who feel like they need to keep adding logs to the fire. They share posts from years gone by about the topic of the day. It almost seems they WANT to have a fight in the comment stream. I submit to you this is not what Jesus would commend for a Christian. Now, someone is already arguing with me that Jesus had righteous indignation (or even anger) at the money-changers in the temple. Yes, He did. So what? Jesus knew more about the hearts of those money-changers than you know about your "friends" or "followers" or whatever. When Jesus confronted the Pharisees, it was from a position of perfect knowledge. He wasn't looking for a fight.
Right now, it is not the time to prove you are right or justified or wounded. We are all hurting. You are not hurting more than anyone else. You speak from your own heart, your own wounds, your own past. No one speaks for anyone else. When this thing called earth is over and we all stand before our Creator, He isn't going to ask if we defended our position on Facebook (I'm not convinced He even cares about that). He is going to ask if we showed love for our brothers and sisters (John 13:35). He is going to ask if we worked to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). He is going to ask if our motivation was His Father's glory (1 Corinthians 10:31) and not our own . And here's where it gets real personal. He will ask us to stand to give an answer about our own lives and He will already know the answer. We will simply be agreeing with the truth.
When a fire is in full blaze, the only thing you can really do is back up. When you get close, you get burned. And if it is a very good fire, you won't be able to stand close to too many people. You all will have to back up. But when it dies down to those beautiful embers, you can drag the chairs closer. You can gaze into the smoldering remains. And you can begin to talk. In hushed tones. Because you don't have to shout over the roar of the flames. The current roaring flame of our culture will not calm down by throwing another log from the past on the fire. We need to it die down a bit so we can draw closer to one another and talk about real change. Talk in hushed tones about exactly HOW we will move to make that change happen.
One thing I'm convinced of, real change will not come about from rants in cyberspace. It will come about when those created in the image of God look each other in the eye and talk about real change. And then do it. A poster held up outside the police station will not have the same impact as an appointment with the chief of police. A rant on Facebook will not be remembered for much more than a month, but a conversation between honest people will last beyond the memory of the words spoken.
