As you wander around the
exhibit area at a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, you find
yourself involved in many types of conversations. Some are times to reconnect with friends and
colleagues. Others are opportunities to
share what you are doing now and how it might benefit the person with whom you
are talking. Sometimes it is a time for a person to “dump” some of the stresses
they are feeling to someone they trust.
The latter would probably describe
a conversation with a pastor friend who shared with me some of the challenges
he is facing in his current church. One of the big issues is division associated
with the current Presidential campaign and (what he termed) the reactionary
stance taken by people he thought to be reasonable, stable individuals.
He summed it up by saying, “It’s
your generation. They are the ones who
are inflexible and reactionary.” I
accepted his observation with grace, too tired at that point to argue that he
shouldn’t condemn a whole generation due to his own experience. In light of what is happening in our nation
today, I have revisited his comment and have started to wonder if his
assessment is accurate.
As we are confronted with
issues such as white privilege, disregard for black lives, coarse political
discourse, and growing division in our society, I have to ask myself if we have
done enough. Have we carried through on
the potential for change that energized our generation in the 60’s and 70’s.
As an individual, I have
sought to promote racial justice in employment where I have had the opportunity
to make those decisions. I have
encouraged my children and grandchildren to treat everyone with respect and
challenged them when they did not. I have
worked within my “tribe” and my church to promote diversity, acceptance, and
justice. But is it enough?
When I was in seminary, my
ethics professor said that Micah 6:8 was the apex of the ethical teaching of
the Hebrew Bible:
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is
good.
And what does
the Lord require of you?
To
act justly and to love mercy
and to walk
humbly with your God.” (NIV)
This
is not as easy it seems. May God give me
understanding about how to do this.
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