Behind the Scenes

August 13, 2017

It’s a beautiful, quiet Sunday evening out here in our neck of the woods. In the distance is the drone of a lawnmower, but other than that, the only sounds are the creek that circles our property, the birds whistling in the trees, and the cat purring beside me. Linda has gone for a motorcycle ride with our friend Jeannie, the Purple Princess, and I’ve been sitting on the patio reading. After worship this morning, dinner with our daughter and son-in-law, a surprise visit from one of the few Uralistas in the area, cleaning the pond filter, and adjusting the clutch on my bike made for a quiet afternoon.

The events which have headlined the news over the weekend seem so far away, from a distant and alien world. It seems everyone is commenting on the violence that erupted in Charlotte, so there is little I can add to it that would be constructive. The Left is quick to lay blame at the feet of the Right, and the Right respond by listing all the times the Left incited violence, so that if one merely condemns the violence and vitriolic hatred without choosing sides, someone will be offended and chalk you up as a bigot or hypocrite. It is no longer enough to denounce violence and evil; it has to be done in the right way, using the proper catchwords. 

We are not surprised when the other side erupts in violence, but when our side becomes the perpetrator, we express shock and disbelief. As a society, we have bought into social evolution, believing against all evidence that we are getting better. The preacher who declares with the prophet Jeremiah that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (17:9) is written off as a kook, hopelessly out of touch. Prophets have never won a popularity contest.

When I look at most people, I don’t see them as Jeremiah described. I see good people, doing their best. It is when I look inside my own heart that I recognize the truth of Jeremiah’s words. I want to believe that I’m pretty good, doing my best, an upright citizen and faithful Christian, but I know better. The Bible describes life as we find it, and no less than Jesus himself warned that things would keep going from bad to worse. But St. John reminded us that the Light has entered this dark world, and the darkness is unable to extinguish it (John 1:5), and that gives me hope. 

I preached today to a congregation that has found itself up against a wall. Hope is in short supply. So that’s what I spoke about. The story was from 2 Kings 7. The city is surrounded, people are starving, and four lepers are sitting outside the city gates, waiting to die. They finally decide that it is madness to starve to death where they are; there is no sense sneaking back into the city, so they might as well head towards the enemy camp. They could be killed, but they might be spared. So they go, and find that God has emptied the camp. No one is there! The enemy is gone, but they left behind all their stuff. So these four plunder and gorge themselves, but finally decide they need to tell their people the good news, leading to the deliverance of the city.

The God is out there in the darkness, in our communities, in the middle of all the evil that manifests itself in so many ways, working often quietly behind the scenes in ways we cannot imagine, and waiting for us to stand up and join him and discover what he is up to. We only discover his Presence when instead of staying where we are, immobilized by fear, or retreating back into the familiar haunts and habits of the past, we boldly step out into the future where we could die, but where God is already at work, readying a miracle of deliverance. I’m thankful for my quiet evening, knowing that it is anything but quiet for many, as I pray into and move into the future where God is mysteriously at work, bringing deliverance to his children.