Standing Still Is Not an Option

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, who lived the Way and shows us the Way.

What the heck can we do? (I censored that.)

All followers of Jesus are asking that question right now, but it can be heavier and sharper for pastors and other leaders. “What can we do” is often followed by “without offending anyone” or “and still keep my job.”

I work hard to keep actual partisan politics out of my preaching, and that’s a good thing. It’s not my job to tell you who do vote for (or who not to vote for).

It is my job, though, and one that I take seriously, to help us all be more mature Christians and to live in ways that most accurately reflect the Jesus we say we follow.

That task just gets harder and harder.

We’ve all seen the news. We’ve seen people step out to protest and defend people who were being abused, only to lose their lives in the process. It’s awful. What can we do?

There’s very little that is new—the Preacher said much the same thing in Ecclesiastes 1:9 (check it out). Christian leaders have been trying to address questions like this since, well, the beginning of the Christian era.

Today is the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the 13th century, and was arguably one of the most important Christian theologians ever to have lived. He made it clear, even back then, that to suffer criticism and even violence without fighting back is a mark of Christlikeness. But he also made it clear that to stand back while someone else suffers is a sin. Here he is in his own words:

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark  of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.

And so I’m taking that part seriously today as an answer to the “what can we do” question. What I can’t do is sit on the sidelines and do nothing while neighbors that Jesus told me to love are being mistreated. That’s what we learned from the people who have lost their lives in protest. That is what we continue to learn from the message and example of Jesus.

Take some time to reflect and pray about this. I welcome your comments.

Blessings,

Pastor John