Friday, June 8, 2018
CHALLENGE
PLEASE NOTE
The Friday,
June 15th.
issue of
"frankly speaking"
will be posted online
Saturday Evening
June 16th.
It will be available by email
Sunday Evening
June 17th.
Thank You!
*****
Hi There !
So, when was the last time
you heard a really good sermon
about being prophetic,
about giving unflinching
CHALLENGE
to a significant wrong?
For that matter,
when was the last time
you caught yourself
just itching for
such a sermon anyway?
For most of us
it's at least a -12
on a scale of 1-10.
.
Truth to tell,
and that's what prophets do,
who the heck wants it,
the bald, bold, unwashed,
(as in not watered down),
truth
?
We're rather adept at
dancing around sheer truth.
In (not so) good part,
we prefer to play/pretend truth
down to a shadow of itself.
For all our protestations
to the contrary,
we're not all that fond of truth.
Just check out what we get and take
from advertisers and politicians,
and how we handle a personal critique
pointing out an uncomfortable truth
about ourselves.
When I get caught out like that,
say about my sermon
being way too long,
I usually play "nice, nice"
on the outside about the
CHALLENGE
but you shouldn't hear
what I say inside!!
It sure isn't "nice, nice."
I/We shouldn't really get
all hot and bothered
about those kinds of
a low intensity
CHALLENGES.
Turned around the other way,
though,
we sure as heaven should get
hot and bothered enough to
CHALLENGE
when there is evil loose among us.
A good example of a bad
that needs a vigorous
CHALLENGE
right now
is the horrific practice
in our country of
separating immigrant children
from their parents.
Yet, how many of us
and our political leaders
are hot and bothered enough
to be giving a vigorous
CHALLENGE
to such a blatant
and
devastating
sin
?
That sin should make us forget
being bothered over the likes of
"Nice try, but your sermon
went about fifty miles too far,"
or
" Haven't seen you in months
and where ever did you pick up
all the new fullness?"
Way more, though,
it should make us
so hot and bothered that
we make a lot of noise,
take a stand,
until the truth about the evil of
separating children
from their parents
is faced and corrected.
It is a hideous, violent practice.
According to
The Department of Health
and Human Services,
10,773 migrant children
are in government custody this week,
torn away from their parents.
This travesty comes from
an administration that talks
"family values,"
and
"right to life."
Make that "double talk."
How about the right to family life?
How about upholding
"the God given natural order of things" -
mom, dad and kids together
as a family unit?
The administration claims that
"it's the law."
Sometimes
"the law"
is wrong and immoral
and must face
CHALLENGE.
Jesus was murdered under
"the law."
White people founded this nation
with enslaving black people
built into its foundation and
"the law."
The killing of women
attempting to marry outside
their caste or religion is
"the law"
in sectors of our world right
to this sad day.
"The Law"
is not necessarily,
nor essentially moral.
Consider laws protecting
slavery and segregation
in our country's past.
When law is not moral,
it needs a strong, clear,
non-compromising and
prophetic
CHALLENGE.
In terms of our current and
pernicious immigration practice
of severing children
from their parents,
I'll bet one of those
record breaking,
high profile,
much touted
executive orders
from the White House
could make a saving difference,
could uphold family values and
the right to life as a family,
make adjustments to the practice
of stealing children away
from their parents until
"the law"
is righted.
To expel immigrants is one issue.
To violate the natural order
in the process is a devilish other.
CHALLENGE
Being prophetic, standing up,
and often standing way out
on a limb to do that,
to speak for truth and justice,
is not only a bother, it can be costly.
As a newly ordained,
I was asked to be right up front,
a white man in a black clerical suit,
in a civil rights march
in segregated southern Maryland.
That was in 1968.
Martin Luther King
and Bobby Kennedy
had recently been shot to death.
Civil rights workers
were beaten and even killed.
It was an angry, violent time.
We got a death threat just before
we left church that morning for the march.
I was a clear, easy target.
I feared I might be shot by evening.
Leading that march was a
CHALLENGE
I didn't want to give,
but I had to give.
Years later I was working
in the Chancery.
The bishop and I
were in daily contact.
We were quite friendly.
He was also my superior.
He buckled under pressure
and countermanded my decision
to hire a properly laicized,
highly recommended priest
with a doctorate in theology.
That man had a family to support.
The bishop denied him
the chance to do that in his field.
I had no choice but to
CHALLENGE
the bishop.
It strained a friendship
and threatened
my clerical climb
( shame on me!).
A caution.
In a run up to the crucifixion of Jesus
the soldiers involved,
the one's torturing
and preparing to execute him
did so under
"the law,"
They taunted him:
"Prophesy to us.
Who is it that struck you?"
(Matthew 26: 68)
Jesus kept silent.
Sometimes saying nothing,
not playing into a contrivance,
withholding a recommendation,
and other forms of silence
are the appropriate
CHALLENGE.
There are other times,
though,
when to be real,
we "real"-ly must be
prophetic
and
CHALLENGE
loud and clear
by
"...speaking the truth in love."
(Ephesians 4:15)
It gets up front, personal
and practical for
spouses, partners, children,
parents, business associates,
pastors and congregants,
police and military, politicians,
advertisers, merchants,
coaches and teachers,
citizens and neighbors.
All of us do well
to heed the wisdom and
CHALLENGE
of Jesus
that
"The truth will make you free."
( John 8:32 )
That does not mean we are free
to mount our own, personal Inquisition
every time something is wacky or annoying
It does mean we need
to accept a prophetic word or action of
CHALLENGE
addressed to us
and
to give such when truly necessary
to others.
Either and both can be difficult.
Either and both are fundamental
to our spiritual life and health out here
on the street of everyday living.
By the way, I recently visited
a wonderful United Methodist Church
and heard
"... a really good sermon
about being prophetic,
about giving unflinching
CHALLENGE
to a wrong."
It in part was the prompt for this blog.
The pastor gave a principled, balanced,
scriptural reminder that we need
to take a stand for the truth -
Jesus is
" the way,
THE TRUTH,
and the life."
( John 14:16 ) -
even if that stand for the truth
costs us money, friends, position.
That sermon was refreshing and itself a
CHALLENGE,
one we too rarely hear in church,
but one essential to our spiritual lives.
By writing all this I run the risk
of loosing friends and followers of this blog.
Well, that is a risk this
not so brave me just has to take.
Every once in a while,
we all need to
CHALLENGE
and to be
CHALLENGED.
It's not an every day, all the time matter.
Nor is it a matter of being
prickly and judgemental.
It's a matter of taking a stand
so others can stand.
Teresa of Avila fleshes out
taking a stand for others,
standing in in the Truth of Jesus.
"Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world."
Spirituality for the street
in one way or many means
"We are all just walking each other home."
Ram Dass
Thanks for considering all this today.
"The truth will make you free."
That's the promise and the
CHALLENGE.
Holding each and all
In God's Dear Love,
John Frank
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