Like many others, I was horrified this past week by the photos of the confrontations between frightened Haitian would-be immigrants and our Border Patrol. But even more horrifying were the comments that accompanied these photos on social media sites. Reading some of them you would be hard put to believe they were speaking of fellow human beings. Disgusting, dirty, sinful, thieving, no good, animals – these were some of the less harmful things I saw posted.
Social media used to be a friendly and harmless way to be in touch with folks and share lives. I still use it because it is a way to stay in touch with people who live at a distance and also a place to tell folks about our church and what we’re doing, but I have to work hard to avoid the plague of damaged people who come on such sites just to spread hatred. I’ve learned by now to avoid most of them. I stay off the sites where they seem to congregate, but they still pop up unexpectedly in places I thought safe, to mock and spew out their ugliness.
It can be a sad and sorry world that we live in today. So many people appear to luxuriate in their pettiness and outright hatred for all who are not them. Some, I guess, are paid trolls, but that leads us to another question which is who would pay people to say these horrid things? Some, I guess, just get some sick psychological kick out of spewing their vile thoughts.
Those of us who do not find our pleasure in spreading hatred need to consciously work at saying “No – this is not what I believe and this is not the world I consent to live in.” And that Is why I treasure posts such as this one which is my starting point for today’s message. This statement is by Fred Rogers (AKA Mr. Rogers, childhood icon.) It reads like this:
I thought that surely it would be easy to find scriptures supporting this statement – this is Mr. Rogers, for Pete’s sake -- but at first I was pretty frustrated. When I ran a search based on the word “responsibility” almost all the answers I got were about being responsible to God and to God’s laws. Close, but not quite where I wanted to go.
I found a couple of verses that seemed to fit – Galatians 6:2 – “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,” and Romans 14:7 – “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself,” but when I read the surrounding texts it became clear that these both referred to our relationship with God and not so much with each other.
That’s when I gave up on searches and began to work from my own memory. The first story that came to my mind seems to fit our requirements here perfectly – and that is the story of the Good Samaritan, as it’s told in Luke 10. This appears to be one of scripture’s “perfect” stories as It has shown up in several of my recent weekly messages. Apparently, the answers to a great many questions can be found in this one story.
It certainly meets Mr. Rogers’ criteria: the injured man was not his child, not part of his community, not even of his world. In the world’s view, the injured man was absolutely not his problem, and yet this man saw a need and he responded to it. This is what our weary world needs right now – people who can see a need and decide they will do something about it. People who can see a suffering person and imagine how they would wish to be treated if they were the victim.
The second scripture I thought of also fits a great many questions – and that’s the two great commandments, as found in Matthew:
Those who follow these two commandments, especially the second, clearly meet Rogers’ standard of “those who see the need and respond” – responding as they would hope others would respond to them.
Interestingly enough, when I was still searching through internet search machines I stumbled onto a page that was part of a U.S. Army site. This particular page was written by Chaplain (Capt.) Michael Fox, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, and he was writing, not about responsibility, but duty.
He began with a statement that Christian service men and women have a Christian duty to serve others. He then quoted from 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 8-10. These three verses do not come as readily to the average mind as perhaps they might a hard-core bible scholar, but they clearly deserve to be better known than they are. When we are questioning our own commitment to each other – our own responsibility to care for each other – these three would be good verses to call to mind:
Chaplain Fox then went on to quote from Paul’s first letter to the people of Thessalonika: "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up." Followed by a reminder that we should "Carry each other's burdens.” That one is in Galatians.
Finally, he ended his message with an exhortation that “if you do not take your post and do your duty, who will?”
So – in a world that sometimes feels right now as if it is bursting at the seams with ugly feelings and hateful thoughts, what is our response? Do we look around and see a need and then respond? Or do we tuck in our heads and pretend we didn’t notice?
Whether we call it responsibility or duty, our task as followers of Christ is to indeed follow the example Jesus left for us, on how to live a caring, responsible, duty-minding life. If we don’t, who will?
We cannot fight the haters. They’re not going to change, and If challenged, they will just double down. There is a saying that runs “Be the change you want to see.” If we want to see an end to the xenophobia and homophobia and the jealousy and the greedy refusals to share, then the only way is for us to stand up and speak out their opposites. Speak welcome, speak acceptance, speak kindness, speak God’s love.
If we want to live in a world willing to share the responsibility for the fair and equal care for all God’s children then we have to speak up. And not just speak up, we have “act” up, too. We have to be living embodiments of those who “see a need and respond.”
And it sure wouldn’t hurt to spend a good bit of time praying for healing for those who right now are reveling in their hateful thoughts and words. They, too, are our brothers and sisters, and their need for healing is great.
May God heal our hurting world and may we ourselves in some way, be agents of that healing.
Amen.
Social media used to be a friendly and harmless way to be in touch with folks and share lives. I still use it because it is a way to stay in touch with people who live at a distance and also a place to tell folks about our church and what we’re doing, but I have to work hard to avoid the plague of damaged people who come on such sites just to spread hatred. I’ve learned by now to avoid most of them. I stay off the sites where they seem to congregate, but they still pop up unexpectedly in places I thought safe, to mock and spew out their ugliness.
It can be a sad and sorry world that we live in today. So many people appear to luxuriate in their pettiness and outright hatred for all who are not them. Some, I guess, are paid trolls, but that leads us to another question which is who would pay people to say these horrid things? Some, I guess, just get some sick psychological kick out of spewing their vile thoughts.
Those of us who do not find our pleasure in spreading hatred need to consciously work at saying “No – this is not what I believe and this is not the world I consent to live in.” And that Is why I treasure posts such as this one which is my starting point for today’s message. This statement is by Fred Rogers (AKA Mr. Rogers, childhood icon.) It reads like this:
- “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say, "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
I thought that surely it would be easy to find scriptures supporting this statement – this is Mr. Rogers, for Pete’s sake -- but at first I was pretty frustrated. When I ran a search based on the word “responsibility” almost all the answers I got were about being responsible to God and to God’s laws. Close, but not quite where I wanted to go.
I found a couple of verses that seemed to fit – Galatians 6:2 – “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,” and Romans 14:7 – “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself,” but when I read the surrounding texts it became clear that these both referred to our relationship with God and not so much with each other.
That’s when I gave up on searches and began to work from my own memory. The first story that came to my mind seems to fit our requirements here perfectly – and that is the story of the Good Samaritan, as it’s told in Luke 10. This appears to be one of scripture’s “perfect” stories as It has shown up in several of my recent weekly messages. Apparently, the answers to a great many questions can be found in this one story.
It certainly meets Mr. Rogers’ criteria: the injured man was not his child, not part of his community, not even of his world. In the world’s view, the injured man was absolutely not his problem, and yet this man saw a need and he responded to it. This is what our weary world needs right now – people who can see a need and decide they will do something about it. People who can see a suffering person and imagine how they would wish to be treated if they were the victim.
The second scripture I thought of also fits a great many questions – and that’s the two great commandments, as found in Matthew:
- “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Those who follow these two commandments, especially the second, clearly meet Rogers’ standard of “those who see the need and respond” – responding as they would hope others would respond to them.
Interestingly enough, when I was still searching through internet search machines I stumbled onto a page that was part of a U.S. Army site. This particular page was written by Chaplain (Capt.) Michael Fox, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, and he was writing, not about responsibility, but duty.
He began with a statement that Christian service men and women have a Christian duty to serve others. He then quoted from 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 8-10. These three verses do not come as readily to the average mind as perhaps they might a hard-core bible scholar, but they clearly deserve to be better known than they are. When we are questioning our own commitment to each other – our own responsibility to care for each other – these three would be good verses to call to mind:
- Above all, [the writer of 1st Peter says] Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.
Chaplain Fox then went on to quote from Paul’s first letter to the people of Thessalonika: "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up." Followed by a reminder that we should "Carry each other's burdens.” That one is in Galatians.
Finally, he ended his message with an exhortation that “if you do not take your post and do your duty, who will?”
So – in a world that sometimes feels right now as if it is bursting at the seams with ugly feelings and hateful thoughts, what is our response? Do we look around and see a need and then respond? Or do we tuck in our heads and pretend we didn’t notice?
Whether we call it responsibility or duty, our task as followers of Christ is to indeed follow the example Jesus left for us, on how to live a caring, responsible, duty-minding life. If we don’t, who will?
We cannot fight the haters. They’re not going to change, and If challenged, they will just double down. There is a saying that runs “Be the change you want to see.” If we want to see an end to the xenophobia and homophobia and the jealousy and the greedy refusals to share, then the only way is for us to stand up and speak out their opposites. Speak welcome, speak acceptance, speak kindness, speak God’s love.
If we want to live in a world willing to share the responsibility for the fair and equal care for all God’s children then we have to speak up. And not just speak up, we have “act” up, too. We have to be living embodiments of those who “see a need and respond.”
And it sure wouldn’t hurt to spend a good bit of time praying for healing for those who right now are reveling in their hateful thoughts and words. They, too, are our brothers and sisters, and their need for healing is great.
May God heal our hurting world and may we ourselves in some way, be agents of that healing.
Amen.
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