Day 142d: Claiming the Way of Love; living a path Coldhearted … (September 18, 2019)
The day had gown hot and thirsty, and there were no fellow humans to be seen. And so it was that I felt a sense of great relief when the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church finally came into view, and yet so it also was that an even greater sense of disappointment washed over me shortly thereafter – when I discovered that the church elders had disabled its external spigots. I mean, it was disturbing enough that the churches here in the States – churches that supposedly adhered to the teachings and honored the will of Jesus Christ – kept their doors locked tight to any & all in need for six+/- days a week, but it was far more disheartening still to see that here even the gift of water had been taken from the passing poor …
“In the First Epistle of Peter we are told to honor everyone, and I have never been in a situation where I felt this instruction was inappropriate. So whenever we accept or in any way affirm the more dismissive judgments of our church leaders, we cease to be capable of serving our community’s highest interests, and thereby cease to be following The Way of Christ … In truth, the extra-soft heart is not a thing to steel or harden but rather a treasure to protect & tend. For soft hearts extend mercy, compassion, refuge, and God’s redemption to the world – and like God, they do so without exception or limitation … Remember: the first question which the priest and the Levite asked in the Parable of the Good Samaritan was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ And yet remember as well: It was the Samaritan who reversed that question, asking ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’ … And so we would all do well to re-affirm a simple truth: that we are not to look to what men appear to deserve, but are rather to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which it is an privilege for us to extend both honor and love.” ~ inspired by Marilynne Robinson, Richelle Goodrich, Martin Luther King Jr. & John Calvin
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