Friday, July 17, 2015

Sing a dime of devotion, a tune of desperation, a hymn of adoration

“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.”
            It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. Isn’t that the key to the paragraph. God works. God saves. We all come together in the end.
            Isn’t that the whole bowl of cereal?
            Today I saw a story on the Religion News wire that says Americans are nearly ready to have a Muslim president. Nearly, it says.
            In other words, the scripture could read, “It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes – the Jew first and also the (Muslim, Mormon, Southern Baptist, United Methodist, etc., etc., etc.). Do we believe that to be true?
            The Bible, in the Message translation, tells us this: “But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.”
            So...”people try to put a shroud over truth,” and what we arrive at is something that is kissing cousin to truth. We open our eyes and there it is. People are ready to accept the truth, as long as it gets in the back seat of the car that is travelling toward the place they are going.
            Truth is as truth does. The shroud covers the truth, and we wind up with something that is part and partial of truth, a bit here, a tiny bit there.
            Am I ready for a Muslim to be president?
            Maybe.
            But the fact is I’m more ready for a Muslim to be than I am an atheist. That’s a sad fact, but again, part and partial of truth being truth, I would rather a devout something than a less than devout nothing.

            Wouldn’t you?

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