Evil begets evil.
If Jesus taught us anything in his short public ministry, it’s that violence is never the answer.
Violence in the form of political hate. Violence in the form of attempted assassinations. Violence in riots trying to overtake the government.
It’s all contagious, and leads to an ever-increasing spiraling cycle of violence where only evil flourishes.
It’s overused, but on a day like this Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote about hate never rings more true: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Faith Family, choosing fear and hate is easy. Choosing love, however, is more difficult. But it is a choice, and only you can make your choice.
We seem to be at a turning point in which we all consciously can choose to turn down the heat, or we can just let the angry division continue to simmer.
I know which way that our faith calls us to turn.
I can’t say that I’m not concerned about the election, but what I’m concerned about more is what we are allowing the election to do to us as people. It seems apparent that we are growing increasingly callous and suspicious of anyone who may differ in political views.
And we are already paying the price. Saturday is evidence.
If, as faithful people, we strive to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, then we need to perform a gut check.
There’s a large number of scriptures that would apply, but today I’m thinking of James 1:19: “You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”
It’s as good of a recipe as to how we claw ourselves back from the brink as I can think of. Love begins with listening, and frankly, we learn far more from that practice than we ever do from speaking.
Faith Family, on Saturday a man tried to determine the fate of this country with an assault rifle versus a pen and ballot. If we are to avoid a full on escalation bringing us to the brink of chaos, we each need to make a choice.
We can either begin to listen to each other, or we can continue to talk over each other. We can’t do both.
In an email devotion from Luther Seminary I received today, the writer wrote: “Together, we proclaim God’s honor and peace. Together, we share God’s comforting promises of grace and salvation. Together, we praise God’s glory and love with all the earth!”
I found it to be profound, especially considering that these daily messages are written weeks in advance. And yet the message for today was more applicable than ever.
Faith Family … together we need to listen more and speak less. Together we need to actively choose nonviolence, or we actively allow violence to grow… because inaction is also a choice.
Evil begets evil.
But the gospel reminds us that it’s also true that love begets love.
And if we are living in, and practicing, God’s generous and gracious love, we can help to break the cycle of violence plaguing us one person at a time. Amen.
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