Have you ever been in a car crash? I've experienced the feeling twice in my life. The sensation is truly surreal. It's as if your entire life had been silent until that one moment of cataclysmic noise. The music that had brought you such joy moments before turns into background music in the deranged aftermath that is your life. As you raise your head and begin to assess yourself for damage, you have a strange feeling.
Have I really been living until this moment?
These experiences bring me to places of contemplation, gratitude, terror, purpose and a thousand other emotions that all well up in one instantaneous occurrence.
Well friends, this week has really felt like a car crash hasn't it? Maybe for you it's been the whole month, or the whole year, or even longer, but my point is this: in recent days, the world seems to have reached a boiling point. Tensions feel higher than ever. The opposing metal wreckages of life seem to have collided, the paint has been swapped, the hoods are smashed, the engines are smoking, and now is the time for us to raise up our heads and assess the damage.
The main components of this collision are threefold, at least in my life. Maybe for you it's a little different makeup, but for me, the combination of systemic racism, corona-related tensions, and the lack of ability to meet as a church have created a perfect storm of social unrest. These things grieve my heart. They make me long for unity, for an easy answer, for a way out that doesn't require me to offend anyone. Unfortunately for us, easy ways out are generally not in the cards for these types of issues. You can't walk the line forever, eventually you have to come down on one side or the other.
Back to my crash analogy, I remember in these moments what my first impulse was:
I need to call Dad
I know what a privilege it is to live in a world where I can have that impulse. To live in a world that does not cause me to fear my dad when I fail, but one where he is the one who can handle the obstacles I cannot. When these issues arise, I call my dad (and then my mom) because that is how God designed the family to work. My dad protects me, but not only physically. His presence at the scene of the crash is an intercessor for my own emotions, my own well-being, even my comfort. Two of the most memorable hugs I've had in my life were with my dad after a crash on Business Drive in high school and a hug with my mom after a crash in Milwaukee a few months ago. Parents console. They don't intimidate or instill fear or complicate the situation.
Now, back to the real issue of this post. I think my problem as I deal with these issues is that I am overwhelmed by them. I don't know how to get this car back on the road. I don't know what I can do to breed unity between the races, or the parties, or the church. I am just one man, and as I raise my head in the middle of this burning American dream, I know one thing. I cannot do a thing about it. I can share all of the posts I want, keep the levelest head, make the wisest points, whatever. But what I cannot do is change hearts.
However, if I respond to this collision the same way I respond to others, then perhaps my starting point should be calling my Dad. But Jon MacDonald is just one man. And he has as many flaws as I do. The only one who can lend anything of use to this smoldering twisted metal is my Heavenly Father. And yes, you all knew that was coming, and yes maybe it sounds like a cop out, and yes the analogy may be cheesy, but in all sincerity, our efforts to reform and reunite and redeem are entirely useless outside of the Father.
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
Psalm 46:1-2, 9-10
Now of course, we are not absolved of responsibility. Our response to God's action is not indifference. Rather, we act in faith, knowing that we are tools in the hands of an Almighty God.What God's sovereignty allows for is peace in the chaos of the collision. As we lift our heads into the fray of the aftermath, we know that our Father is all-knowing. We know that he's on the scene and he knows our emotions, our needs, our fears, and our insecurities. What a blessing to know that the God of the universe works through me and has made me even a tiny part of his plan for the world.
The world is a dark place right now. And God's sovereignty does not eliminate that truth. I'm not here to tell you how reconciliation can happen in this country. But I do know where it begins. It begins with the church offering up their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1). I know I can make a difference by the way I live my life, by the way I interact with my friends, by the way I raise my kids, but not because I am some bastion of unity and reconciliation, but because I serve the God who is.
Racism is real. And inexcusable. And built into the very fiber of my flesh. It is synonymous with sin, which means it must be constantly fought and mutilated and killed. But that also means that it has already been defeated by Christ on the cross.
Political parties have divided this country in a way that seems insurmountable. But I serve a God who sacrificed his own Son for the very purpose of reconciliation. God brought about the greatest Reconciliation in history in a moment where Satan thought he was at the height of his power. I know that the church can represent that reconciliation in every aspect of this country.
The Church is isolated. We who are meant to work hand in hand as parts of one body are alone. But my God has said he will never leave me or forsake me, and praise be to God, churches are slowly returning!
Friends, these challenges are looming and they are very real. I will not pretend that I know anything about solving these issues. What I do know about is my Father in Heaven. And he has called me to be teachable, moldable, understanding, unified, foremost among peacemakers, and wise in these days. Let us do these things well, Church.
