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Don't Forget God...

 

Carol Meile
Pictures and poem by Carol Meile

We have forgotten, and it saddens me. We have forgotten the simplicity of the Gospel message in America. We now worship wealth, power, sex, and money as gods. And the price we have paid as a society is horrible. People sleep on the streets, children hunger, the elderly are forgotten, the poor are vilified, and migrants are treated worse than common trash. We have lost our humanity and have placed ourselves before others. 

    People are asking theologians and pastors to reimagine the Gospel around these values of rugged individualism, personal responsibility, greed, power, and competition. This is a rubicon that many pastors will not cross. In the Gospel of Luke, the writer speaks in song of God's faithfulness from generation to generation. He writes about how the proud are scattered in their thoughts, the powerful are brought down from their thrones, and the hungry are filled with good things, while the rich are sent away. (Luke 1.50-54) This is the very opposite of our country right now, and we would do well to arrest its fall by remembering the least, marginalized, homeless, poor, and migrants within our country. 

    We are not called to look out for ourselves. We are called to love others as ourselves. Because each of us is handcrafted by God to care for others, to nurture God's creation, and most importantly, to love God. Some think that this is woke ideology, if so guilty as charged. Some feel they can do all this without the notion of a Creator, and one can...for a while...but we are built to seek our maker. We are built to have a broader why than sheer chance. We need a broader reason to seek justice and do evil beyond being a good person. 

    When we embrace that we are in partnership with a God who is trying to clean up the Garden, we begin to seek when God is moving. It is there that signs, wonders, actions, and miracles happen. Too often, we, as Americans, rely on words. Words are nice, but they mean nothing to people who hunger, thirst, yearn for a place in society, and seek justice. No, those require signs, wonders, actions, miracles, and, if necessary, a few words. This week, seek where God is moving in Creation and join God there.

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