Something For Sunday:
Some fifty plus years ago when I was still a student in high school in Dallas, Texas, my then pastor Dr. C.A.W. Clark, now gone on to glory, preached a sermon using as a text a verse found in the eighth chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah.. It reads.: The harvest is past. The summer is ended. And we are not saved!” (vs. 20) During my thirty three years as a pastor/preacher, I have had occasion to use that passage more than once in the face of circumstances where hope could easily be abandoned. In light of my first hearing, I always added to the last phrase, the word yet. We are not saved yet!
Here we are again at a time when hope could easily be abandoned especially in the black community. Baton Rouge and Minnesota .are the latest episodes in an ongoing police community relations nightmare between citizens of color and those who are paid to protect and to serve. It does not surprise me that the frustration level of an estranged community has reached fever pitch so that one could not take it any longer and wrongfully exercises the right to bear arms.
I join with the many who are feeling numb in the face of it all. We would think that we have been at it long enough by now to get it right, but since recent verdicts by our judiciary are always against the victimized in favor or the hirelings, all we can conclude is that we are not saved; yet.
- We are not saved yet politically. Too many deals are being made that point to greed and corruption. Too much name calling and blame shifting while the American people suffer an abandonment of hope. You can finish this paragraph in light of our current run for the white house, and the fact that an ex-lawman calls the president of our United States a “cop hater.
- We are not saved yet in our judiciary. No one seemingly wants to make the hard decisions regarding the correct interpretation of the laws of the land. What was the original intent of the first and second amendments? If their intent is no longer valid, get them changed, after all, they are only amendments.
- We are not yet saved spiritually. Prayer is not something you do in bad times alone and in times of crises. Prayer speaks to a continuing relationship to the creator to whom we pray and to whom we must surrender.
Hope seems lost to such emotions and belief systems such as nullification, entitlement, envy, hatred and the superiority complex. But the prophet raises in vs.22 the questions,: “Is there no balm in Gilead, Is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery for the health of the daughter of my people?” And because I am who I am and I believe as I believe, I have to respond positively. Yes, there is! So, I’ll keep hoping and I’ll keep believing even through my pain.
