Misunderstanding alert

When people are about to give away a major plot point, they warn unsuspecting, disinclined people away by saying "spoiler alert." While there may be a spoiler in here somewhere, it's not about a movie or a book. What is much more likely is that you may not read carefully and will misunderstand me. I don't want to be the next Jeremiah Wright (and some of this will sound similar to his rhetoric), so pay close attention.

In a meeting today, I heard read (in a Step 1-Step 2-Step 3-to-land-healing sort of way), "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (TNIV). That was the full quote, though that's not the full paragraph in the Bible text. There's some irrelevant bit in there about a temple.

To prevent misunderstanding, let me note that my argument here will be that we must be fully consistent with all our arguments if we are to use Scripture. But I think you'll see in a *SPOILER ALERT* surprise twist at the end that if we are consistent, then Jeremiah Right is wright.

God's purpose for his chosen nation Israel was always that they would reach out to the world and bring them to him. Instead, they turned inward, alternately congratulating themselves for how holy they were and saying, "Screwitit'stoohardlet'sgolivelikethepagans." Sometimes on the same day. But rarely did they bother to reach out to foreigners, and when they did, they had the stench of Large Fish Gastric Acid all over themselves (see Jonah). In time, God used those hated pagans to teach his obstinate, self-absorbed people a lesson. After being returned to their land, continuing oppression by their enemies, and much feeling sorry for themselves, the Jewish people had split into a number of groups, each claiming to have the means to purge the land of the hated pagans. If you were paying attention at your church's latest "we're not like that silly Jewish group" party, you may recognize the name "Pharisee." Those guys were indeed some of the strictest, most moralizing folks around. (And of course, your church isn't like that.) The Pharisees had all kinds of ideas of how to purge Judea of not only the Romans, but prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, and other ne'er-do-wells. (Not to ruin the ending, but you can generally read those groups as terrorists, gays, market-capitalism-hating-Democrats and black people, from the perspective of the American Pharisee.) But guess what. God called the pagans in again to destroy his obstinate people (the Pharisees, et al), who were in fact, not really his people. The "holiest" Jews had nothing to do with the faith of their father Abraham. They shared a bloodline and made fantastic claims about how they were God's people. They probably even quoted from the Chronicler the passage above (only they quoted the whole paragraph). But God wouldn't have any of it.

Have I given everything away already? I best not be a screenwriter. Generally, the American Pharisee claims that America is God's chosen nation. If they're a little smarter than the average American Pharisee, they won't say that we are, but everything they say and do gives that impression. For the sake of argument, let's grant that America is God's chosen nation/people. Sure we've oppressed a bit, killed a bit and hated a bit, but that's nothing the Native Americans, African-Americans, etc. won't get over, is it? But we say we love Jesus, and we quote tidbits from the Bible, and that's good enough, right? Okay, if we say we're God's nation, and we say we're mostly good, and we create all kinds of ways of being holy, but we still don't love people, doesn't that leave us in the same shoes as the Jews? (I would have softened the usage of the ethnic group, but I liked the rhyme too much.) As God's chosen nation, if we hate terrorists enough to kill them (or communists or Germans or Indians or Brits or whatever), doesn't it follow that we should be susceptible to their attacks as a form of God's judgment? This is where Jeremiah Wright was prophetically calling white folk to account. He said the chickens were coming home to roost, and that was branded as anti-American sentiment. But he's exactly right if we are indeed God's chosen nation. There's nothing more damnable than naming Jesus as our savior, lord, favorite philosopher and then going out to do exactly the opposite of what he preached. If, by our actions and words, we in varying degrees claim to be chosen, we need to be open to chastisement in the ways God has historically chastised.

Personally, I believe that true Jesus followers are God's chosen people to bring blessing to the world. America might be under threat of "terrorist attack" much the same way God'sholychosencitymotherRome was threatened by the Lombards, those evilbastardpagans. That went on for centuries, and the people who most believed that God was on their side nearly lost Rome on numerous occasions. There was a time when Rome sat empty (evacuated) for a few days. There were 70 years when the popes resided in what is now France. But Rome sure thought she was special.

There is nothing new under the sun. It's time we stopped focusing on how great our nation is and killing people for it, and started focusing on how great our Savior, Redeemer and Restorer of creation is and giving our lives for him.