Your Brain On Hope

I'm only posting this because of the chicken, my dear friends who might be enraged by anything from MoveOn.

Change We Can Believe In

Two moves from the executive branch intrigued and encouraged me this week.

First, the White House changed direction and decided to send a representative to talks with Iran and others about the Iranian nuclear program.

Second, the U.S. and Iraq agreed to a “general time horizon,” certainly not a time frame, time table or deadline, certainly not, but a “horizon” for drawing down U.S. troops , as the Iraqis are insisting. (Update: Apparently, the Prime Minister Maliki thinks that "horizon" is a lot closer than 100 years from now.)

Tough, multilateral, diplomatic engagement with enemies to exert soft-power, achieve security ends and avoid war?

Cooperating with the Iraqi government to plan for troop withdrawals?

Yes, we can.

The Alabama Second

Earlier, I wrote about the bizarre phenomenon of the actual prospect of party competition in Alabama’s Second Congressional District. The national Democratic apparatus has tapped this race as a potential swing and is supporting it generously. The Democratic candidate is Bobby Bright, current mayor of Montgomery and graduate of, yes, the Jones School of Law. He beat an entrenched incumbent to become Mayor and has been reelected successfully and is generally popular, although he has never had to declare a party. Both parties courted him to run for the open seat, but he opted for the Dems because he says that the GOP offered him talking points while the Dems offered him freedom of expression and a checkbook. The Dems want the seat, even if Bright will be among the bluest of Blue Dogs. For instance, he recently won an initiative in city government to start cracking down on illegal immigration from Mexico into Montgomery, red conservative meat. He is pro-life, pro-gun, tough on immigration, budget-balancing and Christian.

(UPDATE: For example, this is how a Democrat runs for Congress in AL-02.)

After a run-off this week, his Republican challenger is Jay Love, a member of the state legislature. Love just ended an aggressive and negative run-off campaign with Harri Anne Smith, also of the legislature, to see who could out-conservative each other. Love’s slogan is “Christian. Conservative. Republican.” He will “stand up the liberals in Washington” and bring “conservative, Christian values to Congress.” His ads feature the “Washington liberals” with phantasmagoric images of Pelosi and Obama. Love is running a legitimate, very partisan campaign, hard-right, anti-tax and pro-life. He aggressively identifies himself as a Christian (the most Christian?) candidate, which is to be commended in the Second Congressional District of Alabama.

So, the district may be in play. Bright is the only possible, but very promising, Democratic option in this blood-red district, and he is running a realistic, honest campaign as a conservative Democrat. Love is running a predictable, effective, realistic and honest campaign, although negative at times. They have not really started campaigning against each other so far this week.

Besides the mere oddity of competition down here, why is this so interesting to me?

They go to church together.

I might just move my letter over there.

(By the way, I love FBC Montgomery. We have friends and colleagues who worship and serve there, and they are mighty ministers in this town. Dr. Wolf is a godly pastor and preacher, and he has even preached to us. I imagine these next few months will generate challenges there that few churches ever witness, and I pray the Lord blesses them with peace. I also hope that Dr. Wolf is gently extolling his competing members to remember the greatest commandments. If they do, this might be a constructive campaign, maybe even a witness to the world.)

Homily

I am home from church this Sunday morning. J and the girls are there, but I am forsaking the assembly for some physical recovery.

I took my coffee on the front porch, sat on the swing and hoped for a reprieve from our vicious mosquitoes. Our neighborly lizard, Ally, leapt from the railing to a column and inflated her red chin, and I was already sweating.

After Face the Nation, I decided to eschew the televised preachers for some devotional time. The “denominational” folks don’t mind televising their whole services, but the Restorationists generally prefer pre-recorded, studio productions, usually with fake plants in the background. Our guy this morning started out, my friends, with a kind word about differing interpretations of a scripture. He said, if we disagree, it does not mean that either of us are being dishonest or intentionally sinful, but we might well both be wrong. Thus, we should study it, study some more and study some more, presumably until we both agree that we have it right. My friends, that’s a hard teaching and puts an awful lot of confidence in our capacity for discerning the mystery and revelation of the Creator.

Instead of hearing our good brother out, I took a Bible to the porch to let the Lord preach to me instead. The mosquitoes stayed away as I read the Sermon on the Mount. Frankly, I doubt our brother on television this morning. I don’t think we can study it enough to reach a common, full discernment, but I wish him well.

Rhetorically, the Beatitudes were a great way to lead, because I imagine the people enjoyed the truths, relaxed in the sun, sat back and felt pretty good, especially when he praised and identified them as salt and light. He had them where He wanted them.

Next comes this business about fulfilling the Law and some pretty heavy instruction on anger, lust and judgment. “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven,” but I say to myself, at least they’re in! Then, He replies to me, “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Discouraging, that. “It is better for you to lose one part of your body that for the whole body to go into hell.” I imagine that they had forgotten the Beatitudes by then. They are evil, and they know it. I am evil, and I know it. Dear Lord.

He raises the stakes: “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” That’s some useful life application right there.

He said this after admonishing the disciples to love their enemies, to pray for their persecuters, to love those who do not love them, to greet strangers. Why? Because He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Just before that he says not to resist the evil person who would strike them and take their things. Instead, “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

If this is perfection, then I wonder if we can extrapolate a bit of discernment into the mystery after all. If this is how the Lord described the Father’s perfection, then may we conclude that God loves His enemies, His persecuters? That He does not resist the evil person who would strike Him and take His things, but that He gives to those who ask? Does He greet the evil strangers, give to the evil people, feed the evil folks who anger, lust and judge?

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

When he finished preaching, the people were amazed because he taught as one who had authority, not like their teachers of the law. Being a teacher of the law, I can appreciate that.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Independence Day

I love America because we exercise an audacity to mark out unrealistic aspirations, then get to work making them manifest. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote that "all men are created equal" when such a notion was patently ridiculous in a nation of slavery, a patriarchal culture who granted suffrage and property rights to only certain classes of "men." The statement was radical and not backed up by the facts, but we got to work. Now, we might safely say that no where and at no time have more people been born with more equality and opportunity than on our shores.


John Kennedy moved the finish line to the move after we barely had achieved orbit with a monkey, and we made it. The Cold War was a good motivator, and we won that, too.

We have our fits and starts, of course, constant sin and constant redemption, new problems, new crises and new resolve amid our vigorous, impassioned disagreements. We cling to the Rule of Law, criticize politicians and continue to vote for them.

Martin Luther King preached about the arc of history and how it bends ever, if slowly, toward justice. Here we have two and a third centuries, and we get better and better all the time.

God bless America.