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The Distraction/Inaction Principle.
And I celebrate the sorrows I endured on your behalf and complement
what I lack in the flesh with respect to Christ's suffering on behalf
of his body which is the Church. Colossians 1:24
Have you ever noticed how it is that we can be asked to do something
and in the mere act of agreeing or complying trick our own minds into
thinking that we have done it?; Such is the nature of the
self-delusion of good intentions – we all know how it is, “Oh yeah, I
meant to do that, but I got distracted and forgot.” Well, we did
not really forget, we actually tricked ourselves by believing that
assent or consent was somehow as valid or valuable as action.
In this is a valuable insight into why we are so easily distracted from
the good we might do into instead pursuing that which seems pressing,
preferable or pleasurable rather than fulfilling that which is
important. This extends to thinking that we ought to say
something to someone and then later believing that we have actually
done it – it is a form of self-hypnotism and we can, through these
vagaries of self belief, even fool ourselves into thinking that simply
by feeling bad about something that we have done something constructive
about that which is bad. The mawkish sentimentality and the
crocodile tears of pseudo-compassion are soon dried from our eyes as we
innately seek distractions to deter us from any real and lasting
commitment to serve God by helping one another in doing good.
The pop culture of personality and the mass media’s persistent
promotion of iconic idolatry has resulted in a climate of self-interest
where people fill their lives vicariously with the adventures,
passions, trials and tribulations of others, or assuage their sense of
guilt by projecting their issues onto the array of scape goats we are
provided with. The media has all too often replaced the stocks by
publicising the misdeeds of miscreants against whom we may measure
ourselves and rate or rank their sin as being so reprehensible as to
make ourselves feel justified, and it has contributed to the cult of
personality to the extent that empty lives devoid of any real meaning
are filled up with the fast food of fatuous foolishness and fickle
fashions.
The voices of conscientious commentators crying in the wilderness of
human despair are soon drowned out by the cacophony of audio-visual
stimuli with which we are encouraged to surround ourselves so that our
consciences will not be pricked by the inconvenience of deep
introspection as to what we are really doing to help our neighbour
while this ever burgeoning sophistication of self-interest that
surrounds us affords a smoke screen for our own selfishness. We
may see images of the poor and starving who beg for food while our
bellies are full, or of the indigent wage slaves of globalisation who
make the fashions with which we adorn ourselves, and feel a pang of
their enduring pain, but the overwhelming weight of imagery is designed
to appeal to selfishness rather than selflessness so we kid ourselves
that momentarily feeling bad is somehow equivalent to doing something
good.
We held our little flickering flames (courtesy of a factory worker in
Indonesia) of false hopes high, and sang we are the world without
really realising that we were and indeed still are the problem.
The world’s best golfer gets paid more to promote a brand of sports
clothes than the entire Indonesian workforce of indigent labourers who
produce it. We buy the image of a self-approving tick when really
our personal ledger of social accountability bears the myriad crosses
that mark the graves of the victims of our rapacious greed.
Jesus said that the sons of the kingdom – those who had it in their
power to do good – would be cast into outer darkness where there would
be weeping and gnashing of teeth. He personalised the process of
charity to the extent that He said whatever we do, or do not do, to or
for the least, we do to Him. For many, the enormity of their own
lovelessness will not be encountered this side of the veil, and the
bitter tears we should have wept for those in need and for our own
complicity in the evils of the love of money which contributed to their
need, will lay up for us wrath for the day of wrath, instead of the
treasures in heaven stored up through active obedience to a heart of
compassion and a willingness to lay down our own lives so that others
may live.
The bottom line is that we are either part of the solution or part of
the problem. No amount of nonsense posturing and postulating
about personal choices and how the poor are responsible for their
poverty will prevent the accountability of those of us in whose power
it is to do good, but who withhold for ourselves that which God
provides us ample opportunity to relinquish in order that we might have
an eternal reward. It is not just simply that we do not trust
God, but it is also that we are insufferably and increasingly selfish,
occasionally and momentarily assuaging our burning consciences by
agreeing that something should be done, shedding the occasional tear
for the poor.
Faith without corresponding works is dead faith. Do you believe
that God wants to bless you? Of course you do. But do you
believe that God wants to bless you so that you might be a blessing to
others and that it is greater to give than to receive?
The cult of personality and culture of entertainment is no new thing,
it has always been an integral part of the human psyche, being
perpetuated, exploited and employed by the ruling elites to keep the
hoi polloi distracted while they are plundered. It is no small
irony that we pay for the very entertainment which helps to keep us
distracted and disempowered, while we admire and respect, or reject and
vilify the media whores – for without our complicity and involvement
they would have neither credence nor craft.
The answer is not to retreat to a cloistered self-righteous rejection
of the world, nor is it to play the blame game, but rather to search
out that secret serpent self which lurks in the branches and leaves of
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, whispering in our inner ears,
telling us that there is something more to be had than the all which
God has already given us in Christ, and with which we are to enrich and
bless the world around us. Curse the tree from the root; give no
hiding place to the devil, consign him to the dust of your dead flesh –
reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive to righteousness – knowing
that you died together with Christ and rose again with Him from the
grave, no longer a slave to sin but the prisoner of Christ and the
servant of righteousness. But don’t just read this and say
“Amen”, and fool yourself that you have done something good – seek God
as to what to do to help – in prayer, in giving, in helping, in loving.
It is good that we respond when needs arise – when storms and famines
and pestilence come – but even more important is the internal auditing
of our accounts, of what we are doing to be a part of the problem or a
part of the solution – of how we stand in respect of our societal
obsession with celebrity, personality and the associated products of
the consumerist society which has allowed the rampant monster that is
the Globalisation of Mammon to cause the greater part of Mankind to be
enslaved to its demands. It is the corporation of Chaos, the
carnal corpse of covetousness that is kept alive by the greed of Man,
and we are either part of the problem, or part of the solution – YOU,
ME, WE, all of us. We can be in the world yet not be of it, but
if we are too much in the world and it is too much in us, if it is
preoccupying our attention and our imagination, if it is possessing us
by its possessions, then our religion is in vain and our faith is
simply Pharisaical hypocrisy pretending piety – and like the Pharisees
of old, our real love is money.
This is why the economy of the world will fail, for every abomination
and idol will be cast down and everything that offends will be cast
out. If you are one of those who has been seduced by Babylon and
the deception of Dominionism, then I hope that these words might even
stir you to anger if just to shake your vain imagination to consider
that perhaps you have been duped by the world, the flesh and the devil,
and that just as you brought nothing into this world, neither can you
take anything with you that you have earned or learned from it.
The other aspect to dominionism and religious tradition is the
obsession with saving/proselytizing the world – I won’t delve into this
here but suffice it to say that this is in and of itself just another
distraction from the real mission we are charged with, and that is to
preach the hope – the express, unfaltering, unchanging, unwavering,
perfect and established image – of the kingdom. Jesus has already
saved the whole world, God has reconciled all men to Himself in Christ;
what the world needs is the keys to get in to what has been won for
them in Christ, and we have been given the keys of the kingdom – but we
cannot help others to enter in if we will not do so ourselves, all we
will do is make a bunch of religious rules that exclude others because
we do not want to get naked before God and in entering in, receive the
kingdom as a little child.
Sensitivity to the real needs of others is so often the preserve of
those who have been wounded, simply because scar tissue is more
sensitive than callouses. Those who even through their own
naivety and foolishness have been wounded by the world, often have the
sensitivity to feel even the warning waft of the ill-wind which wounded
them. Those who are exposed continually to prideful sin and who
suffer the incremental hardening of heart that it causes become callous
and do not feel the same for others. Perhaps this is why Jesus
still has the scars in His brow, hands, feet and side, and doubtless
the stripes upon His back, to remind us that while perfect wholeness
and healing is desirable, that the awareness that is the legacy of the
sensitivity of scarring remains to remind us of where we have come from
and what occasioned those scars, and not to become high minded nor
lifted up by reason of conceit because we have been blessed. It
is indeed more blessed to give than to receive, and God, who is the
ultimate giver, wants most to bless and to use our hands to grant, not
to graft, and to complete in ourselves what remains of the sufferings
of Christ, for the sake of the body.
Shalom.
posted at: 14:13 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Although Christianity is under attack in the world, we need to stay objective in discussing the origins of the Scriptures. The Internet provides an opportunity for free discussions. Thank you for participating and expressing your opinions, as I have.