These words of Jesus fly in the face of all those sermons preached everywhere for decades or millennium that tell us “ye are gods”, which is also spoken in scripture, and we have the power and authority to do anything we want, including the act of creation through work of mouth. Wow…………………… No wonder we suffer from arrogance.
I came to thoughts like these in my personal quiet time in preparation for Sabbath while seeking to find answers to the hate factions in the US and apparently around the world to varying degrees to decipher and understand why there is a battle for supremacy between the races. I found myself being carried through my mind to visit each of the cultures and watch the objections I have to each of them. I realized I did not visit my own race. Since I did not visit my own race the exercise became a framework of judgment. If I had visited my own race it would have been a learning exercise in comparison with growth potential for myself. Comparison opens up possibilities, understanding, and wisdom. Sometimes it brings new and better ways of doing things. New foods is an easy example. When we examine new cultures or races we may find we really like the taste of some of their staples they grew up with. Sometimes we find a certain way of dressing that is customary and expected for this or that culture is very pleasing to us so we can begin to incorporate the new dress into our own wardrobe.
I hear you saying, but that would serve to melt us down into one blob of nothingness. A good visual picture of this would be a box of wax Crayolas of different colors left out in the sun to melt into one ball of wax. The colors are there but together. The separate individual color is lost. The colors mingle and become a more generic dark brown or black with a little splash of the earlier yellows and greens and blues and reds they were originally. So the question becomes how do we in our information age assimilate the many varied cultures into our own and protect our individual culture, rituals, and beliefs and wisdoms? How do we do that and not JUDGE our culture better than theirs?
Every time I come to this line of thought I am reminded of a time when I was maybe 2 years old early 3 year old just getting a hang of the language. I remember I was in my moms big country kitchen talking to someone who is not in the picture of this memory. I am very emotionally intent and invested in this exchange with the person there that has been extracted from this picture. I scream, “He is MY god, not your god.” Then I grab something out of their hand like a two year old grabs a doll or a truck out of the hands of their playmate. I humphed and pouted and stomped around the room. I can hear inaudible chattering of adults in the background about the significance of the event and then the scene ends.
I have heard society described as “alphabet soup”. We are all on planet earth together in the same boat each culture individually. So where does the hate come in? I do not have any decisive definitive this is the one and only final answer to this question. I have other questions that come up. Could the hate be coming from fear? Fear of the unknown maybe? Could the hate be coming from a clan like loyalty to those who are like me? Could this intense hatred come from a misguided service to God? We all define God in our own image. So if that person over there has a different view of God does that somehow threaten me and what I know about God? Are we afraid we are going to find out we are not the best of the best that ever was and someone else has a better idea or does something better than what I know and grew up with? If we do have something or know and understand something better in our culture than this or that culture we bump into, are we panicked they will find out about what we do better and try to take it from us? Is the answer a mix of all of those reasons and others I am not saying so that the issue looks like that ball of melted wax Crayolas indistinguishable to the point they cannot be addressed effectively? I do not know.
I suggest this is not an issue that will be met, addressed, and effectively handled corporately. We as a culture can decide this or that issue is one we want to tackle and not allow entry into our cultural norms. Each and every individual in the group will have to meet, analyze, address and implement their own versions. Which I think puts us right back where we started this discussion. Judge not that ye be not judged. We cannot get all up in ourselves and demand another person arrive at the exact same conclusions we do and decide they have to come to our conclusions OR ELSE….. It is the OR ELSE that causes the trouble. When we decide the other person has to be and do just like us OR ELSE we step across the line and become CONTROL SPIRITS. Control is straight from the rebellion. Satan demands we are clones with no free will or difference allowed among us. Remember how many species of trees and birds Creator God the ONE made. Selah.
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