Mike’s Rumblings 01-19-24

This is an audio version of Mike Murphy‘s Friday rumblings. This is a regular post on Facebook that I’ve turned into a podcast. I decided Mike’s words needed a wider audience. You may agree or disagree with what he says, but there is certainly much food for thought contained here. You can friend Mike on Facebook for the printed version or read it below

Rumblings. 1.19.24

1. “Have you read the Sermon on the Mount? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say “when I was hungry you put me on a bus, when I was thirsty you booked me a one-way plane ticket,”or “when I was a stranger you treated me like cargo and shipped me off for political gain.” ~ Unknown

Using aliens and refugees as political footballs, kicking them whenever and however possible is not helping solve the problems of immigration and border security, of which there are many.  ‘Owning the libs’ is a childish and sinful motivation. Cruelty is never the answer. 

2. Judges, witnesses, and prosecutors involved in the trials of the former president are receiving death threats.

Not once have I heard the defendant say “Please, cease and desist.” Instead, he continues to use inflammatory rhetoric that eggs the haters on and keeps insisting that real retribution is right around the corner. 

Sick, isn’t it?

3. We all know people who are indifferent about the great issues of the day. Indifference is defined as being “without interest or concern; not caring.” 

Plato once said: “The price good people pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

4. “In the beginning, there was no doctrine of Jesus, only a radical ethic of Jesus… In the sermon on the Mount, there is not a single word in it about what to believe, only words about what to do and how to be. By the time the Nicene Creed is written, only three centuries later, there is not a single word in it about what to do – only words  about what to believe.” ~ Robin Meyers, “Saving God From Religion”

I happen to like the Nicene Creed. It gives me some hooks on which I can hang my theological hat. That’s a good thing. I’m glad we have it. It helps me define my faith.

I am a bigger fan of the Sermon on the Mount. I think that was Jesus’s stump speech actually. How many times did he deliver it? Many I think, in long and short form. The rule keepers didn’t like it. It was too loosey goosey for them. Plus, it was an unwelcome reminder of their own attitudes and behaviors.  Regular folks did like it, for they saw, in Jesus, a match between his words and conduct and they began to believe that they could actually live the way Jesus was asking them to live.

5. On the night before he was assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  told the audience that, if God had let him “choose any era in which to live, he would have chosen the one in which he had landed.”  King acknowledged that statement might appear to be strange  “because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around…. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” 

Our world is still messed up, our nation is sick, there’s trouble everywhere we look and there is an ever present darkness throughout the land. Peer deeply into the darkness. Do you see what I see? Do you see the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of points of light?  Yes? Good. That means you’re seeing hope revealing itself. 

Do you see that teeny, weeny, barely visible point of light hanging low in the southern sky? Yah, that’s me. I know. It should be brighter. I’m working on it. 

6. “The titles of my books reveal that I was encountering something in my faith tradition that didn’t sit right with me…. I felt like I was peeling an onion. I noticed, for example, that people who spend a lot of time in church often seemed to be some of the meanest, more arrogant, and most judgmental people that I met. I noticed the same being true of me at times as well…. It seemed that Christianity had become for many people an evacuation plan (how to get your soul out of earth into heaven) rather than a transformation plan (how to help God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven).” ~ Brian McLaren

Evacuation or Transformation? I’ll go with transformation. The evacuation option doesn’t smell like God. 

7. “Winning at politics, while losing the gospel is not a win. Trading in the gospel of Jesus Christ for political power is not liberty but slavery.” ~ Russell Moore

All throughout history, Christian leaders have been seduced by political power. All too often they succumbed to that seduction. In recent history, a good number of evangelical leaders were seduced and fell in love with right wing power and the glory that went with it. 

In his excellent book “The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory” author Tim Alberta noted that those seduced came to the conclusion that power was within their grasp but at a cost. 

“Unsavory alliances would need to be forged. Sordid tactics would need to be embraced.”

Alberta suggests that “the first step toward preserving Christian values was to do away with Christian values.”

More than a few evangelicals could not do that. Bravo. Seriously. At great cost to their reputation and to their  ministry they  stayed the course and were faithful to their calling. 

But a surprising number of very influential evangelicals dove right into the cesspool. They traded the gospel for proximity to political power. They said they were on committed to Jesus but began to follow and bow to the charlatans. They contorted scripture to fit a MAGA narrative. They abandoned truth tellers and fell in love with conspiracy theorists.  And then they used their own influence to persuade their flock and followers to join them. 

Read the book. It will rock your world. It will help you make sense of this tweet from Brian Zahnd.  

“In the end, Southern Baptists were more comfortable with Donald Trump than with Beth Moore. Just think about that.” 

8. “There are some conservatives who are trying to make this claim that somehow [President] Biden is a bigger risk than Trump. My view is I disagree with a lot of Joe Biden’s policies. We can survive bad policies. We cannot survive torching the Constitution.” ~ Liz Cheney

I wonder if… Cheney and those like her will decide to endorse Joe Biden’s candidacy and actively campaign against Trump, seeing him as a real threat to our democracy. 

If that happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if after the swearing in of elected officials in January 2025,  they would announce the formation of a new conservative political party, committed to the Constitution, not a personality, that would have candidates  on the ballot in every state in 2026.  

9. Jesus was not sent here to teach the people to build magnificent  churches and temples amidst the cold wretched huts and dismal hovels. He came to make the human heart a temple, and the soul an altar, and the mind a priest.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, 

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix

10. I find it helpful to remember that “God is always up to something.”

My job is to ask: “I wonder what He’s up to now?” 

And when I discover what that is, to join the Lord in that endeavor and invite others to go on the journey with me. 

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