In the New Testament Jesus
describes what it would be like at a last judgment. At least according to the literal text he
does. The souls of men and women would
be separated into two groups, something like sheep and goats. The “righteous” sheep are escorted into
eternal life and the “unrighteous” are sent wailing and screaming into a
yawning hell awaiting them. Even though
I am suspicious of the text as written (I prefer to think of it as a fictitious
parable, not a prediction), I find one detail most fascinating and that is the
reaction on the part of the ones consigned to heaven. It seems they are surprised! They are surprised to find themselves among
the chosen, surprised by their fate.
They are unaware that they
have done any outstanding good during their lives. When did we ever do the kind and considerate
things the Judge describes? How do we
rate this special commendation? We are
just plain, ordinary people who did the best we knew how. This outcome relates beautifully to something
Jesus says in an earlier passage about not letting the right hand know what the
left hand is doing. Let your good deeds
become a matter of simple habit. Do not
sound the trumpet when you do them.
Most decent people are a
bit fearful about getting singled out for big awards. I say most!
There are the braggarts and the showoffs and the egotists to be sure,
who consider winning top honors the be-all and the end-all. But most of the
members of the human family do not make such an assumption.
I am no exception to this
rule. Ever since my teen years I have
had those in my extended company try to pin on me some badge of sanctity and
superiority. When I was in high school,
there were those in my peer group (not a majority, just a small few) who,
because of my expressed wish to become a clergyman and my consistent attendance
at my local church, bestowed upon me the rank of “good ole boy” or outstanding
Christian or maybe simply someone to look up to. That reputation was significantly enhanced
when my home church selected me to be Youth Pastor during what was called Youth
Week, when young people supposedly occupied all the offices of the church for
seven days. Then when I won a local
Better Speakers contest and traveled to the state Baptist retreat to represent
my local Baptist community, I was told that I had the gift for public speaking
and because I could make with the theological, evangelical talk, all my closest
friends assumed that I was especially endowed and that seminary was surely in
my future. None of this is to say that
they fell at my feet or openly regaled me when I walked into a room. I was not a star, but I could often feel that
I was being distanced by my peers and by grownups as someone already set
apart.
When I was dating my first
wife, who was active in my home church, we were thought of as the ideal
couple. A few adults in the congregation
actually said this to our faces. It was
assumed early in our courtship that we were bound for the altar. As I see it
now, we were in a very subtle manner almost herded into matrimony. At the very least we were subjected to
enormous pressure. We had a reputation
to live up to.
Did we believe what was
being told to us by implication? We did
indeed, and we paid a very bitter price for doing so, because we were anything
but the ideal couple. After we tied the
knot, we almost at once began to have serious difficulties. Did we let friends and acquaintances know we
were in trouble? Certainly not! We were married for three solid years and our
announcement of pending divorce was a real shocker to all our Baptist
acquaintances.
In some Baptist eyes I was
suddenly a pariah. I was not publicly
humiliated or ostracized, but the breezes that blew in my direction took on a
new coolness. At the very least I was on
trial again. Yes, I was called of God,
but after that I had to work harder to prove my commitment. Being a divorced minister in those days was
frowned upon. Marriage was for life, and
the violation of that bond was not quite but very close to being a
sacrilege.
I am pleased to say that I
had many good things in store for me over the following half century, that I
recovered my good name and my sense of calling, and I found out that my best
talents lay in other domains than the parish ministry. Life has been every bit as rewarding as I had
hoped it would be.
So when recently I learned
that someone in the church my wife Ruby and I
now attend and have belonged to since the early 1980s, someone we know
and respect very much, told others in the congregation that we are the ideal
Christian couple, I recoiled. It was
like that mantle seeking me out again, even at the age of eighty-four. My wife and I are happily married now for
thirty-six years, but we are anything but the ideal pair, if there really is
such a thing. We’ve had our problems,
just like all other couples do; we have to re-create our lives all over again
each and every day. When I heard about this report of us, I wanted to scream,
“Spare us this! Don’t lay this burden of
expectation on us! Let us be the
fumbling, stumbling, seeking folk that we are.
Don’t idolize us. The top of that
pedestal is a very dizzy place to be and very risky,”
Just a few days ago before
this writing, Ruby and I heard a complimentary remark about us to which I had
anything but a negative reaction. We
have two very dear young friends who recently told us that we are an
“inspiration” to them. Now that is
language I can relate to. I am pleased
to know that we have inspired people toward action and productivity. You do not have to be the ideal to accomplish
that. You do not have to be a superior
individual or have reached greater heights of success. These two people have already outshone us in their chosen
fields, so we know they are not coming from some assumed position of
inferiority. They are two folk who have
welcomed us into their lives, who seek us out and we them. Their friendship is an abundant blessing to
us year after year. And the lives they
live are evidence of their commitment to high and resplendent ideals; it is not
just empty words. We know that coming
from them the praise has deep meaning.
They do not lock us into some Holy Other cocoon and observe us from a
distance. They are themselves an
inspiration, and they know it. We are
very, very close.
Inspiration! That is what true leadership really comes
down to. A President should be an
inspiration to his people. The
Presidency is about more than making laws or getting laws passed or performing
ceremonies and even more than making treaties or arrangements with foreign
powers, more than foreign policy. He
should be the embodiment of values and ethical standards. A President should have a vision pertaining
to the world order, not just ambitions for his own country or his own political
party or his own special commercial interests.
This leader should be more than a voice heralding a subversive brand of
populism. He should have character. This is not say that he should be perfect or
that all his decision-making should be correct.
As a human being he is subject to mistakes and to error. But his very person should be enhancing for
all who hear him, all who look to him.
Donald Trump, by my
standards, fails in every one of these respects. He has a bullying way about him. He is anything but the leader of all the
people. He has to react to every
criticism, has to make wrong all who challenge his judgment. His attempt over his first year in office at
running the government as if it were a large commercial corporation has been
disastrous. And this is but the tip of
his iceberg. In short, he is a dangerous
man.
As I see it, he does not
really inspire anyone, not even his base.
He just has a lot of officials he has selected running scared, looking
for the least opposing way they can hold on to their offices and maintain their
personal political careers. He thrives
upon a widespread distrust of Hillary Clinton and upon those who think any
conservative in Congress is better than any liberal, however besmirched a moral
reputation might be. I appeal to the
Republican National Committee to prime another candidate for the White House
and urge Trump to resign his office. I
do not expect that they will, but time will tell how enlightened the electorate
will choose to become, enough to make better choices. God, I hope so! I pray so!
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To know
about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
