Mtr Margaret Babcock

“They said to (Jesus), “Just who are you?…”

Jesus said… “When you raise up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am—that I’m not making this up, but speaking only what the Father taught me. The One who sent me stays with me. He doesn’t abandon me. He sees how much joy I take in pleasing him.”

When he put it in these terms, many people decided to believe.

Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.”
—John 8:25, 27-30 The Message

Dear Friends,

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
—Gloria Steinem

This famous riff on John’s Gospel clues us into why choosing to believe God’s truth comes so hard to us humans.

I would have expected Jesus’ contemporaries—hearing in person his teachings of inclusion and love and witnessing miracles—to automatically believe. Today, we might pardon ourselves for finding faith difficult, but these eye-witnesses? What excuse do they have for turning their backs on the obvious veracity of Christ?

Steinem knows something about the human heart, as accurate 2,000 years ago as it is now: consenting to a truth which disrupts the world as we know it means we also must change. Intellectual assent is not enough. If we aren’t moved in our guts to act, it’s all just a game.

When the reality of how deeply our world is broken hits us, our reaction is often moral outrage. But anger is uncomfortable, even frightening, particularly when fury seems the predominate emotion in our country. How do we handle this dark sensation?

It takes courage, especially if we benefit from the present status quo, to face the dissonance of realizing our society isn’t in synch with God’s Way. Suppressing anger only encourages us to keep our eyes closed and opt for compliance disguised as peace. Recognizing the disruption and our fury at being involved is Steinem’s gift to us.

As strong emotion is faced, we must decide what to do with it. Turn anger inward (I’m part of the problem too!) and depression, even despair, overwhelms us. Turn anger outward (if only they would change!) and we risk getting stuck in the self-righteousness of bellowing bullies. 

But we can use anger safely and effectively by joining with others who have also caught a glimpse of God’s Way. How? By understanding that outrage is not our destination. It’s merely the fuel to get us going. Our goal is God’s kingdom where all brokenness will be healed, and every person will be made whole.

Jesus is clear: If we believe, we must live out that vision of God’s reign which he manifests. Christians have always known that together we need to challenge the powers and principalities of the world which ignore God’s Gospel. 

Anger sets us on the path… but only love will deliver us into God’s truth.

Blessings,

—Mtr Margaret