March 20, 2010

1 Peter 2

For all my babbling about liberality being the most natural Christian political position and going beyond our society's precepts, here we see that Peter does not agree. He follows the more conservative mindset of not going against our society's precepts - keep every Roman law. But he at least tells us why first.

"Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge."

Like St. Francis said, "Proclaim the gospel constantly. When necessary, use words."

I suppose I've made this case several times, to myself and occasionally to others, but it was first brought to my mind with a satellite friend of mine freshman year of college. I could see that he did more for helping our common group of friends understand the reality of faith, the beauty of Christianity, by being amongst them than by setting himself apart the way many of the CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ) lot did.

If Christians are respectable people, who are good and kind and caring, if they are smart and well-considered and together individuals, our way of life becomes more worth considering - or at least not dismissing outright.

I see it happen here. Because I, and Amanda, and Linden, and Clara, and Jeff and Megan, are religious - and good people, and smart people, and we conduct ourselves well while also being a part of the community, people have given us the opportunity to talk about the beauty of our faith - over and over again in some cases.

The chance to practice and get it right, which reminds me:

The world is so beautiful, and poofing into existence is as ridiculous as the idea that the fantastic chain reaction that formed this world one unimaginably unlikely accident at a time - a billion every second - came out of nothing. In a day like today, washed over with light and loveliness, can we see anything else? Anything besides God in every second in which a thousand negotiations between the sun and the air currents and the tendency of heat to rise and the monstrous blue and green arrows on our television sets moving from one place to the next in the feel of the cool wind on our sun-soaked skin?

Don't you feel Him there?

If you are honorable, if you are the kind of person that others can trust, they listen when you try to articulate such things, and that is where true sharing of faith can happen even with those who do not believe.

And in this program and in general we undermine ourselves with our cruelties and our sins and our dismissals of people, but we make headway where we can.

We are called to act with justice. We are called to love tenderly. We are called to serve one another. To walk humbly with our God.

Because then, and only then, they will know we are Christians by our love. Then the world can change.