Good Things

After my bit on depravity, let me share with you some wonderful things God favorite critters do. They come from the magazine Christian Century.

A bunch of Harvard law students working out of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau that give the services free to folk in Boston whose houses are being foreclosed. The work with Project One Leaves, and Boston Community Capital who buy up distressed properties and then sells them back to their original owners just above the current market price. Law Professor David Grossman says their efforts are based on a key principle of Jewish ethics ~ tikkun olam, or an obligation to “repair the world.” Wow!

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Now the flip side. Kenneth J. Douglas was CEO of Dean foods, a dairy company. He earned about a million bucks a year in today’s dollars and turned down many pay raises because he thought they would be bad for the moral of the company. His successor now makes many times that and lives opulently. Analysts are saying to social norms of the 70’s and that greed now is looked at as a good thing. People at the top believe they deserve what they make. In wage inequality the U.S. ranks alongside developing countries just ahead of Uganda and Jamaica and behind the Cameroon and the Ivory Coast. (Washington Post June 18.)

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And a final bit from that issue titled, “All due respect” by Miroslav Volf.  The author contributed an essay for a book on this subject which is based upon the belief that the Christian faith urges equal and universal respect. There are lots of biblical verses he could have used but he found this little known one from 1 Peter 2.17 “Honor everyone…” I’m not found a ripping a text out of context, but I agree it means just that. We should honor everyone, not just those we agree with, who have the same faith as ourselves, or the same interpretation of those faiths. It includes those we even despise. The author tells of a Facebook entry he made of that nature following the time Jared Leer Loughner shot U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others and wounded 14 more. Responders asked if honoring everyone including the shooter, and he said, yes. He talks of how theologians over the centuries have distinguished between persons and their deeds or between person and work (Martin Luther.)

I have found in my life that those whose actions disgusted me the most sometimes had a tremendous influence upon me and deserved honor and respect. The last two presidents bring out this ambivalence in honoring all to a great deal. Some believe that George W. Bush was dumber than a box of rocks, and has done untold damage to the country both in the short and long term. Today, daily we hear absolutely awful things said about President Obama. Both sides likely feel very self righteous about their statements, but it is a sad commentary on our ability to honor all folk, even the leaders of our own nation.

People of the biblical era knew the concept on honoring and showing hospitality very well. Strangers were welcomed into their houses, fed, and sheltered with the utmost warmth and kindness. This is still quite true in mid eastern nations that we hear such evil about.

We are very friendly to those we know and are close to us. We like phrases such as, “charity begins at home,” which is often just a euphemism for “to heck with those other folk we don’t know.”

The next time you feel Iike really letting someone have it for their wrongheadedness, try to recall this passage. Honor everyone. It’s tough but it seems the right thing to do.