‘Extremes’

2/12/2019

I Was Thinking…

I have been reminded, once again, that ‘people are people’. Our recent trip to Israel has infused this reminder through my soul. Most people, whether Jew, Palestinian Muslim or Palestinian Christian or an American person of faith want all the same things. We all want to live and love and be loved. People are people.

It’s the ‘extremist’ that are injuring this world. Whether the ‘extremist’ is Jew, Muslim or Christian...they are the ones who seem to attempt to sour the faith reputation/witness for everyone else. They are the ones who seem to feel that unless one is as ‘extreme’ as they, then there is no faith present at all. They seem to miss the point that ‘people are people’.

It’s the ‘extremist’ that want to give politics a bad name as well. Their obsessive nature is their only nature. And unless their philosophies are bought into ‘hook, line and sinker’ then they will dismiss another without giving it a second thought. They practice a ‘mean sort of nature’ believing the ‘end justifies the means’. Not all politics is bad...however when ‘people are people’ is forgotten, it is the worst politics of all.

Exclusionary faith is faith without a compass. If I have to exclude someone to be faithful then I have lost the core of faith...a Lord of love. Jesus loved until it killed him...and it did eventually kill him. All Jesus wanted to do was to include those who had been excluded by a world of misguided focus and priority. Jesus longed for the least, lost and lowest to know they were the greatest in his eyes and in the Kingdom of God. He taught us a love that is ‘extreme’. He included people to the ‘extreme’. His way was a way of ‘extreme’ hospitality. He invited. He welcomed. He embraced. He loved! He was an extremist in the healthiest of ways.

Let’s not buy into the unhealthy extremes. It is the extremist of Jews (Zionists) and the extremist of Muslims (Hamas, ISIL) and the extremist of Christians (Radical right and left) that attempt to give God a bad reputation. People are people, my friends. God is Love! I guarantee that if we will go to the extreme in loving others...God will be pleased! People are people! I am loved by God. You are loved by God. Everyone who crosses your path is equally loved by God as well.

Always Thinking,