CHRIST IN WINTER

LATER THAN IT’S EVER BEEN BEFORE   {M, 6-1-20]

An old preacher story tells of the elderly mountain woman who woke up in the middle of the night and heard the clock strike thirteen times. “Wake up, Paw,” she said. “It’s later than it’s ever been before.”

Right now, it’s later than it’s ever been before.

Yet, we’ve been here before. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the subsequent protests against police violence and the eruptions of violence in general, around the whole country, is only the latest in a long series of violent episodes in American history, as some people demand a share in the American dream and others try to deny it to them.

When Leroy Hodapp was the UM bishop in IL, a facilitator was working with him and the conference cabinet [the District Superintendents] on communicating. The consultant asked the bishop in what situations he felt most comfortable. “Conflict,” Leroy replied.

That astounded everyone there, of course. Nobody likes conflict. Certainly, nobody is comfortable with conflict. But Leroy really was. “Because,” he said, “that’s the time when real change can take place.”

In Christianity, we’ve long understood that in terms of “conversion.” A person is “under conviction,” in other words, uncomfortable, before experiencing conversion. You’ve got to be dissatisfied enough with your fragmented life to accept conversion to a life of wholeness.

Change is never forever. I used to think it was. When the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s secured the right to vote and other rights for black citizens, I thought we had made progress that could not be turned back. But there are always people who feel threatened by equality for others, who push back against it, who want special treatment and claim that they are victims if they don’t get it.

Also, it’s important to note that just because change happens, it is not necessarily change for the better, for that very same reason I stated in the paragraph just above. Some people want change, but only so that they can have more while others get less.

But this is another period when change is happening, and will happen, whether we want it or not, whether or not we are comfortable with it. It’s later than it’s ever been before, again. “The times, they are a’changing.” The only question for us is: Which side are you on?

John Robert McFarland