Matthew 2.12 – “Then they returned to their country by another road, since God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod.”
Dear Friends,
I’ve been thinking on some little known words from Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech:
“We refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.”
These are the words of a dreamer, what I would call “a practical dreamer.”
These are the words of a wise one following a star. These are the words, the beliefs, the practices of one who has faith. In the face of contrary evidence “we refuse to believe….” Dr. King had a lot of reason to believe only in the worst outcome. He didn’t. He and his allies had been jailed. Some were killed. They had been beaten and still they persevered.
There is little reason for Dr. King to have refused to believe in the worst. But he did.
The wise ones who went home by another way refused to believe in Herod’s way.
Sometimes I think it is ridiculous to refuse to believe my own eyes. Yet, faith doesn’t make me blind to reality, it opens my eyes to the light of the star revealing something hidden in a corner I hadn’t seen.
I refuse to believe the poor don’t have gifts. I refuse to believe our young people are not our leaders. I refuse to believe we cannot work together across the partisan divides we all experience. I refuse to believe our next 166 years won’t be as glorious if not more than the past 166. I refuse to believe our imagination for our church, for our community, for our nation and for our world is emptied out. It is not.
It is easy to be discouraged when we see actions played out both at home and abroad causing us to be discouraged and despair. The death last night of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota is one such moment. When we see hostility and demonization coming from the highest office in our land, it is easy to despair.
In this season of Epiphany I think of the challenge of the proverb: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
This is where our faith can lead us.
Keep tellin’ the Story,
Mike
I listened to this recording of the Carol of the Bells in a power plant in Ukraine destroyed by Russian bombing in the war. It is one of those “refuse to believe…” moments.
This week’s takeaway: We can refuse to believe in the worst and have faith.