Damn the Détente
[Jesus replied,] “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning.”– Luke 12:49 (NLT)
Southerners like me are quite familiar with the term “nice-nasty.” It refers to southern hostility sweetened and sprinkled in southern hospitality. It refers to southern trees that bear strange fruit.
Jesus was not nice when it came to confronting perversion and pride. He did not come to establish a cease fire with the enemies of justice. He did not come to call a truce with liars and demagogues. His aim was never to develop a good working relationship with those who live in rebellion to love.
Jesus came to declare war on every detriment to human life and liberty. He takes no prisoners, and he never compromises with evil intent.
He went into a house of prayer that had been pimped into becoming a money market and turned the mother out! He defiantly confronted the devil, even in the attitudes of his followers, when he ordered Satan to get behind him. When tempted to bypass Calvary for his own sake, he set his face like a flint toward the brazen showdown between life and death.
These days there is so much effort to just get along and go along with whatever the popular power brokers put down. So much effort to maintain peace and civility at the cost of suppression and denial.
During the Civil Rights era, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the freedom fighters were accused of fomenting violence and causing unnecessary disturbance in the genteel confines of southern culture. Dr. King explained that his marches did not create the trouble. They exposed the trouble and the turmoil that lay just underneath the surface of plastic pleasantries and spineless salutations.
Our unapologetic opposition to singular selfishness and social inequality places us on the battlefield, where the body of Christ still belongs.
Prayer
God give us conviction and courage to fight the good fights you lead us into. Amen.
About the AuthorKenneth L. Samuel is Pastor of Victory for the World Church, Decatur, Georgia.