Accept anyone whatever their:
background
past
pain
A nation bombarded out of their infrastructure
This is practically all nations around the world.
| Ceylon / Sri Lanka | Bolivia | Great Britain |
| France | Ukraine | Korea |
| Iraq | Israel | Columbia |
| Singapore | America | Japan |
Relax, this is not an exhaustive list. Let’s not discuss / argue which, in their former or current form, should or should not be on this list.
Is it obvious? A nation suffered under the hands (military) of another is that both had been “baddies”.
Perhaps one needs to “settle an unfinished campaign”.
- Whose campaign? When a nation is bombarded out of their senses, certainly they lose out in that campaign.
- To win in a new campaign, to “get back” to an earlier lost campaign, means power against power, it never ends.
Is it obvious – what is the church?
What is the church is who we are. Who we are is about talking and acting in grace. Accusing another, whether in church family, or some people “out there”, brings us back to “an eye for an eye”.
Jesus corrected us that the principle of “an eye for an eye” is not about “balanced assets”, or “I get what I want”.
- And we never achieve “balanced assets”: when our neighbour has more or better, if we have or walk the actions of deciet or envy, we are commiting sin:
- Matthew 5:17-20, 38-39, Mark 7:13, Luke 16:18.
Relax, these verses may speak of other teaching, and the idea about “an eye for an eye” might be secondary. At least we can be in agreement that we could argue all day about that.
Reflect, then, as in the hymn “The church is wherever God’s people are praising”:
