The year 2020 is still a difficult year to objectively analyze, in part, due to the multifaceted issues we faced as a nation. “I can’t breath,” election angst and disputes, politics on steroids, a global pandemic, riots in the streets, Chaz communities, and the continual drip-drip of armchair commentary from conspiracy-driven men and women. Honestly, 2020 did not bode well for our nation and it did not bode well for many in the Church.
I am convinced that boredom–among many other facets–played a major role in some of the responses we saw emerge from churches in 2020. Lockdown measures that shut down entire cities overnight led to a media saturated church community. I watched in astonishment as men and women who had once disparaged social-media took to posting multiple times a day, often trolling controversial and contentious posts and engaging in divisive and vitriolic online diatribes.
I grieved as I watched, not as men moved ancient landmarks, but as men etched new lines that disfellowshipped, castigated, and shamed brothers and sisters over a myriad of subjects. Honestly? The spirit on the streets casting shadows from the fires of buildings that burned was raging in the corridors of the Ecclesia. And today, many of those same individuals whose spirits smoldered with divisive rhetoric and discord have yet to say “I’m sorry.” In fact, the failure to “make things right with thy brother” remains one of the most neglected biblical admonitions of the present day. As such, offerings that have been placed upon altars yesterday now rot and decay since God will not accept what was offered by those unwilling to rectify the oughts of their brothers and sisters.
We were so caught up in politics, racial reckonings, and Covid contentions that so many of us seemed to forget the Kingdom of God. While many of us were screaming “keep the church doors open” we were slamming doors on our brothers and sisters. Many of us celebrated souls won and sinners saved but failed to answer God’s repeated inquiry of “where is thy brother?” We were quick to give the latest reports of baptisms but ignored the mangled and dismembered bodies of brothers we left in our wake.
I won’t go so far as to say that “God spoke to me,” but I will go as far to say that my spirit has been deeply moved upon by a sense of unease that keeps bringing me back to a place of prayer where I am examining my own spirit and I am praying about sacrifices that continue to decay on altars left by men and women disinterested in their brother and sister in Christ.
I have heard a lot of messages preached in recent conferences and meetings that encouraged revival, soul winning, holiness, and a plethora of other vital kingdom-expansion paradigms, but if I were to be asked to speak at any of these given meetings I would have to preach what God has pressed so deeply into my spirit, “My Brother’s Keeper.” Of course, this will not happen and if it did, I am sure the subject would be too “real” and “honest” for us to deal with on such a national level. In fact, the man likely to preach such a message “without fear or favor” would likely find himself the newest target for angst.
So, as in the past, I put to “pen” what I believe stands as the most pressing need in the Church today; our relationship with one another. Do you still refuse to make things right after you threw aside years of relationship over an unfortunate concept your brother preached? Do you still refuse to make things right because of pride, envy, jealousy, or hurt feelings?
At the end of the day, we must all be right with God and we can’t be right with God if we aren’t right with our brother.