So, what do we do about all this stuff?
Years of preaching and listening to sermons about how to be positive, happy and successful definitely did not prepare us to endure a lengthy global pandemic, which triggered a recession, which occurred during an election year, in which racial injustice was brought to the forefront and income inequality mushroomed.
You can’t follow Jesus and turn a blind eye to those who are suffering while enjoying personal peace and prosperity. It’s simply not an option for a disciple or for a church full of disciples.
As much as I’d love to go back to business as usual, it’s simply not an appropriate response to all that is happening around us.
But we also can’t get down about all the problems and disengage and retreat. So what can we do?
We can listen to the voices of prophets who speak on behalf of the outcast and marginalized.
We can develop the compassion and empathy we see exemplified by Jesus.
We can think about news and culture through a biblical framework and a gospel lens.
We can give out of our extra to help those who lack. We can befriend the lonely. We can serve the sick.
And we can do it all as those who have hope in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ who is reconciling the world back to himself from its lostness.
We can’t just coast at ease in our own comfort.
We can engage and become love to a world that desperately needs it.
I don’t know what the rest of 2021 will bring, but no matter what happens, our communities and our culture will need people who follow Jesus faithfully to show up again and again full of truth and full of grace.
Just keep showing up. Let’s start there.
This article originally appeared on BrandonACox.com and is reposted here by permission.