Today’s text is not about politics, nor the issues of this day, but the issues that face us all every day. There is an old Prayer:
LORD, I thank you for protecting me from sin today.
I have not been angry and contemptuous.
I have not coveted or lusted
I have not ignored the poor and needy.
But in five minutes I need to get up out of bed, and then I will need your help
This speaks to our fallen state. When we are awake we do some good, and we do manage to obey the Lord. In part. But the other part of us does not. It covets, lusts (inflamed by the advertising agents and spam from Amazon, B&H, Adorama and (worst of all, for me, music shops). We walk pat the poor. the street people. And we become angry: not with injustice and evil, where anger is good, but with the poor, the needy, the stupid — and the snark comes out.
The snark is one of my besetting faults. I have a bit too much pride in my analytical ability, and when those in authority make stupid decisions… I have to take ten deep breaths so I do not say precisely what I think is wrong with their decision and rephrase it into socially acceptable words or a question.
I’m called to love them, I’m called to walk in the light. But somedays, the dark side attracts. For Snark lives there.
1My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
3Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. 4Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; 5but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: 6whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
7Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. 11But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
Now, we are told to love and to obey the commands of Christ. For Christ works by the Spirit in the Church to cause good, and bring more people to him. Amen.
But that light is harsh, and our faults show. We are forced not to be nice and Churchian, pretending that we are without faults, but to see ourselves as greedy, lustful, hateful, and overly proud.
John corrects us here. Compared with those beings of the heavenly realm, we are poor, stupid, and needy. We have no deserving traits: we cannot challenge God’s wisdom, but instead beg for his forgiveness.
Daily.
Now, this, in the blog-world and in the real world, leads to issues. We need to say what is true, but we have to keep the snark caged up. It is not loving and merciful to let a person continue in the errors that are ruining their life. It is my duty, at work, to tell the managers they are in error: it is part of the academic role — and I took a pay cut to work for a university to get that freedom.
What helps is talking face to face, and knowing the person. But I am not an exemplar here. For the snark gets out all to often, and it speaks against me.
And when we snark and hate each other, it speaks against us.
The song about this very thing you are talking about:
Whoops I did not know no html tags.
Just link to it.