Reason

There’s a saying heard often in my profession that it provides situations in which two people, each with honest intent, can review the same set of facts and come to diametrically opposed conclusions. In other words, there are situations in which reasonable people can and do differ in their opinions.

Today, untold numbers of people will make decisions that couldn’t differ more in logic or potential results. We are suffering from a world-wide condition in which exposure to others is bound to increase—greatly increase—our being exposed to, and contracting, a fatal virus. Some will abide by the warnings of science and stay home behind closed doors, enhancing their chances for survival. Others won’t.

Only a minuscule portion of those on both sides of the prospect have ever read, or put much thought into the Sermon on the Mount. The odd thing is that if each person were to read it, they would more than likely use the Galilean’s sermon on that Judean hill to justify their behavior.

After all, he did say, as reported in Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV):

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

There you go. Couldn’t be clearer. We don’t need no stinkin’ advice from physicians or scientists. We are protected as surely as the fowls of the air are protected. Let’s all gather up and go to church.

But wait, comes the advice from another. He didn’t advise the fowls of the air to go seeking the hungry hawk as an act of righteous defiance. In fact, he asked us to, in 6:33 (NIV) “… seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” First things first, they caution. Oh, and didn’t he, just before coming to The Mount, rebuke the Dark One with "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test?'" (Matthew 4:7 NIV)

And they will add, just in case we don’t get the message, that our most honored apostle of the faith will, years in the future, caution his flock in First Corinthians 10:9, (NIV): "We should not test Christ, as some of them did--and were killed by snakes."

What’s a person to think? Maybe this: The Galilean felt his Lord had given us a brain to use. Might he smile to see us trust it?

I hear a sermon. I think of change and courage.

Just watched my favorite Methodist minister deliver a tough sermon. It dealt with change, not how merely to accept it, but to meet it with courage and conviction based on both on the ideals of one’s faith and the words of the Galilean.

I secularized it, as I am prone to do, based on my chosen profession. I thought of two public entities. One, a state, faced the stench of the bitter poverty and hopelessness of much of its people. It stands last or near last by every standard of decency that can generated by good government. Fortune has abandoned a large swath of its area. Accordingly, and following a long history, its leadership decided to embrace cowardice once again, announcing a commitment to its faith by cutting taxes for the super-rich, damning the poor, and raising “thinking poor” to a religious dogma of the highest esteem.

Now a smell of sulfur, generated by fiery greed, joins the stench of poverty and hopelessness.

The other, a city, facing the Great Depression and a huge in-migration of those fleeing its impact, voted to borrow money, to be repaid by its people, and build a massive structure across one of the most treacherous bodies of water in the country. The decision led to avoiding the worst ravages of the Depression. It also helped create economic development that would increase with time. It provided jobs, not resentment, for the hopeless immigrants.

Fate often simply depends upon thinking of a higher or lower order.

At the end of time, the first entity will still be poor and last among peers. The other will still be a national icon and, among the hearts of many, the most beloved city in the United States.

The minister quoted Thomas Carlyle on change. It was effective. I might add, though, from my view, the words of The Bard from Hamlet, “… there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Enough said.