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“So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ … And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard…”
–– Luke 7:18b-19, 22a
It’s a good thing Jesus gave this prescription to John’s disciples before the advent of cable news, Twitter, or the legion of digital apps that have drawn us down decidedly narrow crevices where we remain wedged into worldviews far removed from the kingdom over which Jesus reigns. The things we see and hear tell us of the violence, anger, injustice, and hostility that share a common denominator –– the will to power.
As has oft been noted, civility evaporates quicker than the morning dew whenever and wherever the love of power surpasses the power of love. This can, and often does, happen any time a population exceeds one. The setting can be a playground, a household, a community, a region, or the international order. Inevitably, it seems, someone will seek to exercise power over the other(s), and relations deteriorate from there. Behaviors we excuse in ourselves as an act of self-preservation, may more appropriately be defined as a refusal to share, compromise, or pursue the common good. The headlines of our newsfeed represent the fireworks ignited by such refusals. Compromise, confession, contrition, or cooperation, we fear, would be seen as weakness, and so lines harden, armories are stocked, and battles erupt –– Today’s news!
And yet, guess what. Absent the technology, our times are no different than the era of the disciples. Armed with ample evidence, they, too, could go and tell John that the things they were seeing and hearing included wars and rumors of wars, internecine skirmishes in families and communities, relations crumbling under the weight of suspicion, violence borne of fear-fueled antipathy. Sound familiar?
Certainly, Jesus was well aware of all that. Jesus was not wired for naïveté. However, Jesus was asking John’s disciples (and us) to see the world through the lens of love, a prescription that doesn’t filter out this world’s chaos, but gives us the eyes to see the power of love clearly at work in spite of the chaos –– a wound, whether physical or emotional is addressed through the presence and compassion of the faith community; a child advances three grade levels because one person feels the call to go read with the child each week; driven by Christ’s witness of selfless love, a young attorney works through the exhaustion and late-nights, digging through evidence and precedents, writing briefs, and pursuing witnesses in order that a client, wrongly convicted, can taste freedom once again; an apology is offered to an estranged friend; an invitation is made or a visit is arranged because no one should walk through life without community.
Such news may not be deemed newsworthy, but it is the most important news you will witness. Go, and see what Jesus is doing.
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