An Anchor in Hard Times

I am not an economist. I am not particularly brilliant on governmental affairs. But I do have a sense that something is taking place that involves more than economics and runs deeper than politics (however blasphemous that might sound this close to an election). What we face is a crisis of confidence, and the crisis is not necessarily a loss of confidence but a growing awareness that our confidence has been misplaced. Gradually or not so gradually we have come to trust in the wrong things which led us to seek the wrong things. We have now found that trust to be misguided, and that which we sought has brought with it some very high costs for almost everyone.

At its very heart this is a theological issue, the issue of what we have chosen to trust. What you finally trust is your god, and it seems that some have chosen to trust power and some have chosen to trust accumulation of wealth and some have chosen both. In order to reach those ends, some choices have been made and attitudes adopted which have harmed our life together.

We have lost sight of the charge to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as our self. Instead too many have adopted the attitude of Cain in the creation story, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and our answer has been “no.”

So what is called for? What is called for is a reorientation of our lives, what the scriptures call “repentance.” When my friend Norman Roe was preaching at Danny Young’s funeral, he talked about repentance in terms of rethinking. We need to rethink our priorities as individuals and as a nation. We need to rethink the things we have chosen to trust. The things we have been focusing on have led us stray.