Daily Lesson for April 28, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Matthew chapter 24 verse 12:

"And because of an increase in lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold."

For decades we are pushed up against the wall, stopped cold in our tracks of progress and frisked for whatever reason, and the increasing sense that those sworn to serve and protect us are in fact against us, and our love grows cold. 

We wait and we watch and we trust justice to be done by 12 jurors of sound mind in a town we never heard of called Ferguson; but when the verdict is reached and there is no indictment a city erupts in violence and anarchy, and watching at home we we fear for the future of our country and our love grows cold.

We watch as our brother is gunned down from behind, shot five times in the back as he ran away, and when we watch it and see the ugly truth that it was an officer of the law who pulled the trigger our love grows cold.

In Baltimore -- a city everybody's heard of -- a man is taken into police custody alive and comes out dead, and the full knowledge that this could happen to any one of our sons -- is happening to our sons -- and our love grows cold.

The city's streets burn, cars smolder, police officers are wounded, and the talk of needing to give space to rioters makes us wonder if we have descended into a place of absolute lawlessness, and our hearts grow cold.

LORD, may we find within us the warmth of love once more. May we love ourselves , our neighbors, our communities, and even our enemies enough to work together for nonviolent redemptive change.  May we love enough to listen to and not dismiss the hurt and anguish hidden in the broken glass of riots.

Warm our hearts O God, Father and Mother of us all, so we might know the truth of Dr. King's words : that we "must learn to live together as brothers and sisters lest we perish together as fools." Warm us in the darkest and coldest places of our hearts that we live also the truth of St. Paul's words: that "where lawlessness abounds grace must abound even more."