Wednesday 11 March 2009

Once again, for the next week or so I will be using selections from "The Strength of Love" in which M.L. King focuses on this parable: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him."



Midnight is the hour when men desperately seek to obey the eleventh commandment, "Thou shall not get caught." According to the ethic of midnight, the cardinal sin is to be caught and the cardinal virtue is to get by. It is all right to lie, but one must lie with real finesse. It is all right to steal, if one is so dignified that, if caught, the charge becomes embezzlement, not robbery. It is permissible even to hate, if one so dresses his hating in the garments of love that hating appears to be loving. The Darwinisn concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest. This mentality has brought a tragic breakdown of moral standards, and the midnight of moral degeneration.

Sure sounds like the morality of Wall St and the Banking industry. How is it that a person who is caught with a bag of grass gets thrown into jail or prison and the likes of those who get caught devastating untold numbers of families and investors - get nothing at all. In fact they...get by. At midnight there seems to be confusion. If stealing and dealing in death is done in a suit, with a tie, and under the guise of being the American way, we only punish people if we can say it is isolated to one person - which it never is - and if the evidence is so loaded no one can look away. We are teaching our children that slick is best. We forget that one demonstrates one's morality or ethic - when no one is watching. Today, being slick and working the system as the system is unfortunately set up to work, becomes a goal...a virtue...an expectation...a sign of success. Just today I received notice of a ELCA clergy person who was in and out of several parishes in our Synod. He has now been caught and charged with rape - kidnapping and more over a six year timeline. He was able to "not get caught." At midnight when no one is looking some of the most demonic acts take place even within the dress of those who would be giving witness to the Reign of God. To be quite honest, I'm feeling a bit ill. To think someone passed through two parishes before he was "caught" doing what he did to a child in a previous parish.

Connection: It is not good to point fingers. Then again, it is okay to grieve and wonder and pray and hope that the courage of a young girl to speak up may be the courage in all of us to stand up and bring light to the midnight theives of life.

O God who cares for the least and the lowest, have mercy on all who are robbed of life and liberty and who must now patiently heal because of the abuse of those who are able to be so slick they run through life using others for their own good. Have mercy on us all and continue to bring us into the light of your Reign so we can be advocates and protectors of those who are being sought after by the powers of darkness. Amen.