Pastor’s Corner “Good News?”

When the news sets itself up as the light of the world, it is usurping the role that rightly belongs only to the Word proclaimed in the gospel. But when the news helps us attend together to the ongoing work of this Word, it plays a vital role in enabling us to love our neighbors.” –Jeffrey Bilbro in Reading the Times

The headlines are relentless, and at times they threaten to overwhelm not only our feeds, emails, and screens, but even our clarity, sanity, and hope. The varying narratives are confusing, and the evident biases erode our trust in what we’re reading and hearing. As faithful followers of Jesus, how do we gain clarity, maintain sanity, and increase hope? I offer you two remedies.

First, give more attention to the Word-made-flesh and God’s-word-written than you do to the news. The news media attempt to define what is good and evil, what is hopeless and hopeful, who is friend and who is enemy, “setting itself up as the light of the world” as Jeffrey Bilbro says in the above quote. We know better. There is a truer Word who alone has such authority, and we are to mediate on that Word day-and-night (Psalm 1).

Bilbro provides a brief commentary on Marc Chagall’s painting, “Solitude.” This piece depicts a Jewish man holding the Torah, meditating as buildings burn behind him during Nazi oppression, and as a cow plays a violin. Why a cow? The Hebrew word “to mediate” means also “to chew the cud.” “The meditative figure is not ignoring the events of his time and place in order to lose himself in solipsistic, irrelevant flights of fancy. Rather, he is feeding on the eternal truths most needed in this turbulent historical moment.”

We are called to do the same.

The second remedy is a practical way to chew on God’s word as you read the news. For about a year now I’ve chosen “The Pour Over” as one of my primary news sources. It provides a politically neutral summary of current news, often with a dash of humor. More importantly, the editors insert Scriptures, prayers, and insights intended to “remind you of who [Jesus] is in the face of whatever disaster, injustice, triumph, or triviality the day brings.” (Based on some of their written prayers, I suspect they have an Anglican or two on staff.) I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Pour Over as a helpful way to set the day’s events in the context of our eternal hope.

Repeatedly we’re told, “We live in unprecedented times.” Not really. “There is nothing new under the sun,” the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us (1:9), pointing us toward the King of an everlasting dominion who remains unshaken by the events that shake us (Daniel 4:34-36). Let his eternal Word determine your immediate perspective, attitude, and responses.

Your Pastor in Christ,