The gathering darkness

On Wednesday, going to my Committee on Preparation for Ministry, I was involved in a hit and run. It wasn’t bad; I just have a very deep dent on the back corner of my car. But as I have told this story and thought about it I think it was a set up.

I was driving down my cross street preparing to stop at the stop light when I noticed a car pulling away from the curb at the right hand side of my car. I honked as I stopped but he hit me anyway. When I got out of my car he was already holding a broken front car light. I pointed to my dent and said “we need to exchange licenses.” He said “No!” Ignoring him, I went back to my car and leaned over to reach for my purse, as I raised up he was getting in his car. As I came around the end of my car he pulled away.

That was a surprise but it wasn’t the biggest surprise I got that day. When I returned home from my meeting I called the police although I didn’t have any real information to give them. The lady I talked to was very nice but in the midst of our conversation she informed me that since July 2011 the Sacramento police will not investigate hit and runs unless there is grave bodily injury.

I have been thinking about how appalling our morality has become. How deadly the darkness is that is gathering around our lives. How much we need the redeeming, transforming love of Jesus to be constantly renewing and strengthening us in our Christian walk.

Just in the last few days, a friend on Facebook, Jennifer Lahl, she is the founder and President of Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, a bio-ethics group, has linked to two articles about the rise of nudity in San Francisco. This is a far greater problem then the one we are experiencing in Sacramento where petty crime, many misdemeanors and now most hit and runs will be ignored by the Police. Persistent nudity is a sign of the utter flaunting of humanity’s independence from God and God’s laws.

Columnist Debra J. Saunders in the first article, San Francisco, The Naked City, writes:

There is a line between being tolerant and having no standards whatsoever, and that's a line that San Francisco passed a long time ago. Public nudity has become the costume de rigueur in certain corners of the Special City. Twice in the last year, I've see groups of nude adults walking or biking around the Embarcadero - to the delight of some tourists and the disgust of others.

Saunders goes on to write that in the Castro, there are a “number of nudists who like to congregate and digest.” And it is because San Francisco has no law against nudity. In the other smaller column Saunders adds several good comments:

San Franciscans pride themselves in not particularly caring what happens between consenting adults. The problem: The City's nudists bare all without the consent of other adults -- many of whom are parents who want to enjoy the city with their children.

And,

I do not understand why restaurant owners do not refuse to serve naked patrons. It goes to show how afraid people are to stand up for standards in this town.

As I have stated there is a deadly darkness gathering around our lives. But there is also a steady unbreakable movement of God’s work of love and care in our lives. The bigger concern is how we reach out to those trapped in such awful confusion.

The Gospel of Mark tells the story of the demonic screaming among the tombs in the country of the Gerasenes. From the text it is possible to understand that he was naked since after Jesus cast out the demons that had inhabited him, he was sitting clothed. Jesus coming into the man’s life changed everything because with Jesus there is power to change. After the man was saved and changed Jesus told him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you.”

We must first turn our eyes on Jesus and thereby be able to turn our eyes to those in need of his love. Lord give us words to speak. We pray for God’s mercy on the people who are lost in such darkness.