Religion

The heat wave has been real. I’m not talking about those warm days when you sit in front of the fan and are back in your comfort zone. It’s like really hot.

As I write this column it’s almost reaching the 90s again, but I’m told cooler weather is soon in store for us. That would be a blessing for many.

Editor’s note: Glora’s mother-in-law, Lydia Yoder, is writing a special column this week. Gloria returns next week.

It’s funny how song lyrics get stuck in my head. I can forget the song and the artist, but one line can hunker itself in this brain of mine pretty tightly. After doing some “research” (Google), I figured out the song and artist of a line I always sing to myself lately. Boyz II Men recorded a song in 1994 called “Water Runs Dry” that begins, “We don’t even talk anymore, and we don’t even know what we argue about.” I understand the context of that song is a romantic relationship, but that lyric has been pretty front-of-mind lately. Let me tell you why.

When I was in college, my pastor told me about his favorite book in the Bible – Romans. He explained that, in Romans, the Apostle Paul outlines everything about salvation and how to live the Christian life. He said if he was only allowed one book in the Bible, that would be it. Then he said that if he was only allowed one chapter, it would be Romans 5 because so many of these things are summed up there. And then he said that if he was only allowed one verse it would be Romans 5:8 which reads, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He explained that he saw this verse as the best summary of the gospel. Finally, he said that if he was only allowed two words from the Bible they would be “but God.”

I came home and noticed a campfire under the pine trees. Well, it’s not exactly my home; it just feels like it.

Recently in the lectionary, the Jesus parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matt 13: 24-30) came up. The one where the master tells the servants to let the weeds grow with the wheat until the harvest. As an old farm boy, this is a difficult parable for me. I was trained to value that clean corn fields and pastures. I know one good way to interpret this parable is to say to myself, do not be so quick to draw lines among people. Do not be so fast to declare who is “in” and who is “out.” Patience, things may even change. And finally, God will take care of all this in due course. But that is hard, it caused me to reflect in a couple of ways.

Editor’s Note: Gloria’s 11-year-old daughter, Julia, wrote the column this week. Gloria will return next week.

Once again it’s my turn to write this column on an election week. While our nation rightly relies on a healthy separation between church and state, it is unhealthy for individuals to have separation between our faith and politics. The question is, which will inform the other. Will we allow our faith to shape our political choices, or will we allow our politics to shape our faith? Are we Christians who vote or are we adherents of a political party who also happen to be Christian? I think the main difference between those two is in how we treat those who think and vote differently from us.

The water parted on either side of the boat as we sped across the lake. The children were enthralled with the ride on their uncle’s speedboat. We sat back in our seats, there was no effort on our part, only pure enjoyment. “Could this be like life?” I mused. “The waters part for us if we learn to sit back and trust our Lord…”