IT’S NOT THE DIVISION; IT’S WHAT’S BETWEEN THE TWO

Decades ago, a pastor encountering opposition, during a service, had all the folks who supported him to stand and those who didn’t to remain seated. It was an awkward silence as about half were standing and half were seated. Someone spoke up with a broken voice, “Pastor, you’ve just divided the church. You’ve divided families. You’ve divided homes.” Our nation's president has stood before us and divided us. He has divided nation, families, friends… He has divided us into two--the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. He did not just factually reference the division. He in tone, connotation, intent, and direct attack vitriolically and caustically with scolding voice designated the unvaccinated as villainous, ignorant, wicked. He didn’t just note that there is group A and group B. He said that group A was holy and good and that group B was unholy and evil. He did it in such a way, he put animosity, enmity, between the two groups. This, I do not bring up to rebuke the president nor to enter the fray over vaccine efficacy or government intrusion. I just could not escape an overwhelming awareness that our president is correct. There really are but two groups. And I am not referring to the vaccinated and unvaccinated. The whole dividing us into the vaccinated/unvaccinated debacle only reveals once again humanity’s default hypocrisy. You, I’m sure, have noticed how quickly politicians can change their views dependent on whether or not their party is in power. For example, when Republicans are in power, they inveigh against the filibuster and the Democrats praise it. When Democrats are in power, they inveigh against the filibuster and the Republicans praise it. Well, you know the thing. That’s something that occurred to me about this dividing the nation over the vaccination. Here are liberals, who, prior to CRT influences, were preaching we shouldn’t divide people into two groups like citizens and illegal immigrants, now dividing us into two groups. And then the conservatives, who normally preach we should divide between groups such as citizens and illegal immigrants, decrying that we are being divided between vaccinated and unvaccinated. Wherever one may stand on any issue of dividing folks into groups, the truth is all of humanity IS divided into two groups: Those who have eternal life and those who perish. Perhaps the most loved and familiar verse of the Bible, John 3:16, delineates this division: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Yes, there are only two groups. There is no neutral, middle road, third or fourth. Just two. Those who have eternal life and those that perish. Heaven bound. Hellbound. How sobering. Declaring the division is not itself divisive. It is how it is declared. First, no one who truly is in the category of those who have eternal life arrogantly and disdainfully ridicules those who perish—as the administration’s vaccinated have ridiculed the unvaccinated. They are not smug and prideful about belonging to the group that has eternal life. They are only grateful. Second, those who believe they are in the group possessing eternal life proclaim the division without trying to create animus between the groups. Yes, Jesus said the world would hate his disciples. But He did not say His disciples should hate the world back or try to get fellow disciples to hate the world. This is the real wrong of our president’s approach. He did not just note the two-group division of vaccinated and unvaccinated. He did so in a way to create animus and antipathy of the vaccinated for the unvaccinated. He blamed the unvaccinated for killing folks. How could that not create animus? He sainted the vaccinated and villainized the unvaccinated. No, those with eternal life only desire that those who perish would come to know Jesus and the eternal life, abundant life, He gives. God does not hate those that perish. He loves them. And the eternal life crowd does too. There are many other differences between the administration’s dividing between the vaccinated and unvaccinated and Christ followers dividing between those with eternal life and those who perish, but let me note one more: Unlike this administration’s machinations, those with eternal life do not try to coerce those who perish to convert. True believers would quickly and roundly condemn history’s Crusaders and Conquistadors who sought to force conversion by spear point. Belief in Jesus is a choice. We who belong to those with eternal life may seek to persuade, convince, and even plead, but, we do not try to force. Yes, there ARE only two groups. Rigidly so. Those with eternal life and those who perish. But we must not hate those that perish. We must have love and compassion for them. Any animus we have must be reserved for the one who deceives them, enslaves them, and seeks to keep them in his group, the group of those that perish. Whether or not folks should even be divided into two groups can divide folks into two groups: those who believe we should be divided into two and those who don’t. I can hear the cries of the pluralists screaming at we believers the charge of exclusivity. But, in their protestations, even they divide everyone between the pluralistic and the exclusivistic. Ironically, cries for not dividing only accentuate that there is a division. It is impossible not to divide between groups. What matters is what exists between the two. Jesus occupied the center cross, dividing between a believer and an unbeliever. The cross always divides between those two. Yet, at Calvary, there was no animus between the believer and unbeliever. Only Christ. He did not try to create antipathy between those two who were headed for two completely different destinations—Paradise and Gehenna. Between them, He only demonstrated love in the most painful and vividly graphic of ways. It’s not the division; it’s what’s between the two. --Pastor Clifford Hurst