Even those who dismiss
Daniel's dictum that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men
must see the practical lesson that it is absurd hubris to claim "I
built this." That the mightiest of empires and the
greatest of emperors can be destroyed in an instant by events beyond
their control.
You can believe that David
vs. Goliath is just legend and still see the reality that no
matter how well armed you may think you are, it is not uncommon for
the mightiest of armed and arrogant invaders to be repelled by the
equivalent of kids with rocks.
Surely even the secular
reader must be touched by the struggles of the rejected wandering
homeless, the refugees from slavery, the lowly and dispossessed, the conquered, the desperate due to forces beyond control,
and see that even those are fellow humans seeking meaning and purpose
as well as sustenance.
Even such a jaded and
skeptical secular seeming observer as the Solomon of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes tells us that the competition does not always go to the better or most
deserving; that the wicked prosper while the deserving suffer.
You need not believe in a
virgin birth to recognize that the greatest of people are sometimes born
in stables to destitute parents.
Even those who view Jesus
as simply a teacher of morals must see the reality in his teaching
that the accumulation of wealth is worse than useless, never brings
happiness or satisfaction, and is never really within human control
anyway. That our humane responsibility is not to despise or reject
strangers but to help them.
Even those who doubt Jesus
even existed must surely see the truth in the lessons attributed to
him that those who claim moral superiority are inevitably hypocrites
who refuse to see their own immorality.
Even if you read Job as
mere poetic fable, the lesson must be clear that suffering and
misfortune are often as undeserved as wealth and prosperity, and that
we struggle in vain to give reason to either.
Even if you think
epistlers Paul and John were deluded followers of a dead man, surely
there are eternal truths in their teaching that self-sacrificing
generosity is always better than self-righteous possessiveness.
That love is always better than hate. That we all need mercy
more than justice.
How much more then must it
be clear to those who claim to actually believe the Bible, who accept
that God is in control, who believe that all that we are and all that
we have are the undeserved gifts from God, and that we are all
unprofitable servants deserving nothing at all? How much more
to believers must it be obvious that wealth, power or status are
rarely products of virtue or righteousness. That we have no
right to anything at all, and that anything we have been given is
meant to be shared? That it is not our task to worry about
laws, rulers, taxes, politics, or whether the destitute or the stranger are
worthy of help or ought even to be here: Our task is simply to help them.
