A Reminder for Today
Crowds lie. The more people, the less truth. Integrity is not strengthened by multiplication. We can test this observation esaily. Which promise is most likely to be kept: the promise spoken by a politician to a crowd of ten thousand or the promise exchanged between two friends? - Peterson
Just a friendly reminder that we should all have a healthy skepticism of the majority. In these highly divisive times, I find more and more that each side of whatever argument you can imagine loves to claim the majority. Popular votes in presidential elections, voting turnout in unprecedented ways, morals, convictions, spending habits, and even opinions on books, TV shows, and movies, there is something about being in the majority that feels like we have won. But with each passing day, I am reminded that the constant relief of being in the majority is really just a need to be correct. “You didn’t like that latest movie? Well, audiences everywhere loved it; how could you not?!” Aside from being right, there is something safe in being in the majority. So, say we are right in our beliefs or thinking; surely that cannot be the goal of our existence!
My reminder to you today is to be wary when we’re in the majority because the majority has rarely been someone to be trusted. Indeed, within Christ’s life, the majority, that is, inclusion in a big crowd, was never His goal. Every time a large crowd gathered, Jesus almost always said something that left the masses perplexed and willing to walk away. So if the goal isn’t to be in the majority, or if the goal isn’t to win, maybe there is a third way. Perhaps the goal is to love. See my previous post if you need a definition of love. Spoiler alert, to love is to serve others.
Being a kind people, not simply an enormous swath of people, will bring us a subversive, genuine impact- lasting change. Our God died, resurrected, and ascended into Heaven; I would hardly consider that a win by modern standards. However, the life of Christ and God’s ultimate plan of redemption is much less concerned with winning an argument or political office and much more interested in setting humanity free- a cosmic goal if I ever saw one. So maybe our sights should be placed on the cosmic reality in which we live—the Kingdom we’ve yet to see.
Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
-L
We cannot avoid being in crowds. Can we keep from being crowd-conditioned? Can we keep from trading our name in for a number, form letting the crows reduce us to mindless passivity?
Everytime we retrive a part of our life from the crowd and respond to God’s call to us, we are that much more ourselves, more human. Every time we reject the habits of the crowd and practice the disciplines of fiath, we bceom a little more alive.
- Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses