Dean Acheson, who served as President Truman’s Secretary of State, wrote about the difficulty of interacting with Russian diplomats. This with the cold war raging after WWII. He said that any conversation ended with either sardonic or ridiculous comments from them. And any discussion ended in frustration and boredom.
Acheson surmised one of two reasons. First, the diplomats dared not speak what they really thought. Second, they so deeply believed what they parroted as a party line that they considered all opposing views blind to truth. In either case, no personal relationship could be established. The Russians had nothing to say in private, in social conversation, over cocktails, around a table, that differed from their public statements. They were NOT persons, thinking, but robots spouting artificial intelligence. Which leads to a spiritual truth. We may communicate with many people, but we have meaningful fellowship only with our companion disciples of Christ. Who accept their humanity with its flaws, failures, mistakes, sins and limitations. We grant patience to other Christians in their ordeals since we need unquestioned loving support through our trials. Christians never need to take themselves seriously. We have multiple reasons NOT TO. But that only begins our fellowship in Christ. For our trust lies in the Christ who: insists we look beyond ourselves to HIM in every situation Hebrews 12:2. (Note: the writer urged us to look steadfastly at Jesus, not at the crowd of witnesses in Hebrews 11. They, like us, are but mortals.) Jesus alone as the WORD of God made flesh makes the difference in us being merely sinful mortals without hope of ever being anything more. AND being forgiven sinful mortals blessed with inevitable growth in discipleship now and promised NO LIMITATIONS in our perfected humanity in God’s new world. Amen.
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