Misplaced Values
Last week while at Salem Camp meeting, I finished a powerful little book by Clarence Jordan and Bill Lane Doulos called "Cotton Patch Parables of Liberation." I found this book at the used bookstore. It was a steal at only a quarter. Most of the time, the cheaper the book, the better.
So Jordan shares a story about some fancy church that decided to testify about the love of God by building a fountain. They spent several thousands dollars on the thing, and this was back in the 1960's, so it had to be very expensive.
In the book, Jordan thought the whole expenditure was a senseless waste of money. His argument was like this, "Why spend thousands of dollars on a fountain when thousands of people do not have access to clean drinking water?" I think he made a good point.
Have we as a church misplaced our values? Are we so wrapped up in the beautiful, that we have forgotten those who live in the ugliness of want and need?
Lord show us our foolishness. Convict us of the places where are values are wrongly placed, and lead us in the pathway of your Gospel to the people we are to value because you value them. Amen.
posted by Hugh @ 6:48 PM
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