President's Day and Love Me Like a Rock

Happy President's Day!


Ephesians 6:12

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, but against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

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If I was President
And the Congress call my name
I'd say "Who do
Who do you think you're fooling?"
I've got the Presidential Seal
I'm up on the Presidential Podium

"Loves Me Like a Rock" written and recorded by Paul Simon on "There Goes Rhymin' Simon"

Many a day I am a big fan of hyperbole and exaggeration. These are two of the building blocks of humor. That's the reason I like them, for humor, for comedy. I don't really like them in politics. Unfortunately, because of fear we are becoming a society built largely on hyperbole and exaggeration. A society that has become spectacle, a mere shadow of itself.

The Presidential debates during this election year have become a mere shadow of their intention. Lincoln and Douglas would take all of the candidates by the ear and show them what it meant to debate.

Lest you think I point at one side of the aisle, one side may be a three ring circus, but the other side of the aisle features its own sideshow not to be denied nor ignored.

These candidates struggle against each other, they struggle so they can struggle against what? Congress? World leaders? The invisible hand of the market and the economy? The Koch Brothers? They fight each other so they can fight someone else. Fear and fight. Fear and fight. Who needs a President and a Russian Premier? How about a global game of Risk fought out like the days of Goliath?

Is that our fight? Is that our future?

We have gotten so worried about separation of church and state that as we grind the theological moxie of our candidates we forget to ask them what they truly believe, not where they go to church. Where is our struggle? Where is their struggle? If their struggle is against the enemies of flesh and blood, but against the greater authority of darkness. This power is not an individual. This power is greater than any one person.

Truly I say to you, that power is in all of us. Each and every one of us. It is the power of sin.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians tells us how to fight that struggle, it is to put on the whole armor of God. It isn't to blame. It isn't to point fingers. and it isn't to ask "Who do, who do you think you're fooling?"

That is the rock that loves me.