Today’s Scripture Reading (March 21, 2018): 1 Peter 4 & 5
Economist David Stockman had some
interesting words for the President of the United States just before his March 2018 announcement of steel and
aluminum tariffs. He called the steel industry the “crybabies of the beltway” and
declared that, while the United States does need to fix its massive trade
deficit, a tariff on steel and aluminum would not even begin to fix the
problem. According to Stockman, the steel and aluminum deficit amounted to little
more than a pebble in the shoe. While, because of an active lobby presence in Washington,
the steel and aluminum industry could cause great pain, steel and aluminum was
not the real problem. But the lobby had found a sucker, the President of the
United States, who somehow believed that his tariff on Steel and Aluminum was
the first step toward fixing the massive trade imbalance of the United States.
The real problem was being left
unchecked, which according to Stockman was the relative strengths, or more precisely
the artificial weaknesses, of foreign currency and the inability of American
industry to find a way to remain competitive on the world stage. That was what
needed to be fixed, not the steel
industry. (Stockman also pointed out that the Steel industry has promised to
become more competitive for the last fifty years, but lobbying the President
was simply easier than fixing their industry.)
It is amazing how the little things can upset
all that we try to accomplish. Stockman argued
that the steel industry was essentially looking for an easy way out of its
trouble. They had become an irritant, and the irritant had stolen the focus
away from the real problem. They were a pebble in the shoe.
Hospitality is one of the prime focuses of
the Christian Church. If a church wants to follow the command of Christ and
love, then it must participate in hospitality. Hospitality is an act of welcoming and doing for the other. It is not
something that we understand very well in North American culture. Part of the
problem is that we have become very egocentric. We don’t care about the other;
our main focus has become ourselves.
It wasn’t that long ago that hospitality looked
something like this. Someone came over to your home; you offered them a cup of coffee (or tea). You did this because
it is the hospitable thing to do. Your visitor politely declines, because that
is also the polite thing to do. But you insist. “Are you sure you don’t want
some coffee?” Your visitor declines once more. So you continue, “Well, you
know, I was going to make myself some coffee anyway.” Your visitor replies “Well,
if it’s no trouble.” And before you know it you are sitting at the kitchen
table having a nice visit drinking coffee.
Today, a typical visit looks like this. “Would
you like a cup of coffee?” “No thank you.” And there the visit ends. No one
gets any coffee. Nor is there any vulnerability by the lowering of walls so
that we can really get to know each
other. And often today the persistence is replaced by grumbling. And grumbling,
by its very nature, destroys the hospitality. It is a small thing, but it
removes our focus from where it needs to be. This world would be a much nicer
place if we could just offer hospitality to each other, without grumbling or
snapping, and simply do for each other. But that kind of hospitality seems to
be lost in yesteryear, but something that badly needs to be revived in our contemporary society.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Titus 1
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