Are Heroes Needed?

[Comments for the Monroe, NC City Council Meeting, April 08, 2025]

Dying is not being a hero.

Being injured is not being a hero.

Winning is not being a hero.

Doing the right thing is not being a hero.

All of that can be done for the most self-centered of reasons or no reason at all.

Being a hero is doing the right thing at the right time in the face of consequences.

David confronted Goliath, not because David was anything special, but no one else was willing. He stood, not so much to defend his nation, but to declare trust in Yahweh in the light of Goliath’s affront. Abandoning tools of war, David stood to allow God to work through him. He shouldered the responsibility Saul refused.

Mordecai didn’t call Esther to do anything special, but to confront the consequences as no worse from those facing her people. She was a hero for doing what needed doing on behalf of others, as she stood front and center in the line of fire.

Creating fictions of monsters to rally people to one’s political ambitions is not heroic. It’s just manipulation.

Sexual orientation is not malleable. You can groom kids to hate. You can’t change their sexual orientation. Brain structures govern gender identity and sexual orientation.

All queer kids result from heterosexual relationships.

Want to protect kids and honor God?

Feed them.

House them.

Provide them education, vaccines, medical care, safety, economic stability.

End assaults on vulnerable populations.

Make our world safe for everyone.

That shouldn’t require a hero.

Aren’t we all here “For such a time as this?”



— ©Copyright 2025, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Made Me Choose, but Why?

Image
Did you really think I would give you more importance than my own daughter? Did you really think you could use our father’s memory as a weapon to bend me to your will? Did you really think pulling rank would force me to adapt to your definitions of propriety, when you have never once interrupted your life on my behalf? Did you really think protecting a relationship that has always depended on my initiative would have greater weight than maintaining, caring for, and supporting the family I’ve made and lived with more than twice the time I ever lived with you? Did you really think I would refashion my life and character after your expectations for me? Did you really think I would hand over my autonomy to you, simply because you refused to listen or learn anything about me and my family? Did you really think I would interpret your attempts to control me and my family as love? Did you really think I don’t understand love enough to recognize your prote...
Read more

Self-Righteous Oppression

Image
Beware being taken in by the hypocrisy of the self-righteous. We try to hide the reality of our inner lives, but all secrets will come to light. What is whispered in the dark will be heard in full daylight, widely broadcast and published. Do we really think that those who died in the collapse of the Twin Towers were any worse offenders than everyone else in New York City? Do we think the four girls killed at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham were more sinful than those who set the bombs? Are the oppressed less worthy than their oppressors? We applaud civil rights heroes of the past, yet retain policies which actively oppose them. We join parades and erect monuments in their honor, bearing witness to their cause as just. Then we push new policies to keep the same minorities in subjection! How were diversity, equity, and inclusion just and righteous then, but now suddenly a threat? We pray before a meal, giving thanks for God’s provision. Meanwhile, greed direct...
Read more

Recasting Enemies

Image
Enemies are not born. They are created out of our fears, insecurities, imaginings, and learned responses. A grandbaby was just born into a toddler’s family. This toddler doesn’t care who holds the new baby, as long as it is not their mother. No matter how the family has references this newborn as her new baby, the presents and attention lavished upon the toddler, she considers the new one as interfering with her safety, security, and place. She has made the newborn an enemy, no input from the newborn required. We create our enemies by choice. It has little to do with the other. It is about ourselves. Our lack of security, trust, confidence, and the way we have ordered the world feels under attack. It matters not whether we are being attacked. We misplace our confidence and security. Perhaps it is our sense of control, our understanding of how the world works, our sense of place, what gives us worth. Fear-mongering sells us an enemy on which to pin all our angst. I...
Read more