Towards the front of the neighborhood in which I lived for most of my childhood, there was an empty lot with a massive mound of fill dirt. The neighborhood kids all referred to it simply as The Hill. Our favorite pastime on The Hill was King of the Mountain.
King of the Mountain was a simple game. At the beginning, all participants gathered at the bottom of the hill. When the signal was given, everyone would charge to the top and the battle began. Participants would push, pull, and throw one another off the top of the mountain until one person remained atop the mountain as king.
It occurs to me that this “game” wasn’t all that much fun to play. It usually did little more than establish who the biggest, most aggressive bully was. It often resulted in friends taking sides and refusing to play or talk to those who weren’t “with them.” Most of those involved walked, or limped, away with scrapes, cuts, bruises, and/or various other injuries. Someone usually ran home in tears before the game ended. On at least one occasion, a kid was taken away in an ambulance with a broken collar bone. The Lord alone knows how many concussions were doled out on our mini mountain.
If we were lucky, the crying kid made it home and communicated the chaos to a mature adult who would then hurry back to end the insanity. We would often protest this intervention as an unwelcome violation of our rights, but the honest truth is we were actually relieved that order had been restored, relationships had been preserved, and serious injury had been avoided.
Everyone is fighting to be seen and heard and, in this current cultural moment, “might is right,” regardless of whether or not it is righteous.
King of the Mountain is a painfully accurate illustration of how much of society relates to one another today. There is not much social about the media offered to us. There is little to no civility in our discourse. Everyone is fighting to be seen and heard and, in this current cultural moment, “might is right,” regardless of whether or not it is righteous. All the proverbial pushing, pulling, and tossing one another around is creating all sorts of chaos and carnage. Relationships are being strained and broken. Sides are being taken. More than a few tears are being spilled by those who have taken part and those who are being hurt as the insanity continues to unfold.
What is needed today is for women and men to be adults and intervene to end the insanity and seek peace. This will require us to refuse to take sides. It’s exceedingly difficult to find and maintain a functional middle ground when we are pointing fingers and assigning blame. It will require us to prioritize what is best for all over and above what is best for me and mine. It will require maturity and no small amount of humility, both of which have become exceedingly rare in the public square in recent years.
…everywhere we go, the presence of peace should follow.
For those who claim the name of Jesus, to this we were called and for this we were saved. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” In Isaiah 9:5, we are told that the Messiah, Jesus Himself, is the “Prince of Peace.” In Romans 12:18, Paul charges his readers, “…as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” In Ephesians 6:15, Paul tells us that our feet are to be “fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” It’s interesting to me that the foundation of “The Armor of God,” something normally associated with war, is peace. The imagery then is that everywhere we go, the presence of peace should follow.
Brothers and sisters, in a world where power and force are the rule of the day, in a time when people are pushing, pulling, and throwing each other around in order to declare themselves King of the Mountain, let us endeavor to be those to advocate and bring a presence of peace. Let us refuse to add to the chaos and carnage and instead opt to be the mature adults who intervene and seek an end to the insanity. “Blessed are the peacemakers” and peace is a blessing that is in short supply these days. May it follow wherever we go.
