Your Facebook Post is Useless.

At times it is hard to get on to Facebook.  What once was a fun way to let friends know about what is happening in our lives has turned into a forum where one million Joseph Goebbels spout their propaganda.  The statement “Hooray for our side” can sum up most of the messages on Facebook.

Facebook allows you to vent your spleen in ways that would be completely impossible a generation ago.  A generation ago it was impossible for the average person to insult someone 2000 miles a way with several dozen witnesses to the conversation.  In the past such conversations could have only happened in person and would likely have come to blows.  Facebook allows a near complete abandonment of civil discourse without the consequence of an old-fashioned tail whipping. 

With Facebook it is possible for a person to identify with people who share a conviction without actually knowing them.  The person who is on your side may or may not be a decent person, but as long as we agree we can like each other’s comments and post supportive emojies, thereby reinforcing our mutual convictions and allowing us in some way to feel superior.  Which leads us to being more impolite and rude to those we see as opposition, becoming harsher, and leading us to greater heights of feeling superior.  A vicious cycle develops in which the communication of Facebook, rather than drawing people closer, actually deepens division.  We are not experiencing any real dialogue.  We are watching or participating in digital screaming matches before an audience of partisans that we are hoping to impress. 

The siren song of a Facebook argument is extremely alluring.  I have on more than one occasion been pulled into various frays.  So I can speak with some authority that, if other humans are fallen like I am, a part of the motivation is to demonstrate our superior insight over an opponent.  I have found that those who are most active and most aggressive in their Facebook campaigns are the ones least willing to have conversation via private message.  “Why PM when no one can see the brilliance of my positions,” might be in the back of our minds.

So, let us be completely honest.   Your Facebook post is useless; it accomplishes nothing.

Instead of Facebook we need splagna!  “Splagna?” You say.  Literally, it means bowels or the inner part of the belly.  It came to mean ‘heart-breaking compassion’. 

At the end of Matthew 9 Jesus is going about doing good deeds, healing the sick, raising the dead and evicting demons.  As a result of acts of kindness the crowds followed Him.  That in and of itself is a message for the church in America.  But we will save that for another time.  Verse 36: Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. 

That phrase felt compassion is the word splagna, the stomach-churning, emotional reaction to suffering.  The people are described as sheep that are harassed and helpless.  Like sheep whose lives are marked by the attacks of wolves the lives of these people were marked by the ravages of sin. 

When we see messed up people we tend to see the revolting behavior, while Jesus saw suffering people who were ruined by the power of sin.  We are ready to be a part of a march or a rally to denounce those engaged in sin.  We want to wave banners or form human chains to offer demarcation between the “Them” and ourselves.  And if we can’t do it in person we do it via social media posts.  We take a distinctly high, moral tone to any who would disagree with us.  We are right and curse on you and yours if you disagree with our convictions. 

Notice Jesus’ reaction.  While our response to the wrong behavior is to sign petitions, get out the vote, attend a demonstration, or post something on Facebook Jesus looks at messed up lives as something different. 

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

Jesus saw the symptoms of a messed up world as a call to prayer that the Lord of the Harvest would send out Harvesters.  Jesus saw the wretchedness of sin as a reason to ask for evangelistic workers.  deomai, beseech carries the connotation of binding oneself, in other words tying yourself to the Lord of the Harvest so that you are insistently begging for Him to send out the workers.

Join me in this momentary exercise. 

Step 1: Select the group you find most repugnant (Isis, BLM, Neo-Nazis, Antifa, White supremacist, etc. just pick one).  

Step 2: Ask yourself, “When was the last time I prayed for someone to take the Gospel to them?”  (Asking God to change them to be more like us is not what Jesus commanded)

Step 3:  If it wasn’t today, then it is time to ask why and maybe do a little repenting.

Step 4: While you’re talking to God about them ask Him to arrange an opportunity for you to lovingly serve them.

It is my conviction that we will accomplish more for the coming of the Kingdom by petitioning the Father than by arguing on Facebook.  Let’s save Facebook for Philippians 4:8-9 kinds of stuff, for suggested resources and helpful tools, for the recommendation of enjoyable books or great pet videos. 

Finally, if any of my former Facebook posts have offended you, please forgive me.  Don’t forget to check out my dog Mr. Bultitude.