Faith and Cynicism

  Here's a quote. (paraphrased) "I'm tired of people who want everything to be fair. The rich get everything they want first. It's the way it is, the way it always has been, and the way it always will be, so get over it, get off the couch and stop complaining".  Here's another one.  "Everybody manipulates and uses people to get ahead. That's just life".  Here another one. "Well if that's life then life is bunch of crap" I may attach a name to the last quote. It's yours truly, Matt Miller. Cynicism is easy. To be a cynic you don't have to analyze, you only have to observe. To the cynical people who made the first two quotes, the phrase, "things should be like...(fill in the blank) is meaningless.  It is no matter to them how things should be, we must accept "reality" which is things as they now are, and in my estimation, regardless of whether they are right. Now I agree that life is not fair, but just because it is not does not mean that it ought not to be. If justice or fairness is overrated, then why does everyone get angry when they're cut off on the freeway, or ripped off by an auto mechanic. There certainly is "a way things ought to be" which certainly assumes that some things are not how they ought to be. But this may not very well be the issue. Perhaps the issue for cynics is not whether things ought to be a certain way, but rather if anything could be done about it. Shall I propose that something has been done about it? Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and rose from the grave to give us hope for new life. This does necessarily mean automatic newness of life in this life, so the person who is not cynical about the "ought" but about the "can" is still justified in his cynicism, but for the person whose cynicism stretches beyond practicality, into the doubting of "oughts" themselves, the resurrection, (unless he rejects it, which he inevitably will), squashes his cynicism. What hope is there for the doubter of "oughts"? Indeed for the doubter of "cans" there is hope. We merely need to demonstrate that it can happen. I believe in a new world. I believe a new world is coming. I believe it is our job to incarnate the new world's reality as best as we can now, so that they may have faith and be saved from the discouraging, lifeless, and disparaging life of doubting the "oughts". Will this lifestyle have its price? Sure, if we're wrong, we ought to end up at the bottom of the barrel? But if we're right, and I know we are, we ought to end up on top.  

Jesus said "The first shall be last and the last shall be first" Can you believe it? Faith trumps cynicism.