Ask not

As with the MLK post, this comes from Google bringing to my attention the fact that today is the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy's inaugurational speech.

Id never read/heard the whole speech. But people (including my very un-knowledgable self) know it because of the phrase: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". This sentence, in an of itself is pretty iconic, though we can miss its true context if we don't see what comes before, and what comes after it. I believe that if we do, we will know the "whats" that Kennedy speaks of.

There are three other sentences that caught my attention as I read this speech, the first is: "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich". Yet still today the rich have their needs and wants over indulged and the poor continue to struggle, we do not see it as a responsibility of a free society to change this, on the contrary, we see our freedom as an excuse NOT to help. We say to ourselves "why should I? I'm free to do what ever I want, they are free as well, I'm not the one holding them back" How ignorant and selfish we become, when we do not help the least of these, I believe Jesus had something to say about "the least of these", but then again we don't tend to do what HE told us to do. Oh how foolish we are.

The second quote is: "(The) common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself". All of which we expect our government to take care of for us, and since we do, we don't tend to worry or do very much about it; well probably every four to eight years or so when we are called to cast a vote. Biblically, where do we stand? I can bring to the front verses like: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, to which we add, unless he attacks you first then you can attack him back, (did you not pay attention in kindergarten, its always the kid that hits back that gets in trouble), we are called to care for the poor and diseased, but we once again answer, I pay my taxes let someone else do it, or I guess someone else must be doing it, i haven't meet any poor people lately, OPEN your eyes, the poor are all around us. Diseases, not just physical but also of character are spreading. And war, well now a days we usually forget we are at war. I mean, it has no effect on our daily lives, we hear about it on the news and it doesn't even register anymore.

The third is probably my favorite, it comes immediately after the "ask not what your country..." part but i bet that not even the people who heard the speech on the day it was given really heard it. It says "My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
And so America ended up with this "hero" complex that we have not been able to shake off. Like the Beatles sing "we all wanna save the world". And since we do we split the world into three categories: the ones being saved, the ones being saved from and the ones doing the saving. Ironically, the ones being saved don't always ask to be saved, the ones being saved from never thought they were doing anything wrong, and the ones doing the saving are the ones that get away with murder. Ohh! what a tangled web we weave.
Let us all, brothers and sisters in this world, truly come together for the freedom of man, but freedom from what? Ahh! the true question is being asked. To which I answer simply: ourselves.

Because in ourselves we create our own condemnation, we sin, and its all over. Ohh to have been Adam and Eve before the fall. But yet, here we are, thousands of year later, and we still have that special something that Adam and Eve had before the fall, its our relationship with Christ, his death for us, it untangles the entrails of ourselves and brings forth this glorious redemption. We are made new, we are free! and what do we do with our freedom, sadly we forget about those still enslaved.
So let us not forget, let us see the poor and by such save the rich, let us overcome the common enemies of man and work together to bring about the freedom of man.