(Thinking about Proper 20B again.)
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. (James 3:13)
He's a former President, a Sunday School teacher and a builder of houses for people in need.
He's an old school liberal.
He failed to win re-election, in large measure because he could not get the hostages out of Iran.
He told us, wisely, to turn down our thermostats and put on a sweater.
(My daughter believes this was brilliant and cannot understand why people derided him.)
He's a prophet. And you know how much people like prophets.
It was the LORD who made it known to me, and I knew; then you showed me their evil deeds.But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. And I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered!" (Jeremiah 11:18-19)
This morning I turned on that show again, and in the two minutes I watched, I heard President Carter described as "malevolent" and "ignorant" by a person who also accused him of "poisoning the health care debate."
Seriously, Pat Buchanan? After a summer of rowdy demonstrations and guns being carried to public events and posters of the President depicted as a witch doctor, this gentle old man is responsible for "poisoning" the debate?
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. (from Psalm 1)
We often hear that history will have the last word on Presidents. I'm fairly sure this President's leaves will not wither.