God's Preference

Richard Rohr strikes again.  Maybe I should just start doing running commentary about the daily meditation, because a lot of days, when I read that thing first thing in the morning it just sort of "ruins" my whole day.  I have been wrestling for years with the idea that somehow, some way God doesn't seem particularly interested in winning.  It tickles around the edges of things when I hear athletes thank God for helping them win a game.  I think, "Wait a minute, God was with the losers too."  It gets a little more uncomfortable when I hear blood thirsty attitudes and unchecked vengeful hatred pouring out of people who claim to follow Jesus.  It gets downright gut wrenching when we actually go to war against some of the poorest people in the world, and churches are pretty much all on board.  I understand that pacifism is probably not a totally feasible option for everyone, but maybe we could support our country and the people who serve it better by not being cheerleaders for the warmongers.
At the heart of all these levels of discontent is the desire that I have to follow what Jesus taught and what Jesus did.  I understand that his example is not something that can be followed by an actual earthly nation, that's why the Kingdom of Heaven is described in the way that it is by all of his parables and teachings.  But it can be followed by actual people, and I think people that are going to worship him and call him Lord, ought to at least make a stab at being those people.
The discouragement of it all for me is the fact that we have stopped trying.  G.K. Chesterton said that the reason why Christendom fails is not because Christianity was tried and found lacking but because it was found difficult and never tried.  You can't run a secular nation based on what Jesus taught, it would be an insane and probably doomed place.  We would have to forgive our enemies, and not resist the evildoer, we would be overrun with criminals and the first time some hostile force attacked we would all just willingly die, while praying to God to forgive them.  Until God deals with the evil and the violence of human nature that is amok in the world, we simply aren't going to be able to live the way Jesus did.
Except that, here in America, we can, because we have freedom of religion, and we have a culture, a really rather wonderful culture that allows us to follow Christ as fully as any people who have ever sought to live out a Christian existence in the middle of an empire.  We have luxuries and privilege, we have the opportunity to speak a prophetic word and call our nation to be better.  I guess that's what I think we should be doing. I pray that we will.