One of the readings in many churches this morning was the end of joshua and memory. Here we are poised between memory and living a legacy. We cannot cannot carry on Lovejoy’s work beset by anxiety, worn out from trying to attend to too many cases of social triage as they seem to besiege us from all sides day after day. So many worthy waves of crying need lap up on the little boats of the church requesting, deserving special attention.
Even though the book of Dt.. countenances slavery, it moves toward a more human position. It shows movement in the culture, and the bible recognizes it. Sometimes, the culture can teach the gospel to the church. Lovejoy and his fellows countered its specific declaration with an overarching biblical theme, the great commandment, love god and love of neighbor. For the bible to be a living word, we cannot expect it to remain forever encased in amber in one historical period. Its ideas are flexible enough to respond to the changes in our perspective. After all, the divine light has different filters, but it always casts light on showing us a vision of how to make life a proper place for human beings to flour9sh.
We have people all through this community in need of mental health services. Their need for services is acute for a simple reason; they cannot take care of themselves. We probably did right closing the warehouse scale institutions for mental health, but we never came through with a community based system to take care of the mentally ill. we have a mental health facility right here falling into disrepair from disuse, with people sleeping on the streets. -we have permitted the resurgence of bedlam, of consigning the lost, enslaved to mental illness.
charity v. justice Good Samaritan as neighbor. We are also called to deal with the conditions that make the Jericho road a hotbed for crime. Band aids promote healing but we look to the instruments of harm, the conditions for harm, the structures that consign people to oblivion. we are better at band aids than we are doing the hard work of healing a sin-sick world of injustices.
We acquire some courage in the posture of Jesus in the boat, not the anxiety of the disciples. Peace, be still he says to the waves and perhaps to us as well. reflecting on scripture, meditating on it, praying are not substitutes for action, they mobilize hope into action. they move us from the paralysis of analysis and anxiety into seeing a far horizon, seeing the distant shore, and moving toward it with all of our might. Joshua takes courage with a goal in sight, the promised land in view. Courage is not the absence of fear. courage faces fear down when it looks it in the eye and realizes that it has to bend way down to do it. Courage has its root in taking heart. When we don;t find the courage to work for justice, we expose ourselves as heartless. Of course, e have o be aware, mindful of the need for the inner stability to discover our courage. Becoming captive to fear demonstrates that we are mindless when in thrall to it. Courage is not blind to the facts on the ground, but allied with hop, courage can see past them and catch a glimpse of the future.
the waters are rough, and we all face fear. Our anxiety builds, why doesn;t everyone see things the right way, my way/ where is the progress, why as Weber said is politics the slow boring of hard boards. we pray on earth as it is in heaven but have yet to make human life suitable for humans yet.
Lovejoy lives in this holy place. In the communion of saints, he is with us still, cheering us on. Lovejoy lives in any act of moral courage that bends history toward justice. Lovejoy lives when we discover the courage within ourselves to face down our fears.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment