A Prophet Speaks

When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled. Isaiah 25:4a-5

Few things in life are more pitiful than Seattle's rain in winter.  37 degrees and raining - so close to snow but instead torrential cold usually with wind in the face or to turn your umbrella inside out. That bone-chilling cold aptly describes each new cabinet nominee that President-Elect Trump chooses to be in charge of a government that has been a "shining city on a hill for decades." Now it is on a toboggan ride down the steep slope of chaotic hate aimed at half of the USA population - immigrants, women, LGBTQ, the poor, people of color, "liberals," and political opponents - perhaps even just those who might issue a cross word about the President-Elect.

This sort of inhumanity is not something new in human history.  Nearly every empire that ever arose out of dust eventually met its demise soon after its leadership developed a hateful mental illness and began fomenting enemies, stratifying society (us against them), and then imprisoning/deporting/executing the masses. Israel has experienced this cycle repeatedly in its history.  So have many different religious groups, even Christianity, during its period of the Reformation & Inquisitions.

The prophet Isaiah, like all prophets, brings warning alongside hope.  This period in American history is a time of travail, a time of small men reasserting their puny idea of dominance. But dominance and strength are not from power-wielding mad-hatter rants at phantom enemies.  Dominance doesn't come from putting down others.  It comes from building others up so that together, we thrive in a community with all peoples' skills and talents.  The people embraced together for their differences and strengths is the Divine shade that protects a nation from the heat of anger and hostility.  May all people of true faith remember this most basic tenet regardless of doctrine.  May we rise up strong in compassion, powerful in equality and justice, and may reasoned gentleness and healing bind up what is obviously now broken in America. 

The Goal of Life

 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  So choose life in order that you may live.  Deut. 30:19

Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken" reflects on a daily occurrence.  Throughout our day we find ourselves multiple times at a fork: with a path running in (at least) two different directions.  In Frost's poem the person choosing takes the less traveled way. Some readers of the poem have seen in it a suggestion that a person should not take the easy way, but that the harder way will net greater reward.  The moral implied that all things worth doing take hard work.  It does happen that the harder one's life is and the harder one works the greater the rewards down the line.  But the opposite also frequently occurs. Many struggle throughout their existence on earth and die in the cold with only a cardboard box to hug them at the end.

The writer of Deuteronomy places us at the fork in the road of heaven and earth, death and life, curse and blessing and advises: "Choose life."  In living our daily lives, what does choosing life entail?  Of course, one set of choices and determinative factors is what is best for me and/or my family?  Into that mix is the reality that we each have differing sets of "givens," including all the resources we may have at our disposal.  But the writer clearly has a larger set of choices in mind as well.  Those are the forks that a larger community of which we are a part choose.  What determinative factors does a community of faith, or a nation, use to "choose life?"  That question should be what choices nurture and encourage the best for everyone? 

As followers of Jesus, the community choices can't be only about me and mine.  Brute selfishness by any member (or any small faction of members) tears at the fabric of what holds the larger community together. What holds a community together is the bond we have to each of the other members with whom we're in life together. The forks we come to and face together have to support life, blessing, and love for all. 

So expanding outwardly from small to large how do we embrace roads that lead to life for me, my family, my faith community, my town/city, my state, my country, my continent, my world?  For each bond of community we consider, the holy, most divine goal is how to be life-giving. 

Questions:

How did Jesus demonstrate the goal of being a life-giver?

In what ways are you putting the power of life-giving to work in each community of which your are part?

What practices might you incorporate into your Advent and Christmas holiday that give life to someone else?

Prayer:

We pray, O Most Holy One, that every fork in life's road we come to that we can clearly see the path that nurtures love and redemption.  Amen.