Living in the Spirit
October 4, 2016

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. –Jeremiah 29:7

While I began my career in human services in the midst of the war on poverty, it was not long until I understood the word “welfare” in the USA was considered a dirty word. So much so that in the early part of the 1970’s the state agency for which I worked changed its name from the Department of Public Welfare to The Department of Institutions, Social and Rehabilitative Services. Some years later the named changed to the Department of Human Services. The preamble to the US Constitution states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (Emphasis added)

The wellbeing of each contributes to the wellbeing of all. Levitical law provided for it: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18) Jeremiah understood it in the fifth century BCE. Jesus taught it in every aspect of his life. Nigerian author Chinua Achebe states it this way While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.

Prayer: Lord help us to build a just world where charity has become unnecessary. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.