Epiphany
February 6, 2017
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. –Deuteronomy 30:15-18
Moses is addressing a community as he relays God’s agreement with God’s people. Follow God’s plan and God blesses. Do not follow God’s plan and the community must deal with the consequences. Sometime in the 1800’s our faith was individualized. Personal salvation became the focus of our faith practices. The Bible as a source of the history of God makes our responsibility for each other paramount. While perhaps our activities are driven by our individual relationships with God, we are called to share collectively in concern for one another.
How do we live in community with our diverse neighbors? How do we get to know people with whom we have little in common? With advanced communications and transportation in a few hours, we can be anywhere in the world. Two years ago, I had the chance to tour Turkey. I encountered a wonderfully hospitable people and mourned with them when a bomb recently exploded killing several innocent people in Istanbul. I had walked down the streets I saw in those television reports. The people of Turkey are no longer strangers, they are my neighbors.
We cannot walk the streets of every community in the world. We can focus our love on every community acknowledging our responsibility to love all of God’s children and to recognize that they are people just like us.
Prayer: God grant us the courage to love the stranger until we can recognize that they are really our neighbors. Amen.