Living in the Spirit
July 3, 2018
Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, and said, ‘Look, we are your bone and flesh. For some time, while Saul was king over us, it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The Lord said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.’ So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for forty years. At Hebron he reigned over Judah for seven years and six months; and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah for thirty-three years…. David occupied the stronghold, and named it the city of David. David built the city all around from the Millo inwards. And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.
While there are many great leaders in history, and David would rank among them, God is with all who lead righteously with justice and mercy because those characteristics are the very nature of God. We, being made in the image of God, are fully capable of practicing righteousness in all aspects of our lives. The better acquainted we become with doing justice and showing mercy the better we know God.
How do we know what is just and what is merciful? Often ethics classes or seminars require participants to deal with hard questions to strengthen our ability to think about how we react to various situations about which there are no easy answers. One of those questions is: Who should have been saved on the Titanic?
One of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the movie Schindler’s List showed a father holding a tiny baby with several Jews huddled together hiding in an underground sewer to avoid being taken to a concentration camp. The baby started to cry and the father muffling its face with some piece of clothing smothers the baby to save the group.
There are no easy answers to our immigration problem in the world today. Refugees are fleeing certain death and need our help. That help must come in many forms from offering asylum to working to make their homelands livable. Allowing people to work without legal papers is not just. In some instances, they are filling jobs that legal residents could do but would have to be paid appropriate wages and benefits. On the other hand, there is a shortage of people to do work in some areas. Work visas for people seeking employment for these jobs when there are no legal residents available need to be processed efficiently and effectively. Drug and human trafficking need to be ended. Denigrating any of the people involved, treating them less than the children of God that they are, will not make the process easier and will in most instances make it worse.
Prayer: God of Justice and Mercy, open our hearts and minds to find the righteous solutions to the problems in our world today. Strengthen our abilities to practice your justice and mercy. Amen