Living in Spirit
September 23, 2018
Scripture Reading: Mark 9:30-37
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ –Mark 9:33-37
While we try to outmaneuver one another in a dangerous game of king or queen off the mountain our nation is crumbling around us and our children are getting lost in the shuffle.
[The 2018 KIDS COUNT® Data Book] ranks Oklahoma 44th out of all 50 states for child well-being. Even in areas where Oklahoma has seen the most improvement recently, we’re not keeping up with the progress in other states. We have a high percentage of kids scoring below proficient in reading and math, a high rate of teen births, hundreds of thousands of kids living in poverty, and tens of thousands without health insurance. The 2018 Data Book shows that while Oklahoma has improved on some measures of child well-being, we still have a lot of work to do*.
What kind of greed is so addictive it does not care what happens to our children? Yes, I do mean greed and I do mean that it is addictive. It is also a sin as it separates us from God when we place material wealth and the power that accompanies it above God. We are indeed throwing the King off the mountain and paying a heavy price for it that will impact us for decades, if not generations. The economy is booming now but cannot sustain the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. While our unemployment rate is low, the number of people living in poverty is high. Although they work, many do not earn a living wage.
We each need to prob the depth of our being sucked into the addictive qualities of greed, assess what we need to do to correct our ways of being, and implement changes needed. The first change is to ask God for forgiveness for having fallen into such foolish ways. Within our communities of faith, we need to determine how we can impact greed’s influence on our society and find ways to reverse course.
Prayer: Servant Savior, remind us of whose we are and lift us from the mire of greed giving us the courage to work toward a world where everyone has enough. Amen.
*https://okpolicy.org/category/blog/children-and-families/