Living in the Spirit
November 18, 2018
Scripture Reading: Mark 13:1-8
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’ Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. –Mark 13:3-8
We all want God to wave a magic wand and make everything right, whatever that is. Apparently, there are as many definitions of what is right as there are humans on this earth. Right is often me-centric.
What is righteousness in God’s view? When we commit to following God, we commit to, at the very least, seeking God’s righteousness for all and working to make it a reality in our world. I have this rather quaint idea that when we align with God’s right all will be righteous. We will know what real justice is and we will be comfortable with real justice. God will feel at home pitching God’s tent among us*.
For righteousness to be, each of us must wrestle with how our concept of what is just and God’s concept match. They do not always. There are few if any people who are wholly unrighteous, but we all have pieces of our being that feel dis-ease when we encounter life situations that were once the rules, we were groomed to believe that are no longer acceptable. I was in a group of people recently that started comparing their family’s norms of eating order at large family gatherings when there were too many people to seat at a table. In my family when I was a child, the men always went first, followed by the children and then the women. Today everyone seems to hold back waiting for someone to break the spell of what is polite with the hostess going last. Now that we have young children again, their plates are often filled first. Younger adults hearing that there was ever an order prescribed just roll their eyes. Family traditions probably change easier than cultural tradition.
Cultural traditions, norms, mores, whatever we want to call them can get tangled in how we identify our self-worth. We once had norms, some even made into laws, that people of color sat at the back of the bus, could not eat in the same restaurants as whites, or use the same restrooms. Those laws/norms were given up with great anguish and discomfort. We now are dealing with similar concerns targeted at people of other faiths or other sexual orientations. I could give many examples. When I was a child many people smoked anywhere, anytime. We threw everything in the trash and let it build up in larger and larger areas set aside for it. Children who could not make the grade could drop out of school. Criminals were electrocuted or sentenced to long terms in prison with no thought to restoring them to wholeness. The sick who could not pay for health care died young. Mental patients languished in institutions. Children died of malnutrition. Some of these examples still ring true today.
I rather think Jesus is saying in the scripture today, “Bad things are going to happen when I am gone, what are you going to do about it as my Body in the world today?”
Prayer: Guide us, O Lord, in understanding your righteousness and working to make it happen. Amen.
*See Revelation 21.3